This report is the seventh assessment of the forest cover of the country. It provides analytical information on forest plantations, protected area, joint forest management, forest cover in mining areas of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, shifting cultivation in the North Eastern region. It also provides an overview of the forest resources in India, with special emphasis on forest cover.

This booklet is about a collaborative system of protecting natural environments, known as joint protected area management (JPAM). JPAM attempts to conserve protected areas in a way whereby local communities, wildlife and wildlife habitats can co-exist by mutually benefitting each other, and in which government officials, local people and others work together.

This book contains the proceedings of the workshop on collaborative management of protected rreas in the Asian region, held at Royal Chitwan National Park, Sauraha, Nepal, May 25-28, 1998.

This book outlines the first alternative management plan proposed for the protecte areas of India. It provides both a general mode of community forest management in protected areas, and specific proposals for implementation in the proposed Rajaji national park.

India's biodiversity is rich, often unique and increasingly endangered. India is one of the twelve megadiversity countries in the world, that collectively account for 60-70 percent of the world's biodiversity. Its ten biogeographic zones represent a broad range of ecosystems.

Though conservation policies have to some extent succeeded in stemming the environmental destruction being caused by rampant industrial and urban growth, in India, these efforts have also had the unintended consequence of creating enemies of the very people who have historically been the strongest conservationists.

In this century alone, three sub-species of tiger were driven into extinction, the Bali, Javan and Caspian. Tragically, the other five sub-species are at risk of meeting the same fate. The tiger faces on onslaught of illegal killing throughout its range, and its forest habitat is disappearing at an alarming rate.