Nature Conservation in the New Economy: People, Wildlife and the Law in India edited by Ghazala Shahabuddin and K Sivaramakrishnan, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2019; pp xx + 291, `₹895.
Several wildlife groups have opposed the Forest Rights Act as being anti-conservation. However, field experience indicates that the act can and is being used by local communities for arresting biodiversity decline by opposing the diversion of forests to mega-development projects and by using situated knowledge and values to bring about conservation.
This analysis of the draft wildlife action plan says that it takes note of the injustices historically carried out upon the local communities and addresses such injustice to be able to create local support for conservation. It also examines the extent to which the draft has explored complementarities between national laws and international obligations.
