They draw their sustenance largely from forests. Forests provided them food, medicine and other material requirements of life and above all satisfy their deep rooted sentiments and beliefs/convictions. Forest represents a whole way of life to tribals and their economy, therefore, is intricately interwoven with the forest and forest wealth. For the modern world, the tribals who still live in and around the forests are the main work force who collect the non timber products and also work as labourers in forestry operations. Tribals in the past collected NTFP mainly for their own consumption and only part of these were sold or bartered to outsiders to meet the small necessities of life. Before the arrival of Britishers the forest dwelling tribals were not disturbed by any local rulers. They had complete freedom. The colonial rulers began to make greater inroads into tribal heartlands for exploitations. This was resisted by the tribals particularly those from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa. Initially the British rulers tried to superimpose their conventional administrative pattern directly or through intermediation.

Over extraction of forest resources and the British policy of clear felling of forests for monoculture of certain timber yielding species have adversely affected the ecosystem balance and undermined the livelihood security of the tribals. Various forest laws initiated by the colonial rulers began to erode the freedom of tribals in forests.

The genesis of the All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Ethnobiology (AICRPE)

The genesis of the AICRPE project can be traced back to 1976 when Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, then Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Govt. of India, felt the urgent need to undertake ethnobiological survey and study of the indigenous communities (tribals) of the country for recording and documenting the fast disappearing lifestyle & wisdom and knowledge of these people. Subsequently, Dr. T.N.Khoshoo, the then Director, NBRI, had prepared a project proposal on AICRPE.

The proposal was considered by a high level committee appointed by Govt of India. The project was launched by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) in July 1982 under the Man & Biosphere programme (MAB). With the creation of Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Govt. of India, the MAB programme along with AICRPE was transferred to MoEF in 1983, and a coordination center for AICRPE was established at the Regional Research Laboratory (RRL). Dr. P. Pushpangadan, then a scientist at this institute was appointed as the PI and Chief Coordinator of this project.

Pushpangadan soon implemented the programme in 27 R&D institutions and university research centres in different parts of the country. Over 400 scientists drawn from different disciplines like taxonomy, anthropology, botany, zoology, phytochemistry, pharmacology, medicine, etc. was engaged in this multi-instituional and multidisciplinary project study. AICRPE programme yielded a clear spectrum showing the status of the tribal communities in India. It has documented the rich knowledge system of the tribals about the use of over 10,000 plants and many wild animal at birds etc. for meeting their varied requirements such as food, medicine gum, resigns, dyes, fibre, cordage etc. Pushpangadan, established the first Ethnopharmacology laboratory at RRL, Jammu in 1985. The benefit sharing experiment that gave recognition of the IPR of the tribe and equal sharing of the benefits derived from technology transfer of a scientifically validated and standardized herbal formulation, developed on the basis of a lead obtained from a forest dwelling tribe, the 'Kani' inhabiting in the southern western ghat mountains of South India has a significant outcome of the AICRPE study