Tribal's and other forest dwelling communities have been traditionally cultivating their land for generations. However, they were deemed as encroachers as their traditional livelihoods did not fit into the framework of forest laws focused on preservation and conservation. Forest dwellers have innate knowledge of historical traditional for protecting forests. This was not adequately recognized by the forest management regimes in fore from time to time. This resulted in criminalization of the routine activities of these communities and also exploitation. ore over, all development schemes bypassed the tribal communities as they did not have a 'legal right' to the lands they had been cultivating... Read More