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

Joint forest management makes Darjeeling s Makaibari estate an environmental treasure

From social worker, to government contractor, to politician, and then to the highest political station of the state. It has been an interesting journey.

A civil engineer and a farmer, he knows the importance of the relationship between land and water. Small dams are his forte.

ADMIRERS He may not be sophisticated enough to view environmental problems like a trained activist, but he understands them in his own way. His solutions may sometimes look roughshod but his

"NGOs have the most important role to play"

Seventy-year-old Aitamai has lived in Sichey Basti on the outskirts of Gangtok for over 40 years now. "But I have never seen such a bad landslide," she says, referring to the one that