After a decade of village tree-planting projects to meet the supposed rural fuelwood crisis, this paper examined some of the lessons learned, taking village woodlots in Karnataka, India, as one case study. The author provides a succinct review of the many misconceptions which dogged the village woodlot experience. In particular, the fact that rural and urban fuel problems were completely distinct meant that each had to be targeted with separate appropriate solutions. Although Social Forestry projects may not have provided the hoped-for fuelwood, the author argues that they played an important role in training foresters in more participatory approaches.