The district of Wayanad, in the south of India, has a wealth of natural resources, but in the last few years it has undergone drastic transformation in the name of modernisation. The population whose livelihood depends directly the area’s natural resources (mainly farmers, but also many doctors making use of traditional medicine) finds itself suddenly deprived of its main source of sustenance. In Wayanad the risk of the bond linking an area to local people and their knowledge disappearing definitively gives rise to a disquieting development model.