This report is a major early critique of social forestry. It is based on an analysis of secondary information and primary data obtained through a short field-study in Kolar District of Karnataka between December 1980 and February 1981. The latter included oral histories and a questionnaire survey of households from different socio-economic groups in randomly selected villages. The study concludes that the primary objective of social forestry had not been achieved, i.e. the subsistence forest product requirements of the poorest rural communities were not being met. Instead, social forestry had been highly successful in motivating medium and large farmers to plant trees on their lands. Eucalyptus was the preferred species because of its fast-growing qualities, unpalatability to livestock, limited requirement for labour inputs after establishment and relatively high market price. While the income of medium and large farmers increased as a result, the establishment of Eucalyptus plantations on private land is argued to have adversely affected landless agricultural labourers and marginal farmers by reducing local employment opportunities as well as fuel and fodder availability. The authors assign the failure of social forestry primarily to: 1) promoting tree cultivation without sufficient attention to species and the capacity of different socio-economic groups to grow these; and 2) assuming that increasing production of a commodity in a particular locality will also ensure increased local availability. Finally, in the light of their findings, the authors express serious reservations about a proposed World Bank-assisted social forestry project in Karnataka.