ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews changes in the social and economic use of forest resources in south Asia. The inability of the state to manage forests in isolation of people has stimulated the development of participatory approaches to forestry which are often known as social forestry. The use of forests is determined by the competition among interested parties, each with their “own priorities or valuation of different uses or functions”. Many analysts believed that with the process of gradual commercialization, the community feelings and socio-religious customs were taken over by an exclusively materialistic pursuit of “individualism”. According to the Marxist explanation, “exploitation”, “conflict” and “dispossession” are some of the ways in which “capitalist extortion” is “institutionalized”, causing widespread alienation among “the exploited”. Economic activities were carried out within a territorial framework, and were broadly independent of the industrial market economy.
