In India, as elsewhere, protected areas (PAs) have permanent resident populations who are historically dependent on forest resources for their livelihood. The Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR), in the northern part of West Bengal, is one such reserve forest where villagers have been residing for more than a 100 years.

In 2004, the government of Ethiopia moved 500 people out of the Nech Sar National Park in the south of the country, before handing it over to be managed by the Dutch NGO, African Parks. The following year, African Parks signed another contract to manage the Omo National Park. The issue of evictions in these parks quickly became the subject of intense lobbying by international human rights NGOs.

Most protected areas in the world are inhabited by people. Mexico is at the forefront of countries where local communities have direct ownership rights of their forests, with an estimated 56-80% of national forests directly owned by communities, within which extraction activities are regulated by Mexican environmental law.