The Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act (WLPAA) 2002 had two new categories of Protected Areas (PAs), i.e., Community Reserves and Conservation Reserves, which were aimed at supporting conservation efforts by people on private, community lands or government land. The Act defines Community Reserves (CR) as "The State Government may, where the community or an individual has volunteered to conserve wildlife and its habitat, declare any private or community land not comprised within a National Park, sanctuary or a conservation reserve, as a community reserve, for protecting fauna, flora and traditional or cultural conservation values and practices". The creation of CRsalthough recognizedthe numerous efforts by local communities, individuals and institutions on conservation of biological diversity, but ignored the diversity in rights, use, management system, rules and regulations while suggesting uniform institution to manage the CRs, Community Reserve Management Committee. Since the amendment of W(P)A, 1972,only 45 CRs have been declared in the country. Among this, 41 are notified in the Indian State of Meghalaya, in the North Eastern Himalaya, one of the four biodiversity hotspots of the Country. It would be interesting to study such a phenomena of high concentration of (>90%) community reserves from various perspectives such as biological, social and cultural, when there are more than hundreds of community conserved areas/ sacred groves across the country. A perusal of the literatures indicated that characterisation and assessment of conservation value (incorporating both biological and social) of the Community Reserve in the State has seldom attempted and any information generated during the proposed study would be the comprehensive baseline information. Hence it is proposed to conduct a study to characterise the community reserves with following objectives to strengthen the ongoing participatory forest management efforts including institutions.

• Identify, characterize and map the landscape elements and its components (flowering plants, mammals, birds, and herpetofauna) of each community reserves in Meghalaya and asses its conservation values, based on identified biological, social and cultural attributes (criteria).

• Identify and characterise the key community institutions and other stakeholders who have a crucial role in the current system of natural resource management in the community reserve

• Conduct an analysis of variousmanagement issues/threats/challenges related to conservation and livelihood opportunities its intensity and spatial occurrence.

• Develop a comprehensive conservation plan in consultation with the local communities for each community reserves.

The activities include collection of secondary information, preparation of spatial database on all the 41 community reserves including basic themes such as landuse, landcover, drainage, social and cultural assets, rapid assessment of key elements of biodiversity (flowering plants, mammals, birds, and herpetofauna) and social and cultural assets and portfolios, interviews, consultations, meetings, and workshops with different stakeholders. The collected information will be integrated and analysed on a spatial platform to and prepare a spatial landscape model which will be used for developing strategies for management.