Joint forest management (JFM), community forestry, collaborative management are just a few of the terms that have come into use over the last 15 to 20 years to describe a new set of relationships between the state (usually through forest departments) and people living in and close to forests and woodlands. In this overview, the origins of these forms of forestry are discussed and the implications in terms of the benefits accruing to people, the institutional responses and the ecological changes. This overview focuses on the changes in India and Nepal between the 1980s and 1990s where much of the earliest experience was gained and which was influential in many other countries in other continents.