the chipko movement

The women who hugged trees
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                        Nature has enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed                                                       
Mahatma Gandhi
PictureWomen performing Chipko
Chipko came to prominence in 1973 when a group of women from Mandal village in the Himalayas in India “hugged” trees in order to prevent them from being felled.  When the loggers came, the women, led by Gaura Devi, surrounded the trees and chanted: “This forest is our mother’s home; we will protect it with all our might”. 

They told the loggers: "If the forest is cut, the soil will be washed away. Landslides and soil erosion will bring floods, which will destroy our fields and homes, our water sources will dry up, and all the other benefits we get from the forest will be finished".  Despite threats and abuses the women stood firm until the contractors left four days later.  
 
Word of their actions spread and the movement now known as the
Chipko Movement was formed.  Chipko, meaning “hugging” in Hindi,
is the origin of the term 'tree hugger' used for environmental activists.


PictureAmrita Devi saving trees by Cari Vander Yacht
The Chipko Movement was inspired by earlier protests against tree felling in in India.  In 1731 in Khejarli, Rajasthan, India people sacrificed their lives for the Khejri trees which are considered sacred by the community.

The terrible events started when Amrita Devi of the Bishnois faith, which prohibits tree felling, protested against a royal party which arrived intended burning the trees for lime for the building of a new palace. 

Amrita refused to pay the bribe demanded for the tree, saying “If a tree is saved even at the cost of one’s head, it’s worth it” and was killed for her act of bravery. More people then stood up to protect the trees resulting in 363 deaths before the Maharaja ordered the felling of trees to be stopped.

Sadly the khejri, still an important support to the rural economy today and now the state tree of Rajasthan, is again under threat. “Many scientific explanations have been offered for the death of Khejri like declining water table and growth of the parasite Gonoderma luciderm, but there is nothing conclusive so far,” says Dr. Mertia, an authority on desert vegetation.


Vandana Shiva talks about the importance of the Chipko Movement
Chipko’s appeal was uniquely wide-ranging. Thus the movement was co-opted, shaped, and popularized by groups as diverse as local and global journalists, grassroots activists, environmentalists, Gandhians, spiritual leaders, politicians, social change practitioners, and feminists. The feminist movement popularized Chipko, pointing out that poor rural women walk long distances to collect fuel and fodder, and thus are the frontline victims of forest destruction (Shah, 2008). The Gandhians accentuated the Chipko movement through symbolic protests such as prayers, fasting, and padayatras (ritual marches) (Shah, 2008). Further, Chipko is synonymous with the growth of ecology-conscious journalism in India and around the world.

The media that the Chipko movement generated went beyond the notion of just saving trees but, rather, was imbued with the belief that the forest belonged to the people, and only they could ensure its wise use (Guha, 1989). And, as the movement spread, and generated more media, it humanized environmental concerns for local, national, and global audiences.

In India, the media generated by Chipko put the notion of saving forests squarely on the political and public agenda of the country. In the early-1980s, India’s Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, ordered a 15-year ban on cutting trees 1,000 meters above sea level in the Himalayan forests (She believed that Chipko represented India’s “moral conscience”). In subsequent time, this decree was extended to the tree-covered forests of India’s Western Ghat and the Vidhya mountain ranges.

And to think that it all began spontaneously by the simple act of hugging a tree!


Source: The Chipko Environmental Conservation Movement in India
by Arvind Singhal,University of Texas @ El Paso and Sarah Lubjuhn, Unversität Duisburg-Essen

Inspired by the Chipko Movement

The woman who electrified a village and took on a mafia
BBC 20 Mar 2016
Kalawati Devi Rawat is known as the woman who brought electricity to
her remote village in the hills of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand
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Picture
  • Tottenham Trees
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    • Special trees in Tottenham >
      • Bruce Castle Oak >
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    • Trees in Art from Tottenham
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