Sacred groves occur in many ethnic minority areas of Yunnan, China, which have ecologically multiplex functions and effects on biodiversity management and conservation at grassroots level. In this paper, an extensive field survey was carried out to evaluate the role of the sacred groves of the Yi nationality in Chuxiong of Yunnan. Three forest communities (sacred grove, common forest and natural reserve) under different management were sampled, and their plant species diversity was compared. The result shows that the total species, endemic species and Shannon-Wiener index in the sacred grove community were respectively 67, 17 and 2.96, higher than those in natural reserve (44.8 and 2.17) and common forest (34.4 and 2.39). The sacred groves of the Yi nationality in Chuxiong of Yunnan play an important role in local biodiversity conservation and management.