Description: Village Voices, Forest Choices offers the first comprehensive examination of revolutionary changes occurring in the management of India's forests. Over the past two decades, responding to scarcities, thousands of villages have taken charge of public forests, thereby controlling grazing and cutting. The result has been a striking renewal of once badly degraded ecosystems. Lush young secondary forests are emerging in many parts of central India, rich in biodiversity, where degrading, eroding wastelands were recently dominant. Equally remarkable, this has often happened with no outside assistance. This book looks at how this has been happening. Village Voices, Forest Choices brings good news. It chronicles the emergence of a grassroots environmental movement. Using their own resources, India's forest peoples are organizing to regain control of the ecosystems critical for their survival. The resulting regeneration of once badly degraded forests, under village protection, is impressive, presenting new opportunities to stabilize the water, soil, and forest resources upon which the nation's future depends. This book also explores the historical roots of deforestation, the alienation of tribal peoples, and their re-entry into resource management. The fourteen authors discuss the institutional, economic, ecological, and political implications of this historic transition in forest control. The writers assess how management goals for India's natural forests will change under community control, and how government agencies, scientists, and non-government organizations might respond to these shifting priorities. Anyone concerned with the future of India's natural forests and tribal peoples will wantthis book.

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