India's biodiversity is rich, often unique and increasingly endangered. India is one of the twelve megadiversity countries in the world, that collectively account for 60-70 percent of the world's biodiversity. Its ten biogeographic zones represent a broad range of ecosystems.

The state of forest report 1995 is the fifth assessment of the forest cover of the country pertaining to the period 1991-93. It is for the first time that the data obtained from the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite has been used by the Forest Survey of India for this assessment.

Though conservation policies have to some extent succeeded in stemming the environmental destruction being caused by rampant industrial and urban growth, in India, these efforts have also had the unintended consequence of creating enemies of the very people who have historically been the strongest conservationists.

Fencing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Provinces 1860-1914 draws on archival and printed sources to shed new light on the ecological dimensions of the colonial impact on South Asia. The changing responses of rural forest users and the fortunes of the land they lived on are the key themes of this study.

This book provides a balanced international overview of the way forward, showing how choice of materials and construction processes, response to landscape and climate, and - not to be forgotten - the involvement of users, can together solve environmental problems and produce a diverse architecture to suit human and regional needs.

The tiger is threatened almost exclusively by human action. It can only be saved from early extinction if effective measures are taken to combat the threats listed in this document. The immediate threat to its survival is the growing demand for its part for use in oriental medicine. Thus, urgent steps must be taken to stop the unprecedented pursuit and killing of the tiger. The tiger bone trade must be shut down at international and national levels.

This report has clearly shown that a tiger crisis exists today, and that unless drastic action is taken, India will lose its tigers.

This book offers the first comprehensive examination of revolutionary changes occurring in the management of India's forests. It also explores the historical roots of deforestat-ion, the alienation of tribal peoples, and their reentry into resource management. The institutional, economic, ecological, and political implications of this historic transition in forest control are critically discussed.

In this century alone, three sub-species of tiger were driven into extinction, the Bali, Javan and Caspian. Tragically, the other five sub-species are at risk of meeting the same fate. The tiger faces on onslaught of illegal killing throughout its range, and its forest habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Three sub-species of tigers have become extinct this century - without a whisper - and only five remain. As India is home to two thirds of the world population of tigers, this report stands as a plea to act to reverse the rapid loss of India's wildlife and forests.