Apr 2009: Forest-based Occupations

Cover Story: More than 300 million in India depend on forests for their livelihoods either directly or indirectly. Of this number nearly 100 million actually live in the forests. The richness of Indian forests has been an abode of wealth for a broad range of societies from the traditional hunter-gatherers, NTFP collectors, shifting cultivators to the neo-rich industrialized timber-based economies. But over a period of time the traditional forest-based communities are losing out; their traditional rights to forests are being impinged upon; development vs environment dilemmas have become over-arching. Combining native knowledge with scientific inputs can help enhance the forest-based livelihoods of the poor in a sustainable manner. ‘livelihoods’ attempts to understand the variety of opportunities/ occupations that forests throw up and the emerging trends in this context.