Tropical forests are among the most biodiversity rich ecosystems. Overlapping with some of the poorest and rapidly developing regions of the world, they are also among the most threatened ecosystems today. To counter these threats and to prevent biodiversity loss two main conservation approaches has been followed: strict protection (Protected Area, PA) and involving local communities under the broad terms of community based conservation (CBC). Assessments of PAs success has largely focused on outcomes such as conserving species, habitat protection, management effectiveness whereas for CBC, evaluations have focussed on socio-economic well-being and social justice. Most previous assessments for PAs and CBCs were based on cases studied at separate sites and time, few have been carried out at landscape scales while fewer have used multiple-criteria across large spatio-temporal scales. This thesis adopted a comprehensive assessment framework to measure the habitat and animal species-based parameters across two categories of management viz. state and community forests. I also analysed how the drivers of such changes affect the conservation outcomes of the community and state forests.