The use of Western knowledge over local knowledgearises from assumptions such that, even though peoplehad effectively managed resources harmoniously in thepast, community-based forest management has been lost,and traditional knowledge cannot be adopted into a modern society influenced by external forces, such as themarket for economic development, which exert increasing pressure to exploit natural resources (Agrawal andGibson 2001). Forsyth (1996) states that the “indigenous knowledge of hill farmers may be no more accuratebecause it was developed in a time when shifting cultivation had sufficient time and space to be sustainable,which is no longer the case” (ibid., 381).