In 1990, the government of India issued a national guideline to all states to adopt Joint Forest Management (JFM) to achieve better resource conservation through partnerships between Forest Department (FD) and Forest Protection Committee (FPC)s which consists of local villagers. While JFM has also been viewed as a means to improve the livelihood of the forest dependent, several uncertainties and questions remain. First, it is not clear how such institutionally defined FPC can gain from JFM. Secondly, it is not clear whether FPC are in effect facilitating equitable distribution of benefits from forest related activities. Finally it is not clear what consequences the process of formalizing local institutional units and defining their forest boundaries may have at the local level benefit destribution from forests. This paper thus aims to further understanding of “who gains and who loses from JFM” based on an empirical investigation of two case study areas from the Khammam and Medak districts of the Andhra Pradesh state, India. The paper firstly analyzes local level processes involved in JFM and changes in the way in which concerned local actors access to direct and indirect benefits derived from forest related activities.