People and Forests Crucial Fight Ahead

People and Forests: Crucial Fight Ahead Vandana Shiva People and Forests by Desmond
EVER since the. management of the forests in India went out of the hands of the forest dwelling communities and into the hands of the British rulers, there has been a continuous abridgement of the local people's rights to the forests.1 It was expected that the Forest Bill drafted for the first time in free India would take a different course. However, social activists working among the forest dwelling communities saw in the new Forest Bill, 1980, an increased threat to the life-support system of these communities. Several organisations in the country, as a result, organised a conference in Delhi in April 1982 to discus the ways and means for altering the content of the proposed Forest Bill. The monograph under review is a product of that meeting. It is therefore proper to view the monograph in the perspective the people's mobilisation against the repressive aspects of the proposed Forest Bill and not independent of it.