The maximum forest cover in terms of percentage of recorded forest area exists in the districts of South 24-Parganas (41.54), followed by Darjeeling (38.23), Jalpaiguri (28.75) and Bankura (21.53). The first three districts predominantly possess Reserved Forests2 (96% of total recorded Reserved Forest by legal status in the state) whereas it is the district of Bankura that has Protected Forests3 (34.75% of the total recorded Protected Forest by legal status in the state) and hence the selected study area is the district of Bankura, considered mainly for two reasons: firstly the presence of a huge amount of open access forest which has gradually increased from 1815.22 km2 (26.38% of the district total geographical