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Chipko movement

2021 MAY 27

Preliminary   > Environment and Ecology   >   Miscellaneous   >   Environmental movements

Why in news?

  • The leader of Chipko movement, Sunderlal Bahuguna passed away recently.

About the movement:

  • The Chipko movement or Chipko Andolan, was a forest conservation movement which began in 1973 in Uttarakhand, then a part of Uttar Pradesh (at the foothills of Himalayas).
  • It was Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist, who gave the movement a proper direction, which was to inspire in time many similar eco-groups.
  • It is a movement that practiced methods of Satyagraha where both male and female activists from Uttarakhand played vital roles, including Gaura Devi, Suraksha Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi and Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Virushka Devi and others.
  • It is now seen increasingly as an ecofeminism movement as women were not only its backbone, because they were the ones most affected by the rampant deforestation, which led to a lack of firewood and fodder as well as water for drinking and irrigation.
  • In 1987, the Chipko movement was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for its dedication to the conservation, restoration and ecologically-sound use of India's natural resources.

History

  • The trigger for the modern Chipko movement was the growth in development that Uttar Pradesh witnessed following the 1963 China border conflict.
  • The need for infrastructural development attracted many foreign logging companies, who were eyeing the state’s vast forest resources.
  • However, the forests were the lifeblood of the villagers and they relied on it for both food and fuel.
  • In 1970, widespread floods inundated the area and was attributed to the mismanagement due to commercial logging.
  • The other reason that angered the villagers was the government’s policy that did not allow local agriculturists and herders to cut the trees for fuel wood or for fodder while commercial companies were given the permission to fell trees and use them.
  • It was then that environmentalist and Gandhian social activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt, founder of the cooperative organisation Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, led the first Chipko movement near the village of Mandal in 1973 against a sports company that was logging.
  • When their appeals against commercial logging were denied, Bhatt led a group of villagers into the forest and embraced the trees to prevent logging, giving the movement its  name.
  • After many days of agitation, the government canceled the company’s logging permit.
  • The Chipko Movement gained traction under Sunderlal Bahuguna, who spent his life persuading and educating the villagers to protest against the destruction of the forests and Himalayan mountains.
  • Bahuguna is best remembered for the slogan “ecology is the permanent economy.

Prelims Question:

Consider the following statements regarding Chipko movement:
1.It began in Uttarakhand.
2.Chandi Prasad Bhatt was one of the leaders of the movement.
Choose the correct answer from the codes given below:
(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer to Prelims question