In a name of saving trees, some 1.5 million adivasis are in danger of being evicted from their homes even though the forests they live in have survived primarily because of the protection provided by them. The Supreme Court is soon to rule in a landmark case that pits the forest department against the adivasis, officially classed as encroachers. The case began in 1995 with a PIL by a former estate owner in Tamil Nadu protesting the illicit felling of timber from forests which his family had protected for generations but which had been decimated since the forest department took them over. (Editorial)