Forest management is directed to attain one, or a combination, of the following three goals: stability of the physical environment, productivity of the physical environment and equity of the social environment. For the management to be sustainable, four aspects have to be addressed: the ecological, technical, the socio-economic and the institutional. All of these four aspects are equally important, and inadequacy of practices in any of the aspects could mar the sustainability of a forest. In India, where the rural population overwhelmingly depends on firewood for domestic energy, where the fodder for millions of cattle comes from forests, and where customs and traditions are as important in forest management as the considerations of ecological laws, a minimum of socio-economic data is a must for sustainable forest management. For India, this data must comprise:•per capita annual requirement of firewood at a reasonably efficient level of utilization;•carrying capacity of a forest unit in terms of its use as grazing land;•per capita annual requirement of small timber for agricultural implements and for housing;•per capita annual requirement of non-timber forest products (NTFPs);•customs and traditions prevalent in a community in terms of the use of forests;•rate of growth of population, both human and cattle.