Displacement resulting from the establishment and enforcement of protected areas has troubled relationships between conservationists and rural groups in many parts of the world. This paper examines one aspect of dis­placement: eviction from protected areas. We examine divergent opinions about the quality of information available in the literature. We then examine the literature itself, discussing the patterns visible in nearly 250 reports we compiled over the last two years. We argue that the quality of the literature is not great, but that there are signs that this problem is primarily concentrated in a few regions of the world. We show that there has been a remarkable surge of publications about relocation after 1990, yet most protected areas reported in these publications were established before 1980. This reflects two processes, first a move within research circles to recover and rediscover pro­tected areas' murky past, and second stronger enforcement of existing legisla­tion. We review the better analyses of the consequences of relocation from protected areas which are available and highlight areas of future research.

This paper explores how NGOs, state agencies and activists par­ticipated in the preparation of India's National Biodiversity Strategy and Ac­tion Plan (NBSAP). The study is based on three months of fieldwork in the summer of 2003, during which I conducted semi-structured interviews and re­viewed the documents used and produced in the planning process. While some critics view NGO involvement in state policy making with suspicion, others see it as a successful outcome of a long-standing demand for greater partici­pation in governance. I argue that the form and structure of the NBSAP proc­ess provided a limited, yet critical, space for activists. On one hand, activists used this space to make strong critiques of state conservation practices, and to promote inclusive conservation practices. On the other, they were continu­ously pressured to make compromises, because of their new responsibilities as plan makers and in order to increase the likelihood of 'buy-in' from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Rather than being seen as en­compassed or 'co-opted' by state strategies of power, however, it is more use­ful to see activists and NGOs as engaging in tactical manoeuvres and practising an imperfect, yet necessary, form of politics. Conscious that they were participating in an unequal and temporally limited space, activists in NGOs sought to make this project of government as plural and fair as possi­ble. Finally, I note that although the planning document was eventually re­jected by the MoEF, the network that was initiated to create the plan may produce results that go beyond the NBSAP process itself.