(i) In Sariska Tiger Reserve : Rajasthani villagers have fought against mining by citing the Wildlife Protection Act. In many areas, villagers themselves are protecting habitats and explicitly rejecting government involvement. (ii) The inhabitants of five villages in the Alwar district of Rajasthan have declared about 1,200 hectares of forest area as the ‘Bhairodev Dakav Sonchuri. The community has declared their own set of rules and regulations which do not allow hunting and are protecting the wildlife against any outside encroachments. (iii) Many states have launched the Joint Forest Management programme to involve local communities in the management and restoration of degraded forests. Odisha was the first state to launch this programme. (iv) Improper farming techniques, defective methods of farming are also responsible for depletion of our biodiversity. So many farmers and citizen groups support the Bee) Bachao Andolan in Tehri and Navdanya have developed or are using various crop production methods which do not use synthetic chemicals for growing crops. (v) The famous Chipko Movement was launched by the women of Chamoli in northern India, saved more than 12,000 sq. km. area of forests just by hugging the trees when the lumberjacks attempted to cut them. Moral lessons : • Conservation strategies can be successful only with the participation of local people. • The clear lesson from the dynamics of both environmental destruction and reconstruction in India is that local communities everywhere have to be involved in some kind of natural resource management. But there is still a long way to go before local communities are at the centre-stage in decision making. Accept only those economic or developmental activities, that are people centric, environment-friendly and economically rewarding.