Nepal government decided to hand over certain forest areas to rural communities.

A professor heralds hope and greenery into a remote Orissa village to set it free from a web of untouchability, superstition, illiteracy and poverty

in the 1970s, crocodiles in India were on the verge of extinction. Surveys conducted with the support of the World Wide Fund for Nature ( wwf) , Bombay Natural History Society and the New York

CFM brings social and economic prosperity to several village communities

For British historians and administrators, Indian villages were self-sustaining units and they termed these units as village republics. Later, this terminology was done away with by historians and

A three tier system has been developed to oversee the management of forests

Community forestry, as it is practiced today, is a result of the government s willingness to learn from its past mistakes. Also, traditional management practices helped the government achieve its goal

The 1993 Forest Act gives exclusive rights to villagers to use and sell forest products without any tax liability

Forest users groups have formed a national level federation to effectively fight for their rights

A government circular aimed at ending commercialisation of forests in the terai affects the hills, too. In the process, it threatens to derail the CFM movement