Chipko Movement

In Context

Women in Chhattisgarh recreate the ‘Chipko movement’ to save Hasdeo Aranya Forest.

Hasdeo forest

The Hasdeo forest covering Chhattisgarh’s Korba, Sarguja and Surajpur districts, spans an area of 170,000 hectares.
It is a noted migratory corridor and has a significant presence of elephants.
It is also the catchment area of the Hasdeo river, the largest tributary of the Mahanadi.
The area was declared as a ‘No-Go Zone’ for mining by the Centre in 2009. Despite this, mining in the region continued as the policy for the ‘No-Go Zone’ was not finalised.

Chipko Movement/Andolan

About:
- It was a forest conservation movement in India. It created a precedent for starting non-violent protest in India.
- It began in 1973 in Uttarakhand, then a part of Uttar Pradesh (at the foothills of Himalayas) and went on to become a rallying point for many future environmental movements all over the world.

Causes for Movement:
- There was reckless deforestation which denuded much of the forest cover, resulting in the devastating Alaknanda River floods of July 1970.
- The incidences of landslides and land subsidence due to rapid increase in civil engineering projects.

(Image Courtesy: Indiatimes.com)

Impacts
- It was a movement that practised 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.
- Sunderlal Bahuguna gave the movement a proper direction and its success meant that the world immediately took notice of this non-violent movement, which was to inspire in time many similar eco-groups by-
  - helping to slow down the rapid deforestation,
  - expose vested interests,
  - increase social awareness and the need to save trees,
  - increase ecological awareness, and
  - demonstrate the viability of people power.
- In the Western Ghats region, it was an important inspiration for the great Appiko movement for saving forests and it gathered support for similar movements against environmental degradation.

Other Similar Movements

Appiko movement
- The famous Chipko Andolan of Uttarakhand in the Himalayas inspired the villagers of the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka Province in southern India to launch a similar movement to save their forests.
- In September 1983, men, women and children of Salkani “hugged the trees” in Kalase forest. (The local term for “hugging” in Kannada is appiko.)
- It gave birth to a new awareness all over southern India.

Save Silent Valley
- It was a social movement aimed at the protection of Silent Valley, an evergreen tropical forest in the Palakkad district of Kerala, India.
- It was started in 1973 by an NGO led by school teachers and the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) to save the Silent Valley from being flooded by a hydroelectric project.

Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA)
- Starting in the mid-1980s, it was a social movement spearheaded by native tribes, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against a number of large dam projects across the Narmada River.
- Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat is one of the biggest dams on the river and was one of the first focal points of the movement.
- The movement included court actions, hunger strikes, rallies and gathering support from notable personalities.

Source:DTE

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