Social capital has been recognized as the ability of communities to cooperate that different communities possess to different extents. But what are the factors that help build this capital in different communities in order to enable them to preserve a resource and what factors help sustain and maintain this capital over a period of time? This paper explores the change in role of social capital in forest conservation in traditional and non-traditional communities over a period of time and the factors that cause these changes. The dynamics of social capital are seen in five forest-dependent communities at two points of time from two forest rich districts of Vidarbha region of central India.