The Wayannad district is predominantly inhabited by the tribal population of the Paniyar, Adiyan, Kurichyar, Kurumar, Kattunaicker, Kadan and Oorali tribes. The project will enhance the livelihood security of tribes in the study area.

The project proposes simple value addition and effective marketing of forest products and the constitution of a resource management committee of the stakeholders. This committee will work closely with Forest Development Agency FDA (Apex body of all forest protection committees in its jurisdiction). After the project period, the committee will be brought under the FDA. Premium products will be substituted with less extracted species to conserve over harvested products.

The sucess of the participatory management depends on the active involvement of the activities. Thus, higher the benifits from the participatory activities, more is the involvement of the stakeholders in the conservation and management of NTFPs. This project intends to develop an improved and effective participatory management system of stakeholders and demonstrate its impacts on conservation and sustainable management of NTFPs in the study areas. To Evolve new project designs by engaging a team comprising of an expert designer.

Training will be conducted on the constitution of resource management committee and preparation of MoU and on sustainable collection of NTFPs. The community will also be capacitated for gene pool mapping and conservation.

women participation in various meetings organised by the research team was significantly high. they showed more interest in showed activities likely nursery development, planting and bamboo handicraft work. Generally , women do not participate actively in honey collection (due to their inability to climb on trees) and tourism activities