For over 16 years the Supreme Court has been hearing two major petitions concerning forests and wildlife. Writ petition 337/1995 filed by the Centre for Environmental Law (part of WWF) concerns protected areas (PAs) and writ petition 202/1995, is the omnibus forest petition widely known as the Godavarman case. The first landmark order in the second petition was delivered on December 12, 1996. In an unprecedented but hugely valuable effort, both the cases have been kept open under the writ of continuing mandamus.

This paper attempts an ethnobiological investigation, performed during 2003 to 2006, to collect, identify and document information on wild food traditionally used by the indigenous people of the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary in Palakkad district of Kerala, India.

Exploring the prospects of the ecosystem services approach for natural resource management and poverty alleviation in India, this paper points out that it is vital to have an understanding of the political economy of negotiations over natural resource use. An appreciation of the synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services is equally important to develop better strategies for pro-poor ecosystem management.

The paper deals with the relationship between the tribal communities and the NTFP used for their livelihood and nutrition in the forests of Betul District of Madhya Pradesh and Melghat District of Maharashtra with special reference to Gond and Korku tribal communities. The study area includes tribal dominated forests.

India is a veritable emporium of herbs. The inhabitants of India knew of the medicinal use of plants from time immemorial. Under the impact of state-sponsored economic development programmes and processes of modernization, the traditional cultures of tribal communities have begun to change. Deforestation and the replacement of natural forests by commercial teak-sal plantations have in many areas reduced the availability of forest produce including vegetables, fruits and meat.