Many tribal communities and other traditional forest dwelling communities living in close proximity to and dependent on their immediate ecosystem for their survival, have a rich history of living in harmony with their surroundings. There are thousands of examples, ranging from sacred groves, landscapes and waterscapes that have been protected by communities through many generations to the more recent initiatives at regenerating and protecting forests, providing protection to sea turtle nesting sites, conservation of nesting and wintering birds, and safeguarding eco-systems against ‘development’ threats. These diverse efforts have been given the nomenclature of Community Conserved Areas (CCAs). CCAs can be defined as natural or modified eco-systems (with minimal to substantial human influence) – providing significant biodiversity, ecological services and cultural values; voluntarily conserved by indigenous people or other local communities through customary laws or other effective means. These CCAs have their own institutions and relevant rules and codes that are site specific and depend on the nature of the environment, the nature of the community and other local social, political and economical factors. A more recent phenomenon is the formal environment, forest, wildlife and biodiversity protection system adopted by the country and a number of formal laws, policies and action plans have been put in place by the Government of India towards this end. All these have a bearing on existing CCAs. In many cases the formal system, if appropriately designed could provide the much needed legal backing that CCAs require to hold their own against the various external and internal threats. This document is a tabular representations showing the strengths and weaknesses of the various formal laws, policies and action plans with regard to the effect they have on CCAs.