Forestry decision-making is still largely centralised in Guatemala. Nevertheless, elected municipal governments can now play a key role in local forest management. These local governments, with some exceptions, are the principal local institutions empowered to participate in natural resource authority. Some theorists argue that such elected local officials are the most likely to be representative and downwardly accountable. But do these political institutions have the ability to represent the interests of minority and historically excluded or oppressed groups?

The present work examines the changing notion of wastelands and contested rights over it in
Assam in the last 200 years. As the East India Company gradually became aware of this
region, they expressed their serious interest in the wastelands. The initial intervention took
place with the discovery of tea plants in Assam, and the Company administration began to
lease out such lands to the European planters. During the 1830s and 1870s, a significant
amount of such lands was transferred to the planters. It was from the 1870s that the newly

Madhya Pradesh has about 1,000 km of Private Natural Forests belonging to roughly 20,000 agriculturists in almost all the districts, the tribal share being 15%. The natural forests occur on the uncultivable portions of "Bhumiswami" land and comprise of valuable teak over major areas. The M.P. Lok Vaniki Act, 2001 laid the foundation of the Small-Scale Private Forest Management in the country for the first time in Madhya Pradesh.

Policy is an enunciation of the set principles to achieve the desired goals. The Government of Himachal Pradesh has developed the Forest Sector Policy and Strategy, 2005 in consonance with Government of India policy guidelines and by making important amendments to the previous Himachal Pradesh Forest Policy of 1980. This policy has been developed through a multi-stakeholder cosultation process by the Policy Analysis and Planning Unit (PAPU) set up under Himachal Pradesh Forest Sector Reforms Project. (Sep 2007)

The recent attempt by the ministry of environment and forests to arrive at a definition of

DOZENS of Indonesians killed by landslides this spring have paid the price of unchecked development. Many other innocents in developing nations die each year as rampant illegal logging and deforestation denude steep hillsides, loosening soil and allowing heavy rains to create deadly deluges. Such environmental perils are increasingly common across much of the world as native forests are fragmented, waterways polluted, and oceans over-harvested. The onslaught is especially alarming in the tropics, where an area of forest the size of 40 football fields is destroyed every minute.