There are direct and indirect costs of restoration. The latter include opportunity costs, which include the foregone benefits when the land is not used or used only in specific ways, to ensure restoration. These foregone benefits may vary depending on the social context. For example, it could be very high to those people who do not have other sources of income to buy those products for which they have been depending on land (say food-grains). The cost of not using land could be lesser to those who have non-agricultural sources of income. An understanding of the cost will help us to identify the net-losers of restoration projects and design appropriate compensation programs. These compensations are necessary to ensure the effectiveness of restoration projects.