Traditional communities living at forest margins use forest resources in various ways. Understanding the resource-use patterns of such communities provides a basis for seeking the participation of such communities in forest conservation. The present study undertaken in the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary and the adjoining Sigur Plateau in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, addressed the importance of forests in the household economy of indigenous communities. Its main objective was to quantify the forest dependence of local people, and assess to what extent restrictive biodiversity conservation strategies would affect their livelihoods. These questions help in understanding the stake of the people in forest conservation strategies. Economic activities of the households were investigated in eight selected villages, four of which (proximal villages) had access to reserve forest areas where collection of forest products was allowed and were also located close to markets that provided opportunities to sell forest products. The remaining four villages (distal villages) were close to the Wildlife Sanctuary where the collection of forest products was not allowed and there was no access to organized markets. A total of 132 households were surveyed. The households both in proximal and distal villages were classified into three distinct income groups namely ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’, based on their gross annual income. Use of forest resources in Mudumalai was found to be influenced by multiple factors. In terms of livelihood of the traditional communities, livestock rearing and collection of non-wood forest products (NWFPs) were very important, the latter both for cash income and subsistence use. Peripheral communities used the forest resources in a varied fashion, with NWFPs contributing differently to different income groups. Where there was no restriction on forest use, higher income groups used the resources more heavily than lower income groups, and hence would suffer most from any restriction on forest use. People's reliance on forests evidently declined with increased level both of education and of opportunities in non-forestry vocations. Forests were still very important to the household economy of the local people both in terms of food security and cash income.

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A new liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry method employing a mixed‐mode zwitterionic stationary phase was developed for simultaneous determination of urease inhibitor (N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide) and nitrification inhibitor (dicyandiamide) in urea fertilizer. Molecular modeling based on density functional theory calculations was employed to provide an insight into the interaction mechanism of urea, dicyandiamide, and N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide with zwitterionic stationary phase in chromatographic separation system. The detection of analytes was performed on a triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer in multiple reaction monitoring mode using positive electrospray ionization. The ion transitions monitored were m/z 85→68 for dicyandiamide and m/z 168.2→74 for N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide, respectively. The standard calibration curves of dicyandiamide and N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide were linear over the range of 1.0 ̶ 15 ppm (coefficient of determination = 0.9984), 0.05 ̶ 1 ppm (coefficient of determination = 0.9995), with limit of detection of 25 and 5 ppb, respectively. The recoveries of low, middle, and high concentrations were from 96.7 to 105.8% for N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide and 94.4 to 105.8% for dicyandiamide with accuracy (relative error %) of ≤5.8% and ≤5.8%, the precision (coefficients of variation) was ≤2.0% and ≤2.9%, respectively. The validated method was successfully applied on real urea samples to determine N‐butylthiophosphoric triamide and dicyandiamide simultaneously.

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