interviews and fact finding confirms that local communities had filed complaints requesting the right to commercially exploit the forests around them. Their requests were denied, while permits to fell trees and exploit those same forests were granted to government-favoured non-resident contractors including a sporting company named Symonds. A protest that became Chipko movement followed. The movement grew and Indian government responded by imposing a 15-year ban on felling all trees above 1000 metres in the region directly as a result of the Chipko agitations. This legislation was deeply resented by many communities supporting Chipko because, the regulation further excluded the local people from the forest around them. Opposition to the legislation resulted in so-called 'Ped Katao Andolan' in the same region, a movement to cut the trees down in order to defy the new legislation. The people behind Chipko movement felt that the government did not understand or care about their economic situation. Chipko movement, at the very least, suggests that forests in India are an important and integral resource for communities that live within these forests, or survive near the fringes of these forests. Shifting cultivation A major threat to forests of India are in its northeastern states. From ancient times, the locals have practiced slash-and-burn shifting cultivation to grow food. Locally called Jhum, it supports about 450,000 families in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya. Approximately 15,000 square kilometers of forest land is under jhum cultivation, and just a sixth of this land is actually producing any crop at any given year. The tribal people consider it a tradition, and economic ecosystem. However, the slash and burn causes damage to a dense forest, to soil, to flora and fauna, as well as pollution. The crop yields are very poor with jhum cultivation. Between 2010 and 2012, satellite studies confirmed a net loss of forest cover over these northeastern states. The lost forest includes primary dense forests. There is a concerted effort by the state government officials to educate, incentivize and train jhum dependent families to horticulture and other high value crops, along with an offer of food supply security. Bamboo-based textiles and value added forest products industries are also being encouraged by the local officials. States such as Arunachal Pradesh reported reduction in Jhum cultivation practice in 2013. Timber mafia and forest cover A 1999 publication claimed that protected forest areas in several parts of