India has about 18 per cent of the world’s human population on only 2.14 per cent of its land area with 4 per cent of fresh water. It is also a living tapestry of life with over 1,000 species each of birds, fish and reptiles and over 50,000 plant species, besides 400-odd mammals. How can we keep the environment habitable, safe, livable, and productive? Is it possible to rethink our relationship with nature in democratic and socially sensitive ways?

Nature Contested brings together a set of essays on environment use, ecology, and related questions of social justice, given the persistent social inequalities that shape our experience of ecological change. From changing social patterns among fishing communities along the Indian coast, to the shrinking of urban commons in Bengaluru and Chennai, to land and forest rights movements of Dalit groups in Uttar Pradesh, to the urgent need for clean air in Delhi, the essays offer nuanced, well-researched perspectives on diverse politico-ecological contexts.

Significantly, the chapters also trace the histories of human–nature interaction in different parts of India, including changing perceptions of recurrent floods in Assam, and community attitudes towards the Indian wild pig.

Taken together, the book challenges the idea of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ paradigm of environmental conservation, and reflects on varied imaginations of nature and the environment in India. Interdisciplinary, wide-ranging, and rigorous in its scholarship, this volume is essential reading for scholars of environmental history and political ecology, and for anyone interested in our planetary present and futures.