Members work on commons and forest rights issues as well as national policy on commons in India. This work helps civil societies and policy makers focus their attention on rights of the indigenous community, pastoralists, tribal, and forest dwellers.

NES India has promoted a replicable model of organic agriculture on the ground which has been adapted by other members with some variation suitable to their local conditions. NES members are promoting income of small and marginalised farmers while creating an environmentally sustainable model in the ground.

India is diverse in more ways than one, and it faces enormous challenges for building a socially, economically and environmentally-just development. Responsible Land governance remains a complex issue aggravated by a combination of systematic legal and institutional failures. Institutions that govern land, markets and societies have fundamental weaknesses to address land and property issues of poor rural women and men, Tribals, and Dalits.

For example, land administration of revenue and forests have not been effective in addressing the control of ownership of forests by state and powerful private land owners. Likewise, there is no incentive to identify landless, homesteadless, tenants, single women, Tribals, Dalits and other such communities, who face several deprivations to revert societal inequalities. In India there is absolute landlessness, illegal tenancy, land alienation of all kinds, and failure of implementation of land ceiling laws. On the other hand, the logic of the market demands more land for industries, infrastructure and mines, and thereby leads to large-scale land acquisition by the public or private sector without just and adequate information or compensation.

Further, social institutions of caste and patriarchy and their politics create and maintain social barriers against women, Dalits, and Tribals, particularly when it comes to ownership of land.