A curtain raiser to the lives of communities in the peripheries, this chapter provides an insight into the conflicts, opportunities and changing livelihood strategies adopted by one such community, the Valaiyars of South Tamil Nadu. The Karandhai Malai forests of South Tamil Nadu are home to these traditional agricultural communities. As this is a semiarid zone, communities practising rainfed agriculture are especially vulnerable to climate variability. This study began as an exploration of the adaptive measures that the Valaiyar farmers had taken to manage the effect of climate variations on their livelihoods. In what was supposed to be an apparent adaptation to climate change, it was found that the farmers had engaged in large-scale conversions, from traditional cultivation of pulses and millet to cultivation of cashew, a horticultural tree crop, between 1990 and 2007, confirmed by GIS images that were obtained …