Understanding the changes in the plant community and soil nitrogen (N) availability during natural recovery of a forest following clear‐cutting is critical to develop post‐disturbance forest management strategies. Therefore, post‐clearcut changes in vegetation, net N mineralization rates and available N concentrations in soil were studied in a montane subtropical broadleaved forest during the early years of recovery following a chronosequence approach. Two replicate stands were selected for each treatment of old‐growth undisturbed forest and recovering forest stands aged 1, 5 and 10 years. Following disturbance, tree species diversity and basal area declined but shrub and herb diversity increased. High percentage dissimilarity among the stands in tree, shrub and herb species composition indicated that species colonization varied with recovery age. NH4+‐N and NO3−‐N concentrations increased significantly (P < 0.001) following clear‐cutting and the increasing trend continued until 5 years post‐recovery, after which it declined. While ammonification rate remained unchanged with recovery age, nitrification and net N mineralization rates in 10‐year‐old and undisturbed forest were significantly greater (P < 0.001) than in 1‐ and 5‐year‐old forest, indicating that mineralization rates increased with recovery age. Despite high mineralization rates, low availability of soil N in the later years of recovery was attributed to high N uptake by growing vegetation and leaching because of high rainfall in Cherrapunjee. To ensure N availability during the later years of recovery, we suggest that forest management intervention should encourage aided regeneration of native N‐fixing trees, e.g., Myrica esculenta, during the initial years of recovery.

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North-East India, which falls under the Indian Eastern Himalayan region and forms part of two global biodiversity hotspots, is well-known for its rich diversity of flora, fauna, cultures and traditional knowledge systems. Agriculture is the main occupation of the communities living in this region supplemented by utilization of wild useful species from the nearby forests. Traditional agriculture in North-East India follows mixed cropping pattern through multi-cropping, crop rotation, use of multipurpose nitrogen (N)-fixing trees, along with protection of semi-domesticated and wild biodiversity, including medicinal plants, wild edible fruits and vegetables, fodder plants and other useful species. Presently, there has been a gradual shifting from subsistence cultivation to commercial agriculture driven by market forces and modernization, leading to transition from traditional to intensive agriculture and monoculture of cash crops. This has resulted in reduced cultivation of local crop varieties and disappearance of the associated traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Therefore, the present study attempts to review the contribution of traditional agricultural practices to agrobiodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management. Relevant traditional practices such as shifting (Jhum) cultivation systems, bamboo-drip irrigation, paddy-cum-fish cultivation, traditional agroforestry systems of different Indigenous communities residing in different states of North-East India were mentioned in this review. It is undeniable that TEK was developed by communities through many centuries by trial-and-error methods to conform to the local climate, topography, ecology and socio-cultural relevance to the concerned Indigenous communities. This knowledge, therefore, has a great scope for improvement by integration with scientific knowledge for transforming into sustainable agricultural systems in the face of climate change adaptation and mitigation of the vulnerable mountain communities of the Himalayan region.