How the efforts of an individual brought prosperity to a remote town in the Northeast

Two decades of toil have given back to Seed village in Udaipur a forest that villagers felt had been destroyed forever

The decades after Independence saw rampant destruction of trees. This was followed by years of drought. It was then that the villagers realised that no forests meant no rain

Every village has its own way of protecting the forests, but each one is a success story

While the state government is keen to introduce JFM, villagers say there is no need for that since they have been carrying out all protection measures on their own for decades now

I assure you that people s rights will be protected

They prefer to be called the forest castes . They are the 2,000,000 odd villagers living in some 10,000 villages across Orissa. After Independence, timber smugglers and an apathetic government robbed them of the forests they had lived in for decades.

1920s: The British introduced railway lines in Orissa. Commercial exploitation of forests began in a big way. 1930s: In Dhenkanal, people revolted against the king for rights over the forests

A unique drinking water project meets a long standing demand