Summary This paper assesses degradation of forests managed by local communities (Van Panchayats (VPs)), relative to state protected and open access forests in the Indian state of Uttaranchal. It is based on ground-level ecological measures of forest quality (including canopy cover, biomass, lopping, and regeneration) in forest areas adjoining a random sample of villages, and controls for unobserved village heterogeneity, possible endogeneity of management regimes and cross-forest spillovers. Controlling for these factors, VP forests are found to be 20–30% less lopped, and similar on other dimensions. The lopping differences are greater the longer the forest has been under a VP.