Abstract: Globalised development and centralised natural resource governance have seriously threatened the ecological security of countries like India, with rapid loss of ecosystems and biodiversity. Official responses to such loss have mostly been top-down, undemocratic protected area systems and conservation laws. However, across the country as in other parts of the world, communities and civil society groups are responding with alternative pathways of well-being and conservation, including sustainable living, localised economies, radical or direct democracy, social justice, and other aspects of what could be called a Radical Ecological Democracy. Community-based or community-led conservation is one element of this move. Recent legislations such as the Forest Rights Act are also helping to democratise the governance of ecosystems.

There is no paper for this media entry. This was a contribution to a scientific session at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014, which doesn't exist in written format or is not published under open access.