India, June 2 -- For generations, people in Wayanad, Kerala, have lived alongside wild animals. They learned to read their movements and adapted to the rhythms of the forest, adjusting to changing seasons, rainfall and scarcity. What many were less prepared for was a world in which access to that forest became increasingly restricted, through regulations, barriers and bureaucratic procedures that steadily altered a long-standing relationship.

In Chekadi ward of Pulpally gram panchayat, on the eastern edge of Wayanad district, the boundary between forest and settlement is barely visible. This is where lives Bhasavi, a 65-year-old Kattunaika tribal woman from the Chandroth tribal colony. Two years ago, she entered the forest to collect fir...