Read this special report in Down To Earth on how government bent all rules to ensure that Mahan forest in Madhya Pradesh goes to Essar and Hindalco for mining coal.

There are various stakeholders who are poising major threat to the sustainability of the forest resources. The categories of these stakeholders are the state and its agents, capitalist and private contractors and local communities. The present study focuses on the third types of stakeholders and their contest over the forest resources. The communities who are living in the vicinity of the forest are not homogenous, they are hetrogeneous, and their heterogeneity is reflected through caste background, power, ownership of land and ideology.

In partnership with forest departments, communities across India have raised forests worth millions of rupees in the hope of getting shares in timber revenue. Now that forests are ready for harvest, officials make excuses or give pittance. Read this Special report in Down To Earth.

Though the government is patting its back for getting a 135 sq km area in the Chhota Bhangal area excluded from the Dhauladhar wildlife sanctuary, farmers of the area are still far from satisfied.

It could reduce the pressure on native forests but the rapid expansion in bamboo plantations is in danger of making it the latest in a long line of tarnished 'wonder crops'

Gadchiroli in Maharashtra may have acquired the model district status for clearing a record number of community forest rights (CFR) claims, but its 298 villages are angry with the forest department for stripping them of the basic right to manage forest produce.

In 1964, the Madhya Pradesh government nationalised the tendu leaf used in bidi-making to stop exploitation of the tendu gathering tribals by private traders. Nearly five decades later, the tribals now get just Rs 65 for collecting, drying and packaging 1,000 leaves in a day, way less than the daily wage of even an unskilled labourer. It is the state that they need saving from!

Over the last one year, villagers of Ghati in Gadchiroli have kept timber out of the forest department

Forest dependency as a means of livelihood has dropped perceptibly in villages particularly near wet zone forests during the past few decades.

Livelihood pattern of the people of an area is directly influenced by the local biodiversity. Biodiversity is essential for human survival and economic well-being, and for the ecosystem function and stability. Over exploitation and biodiversity loss affects livelihood and food security of the local. People change their livelihood strategies as an adaptive response to changes in their environment. Some livelihoods flourish while others diminish, and this ebb and flow is the result of a changing livelihood context.

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