ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE ASSIGNMENT

TOPIC: CHIPKO MOVEMENT AND APPIKO MOVEMENT

CHIPKO MOVEMENT: Context

As the border conflict between India and China was nearing closure, Uttar Pradesh was developing at a
phenomenal rate. The Himalayan rural regions stood out of them even more. The roads built for the purposes
related to the conflict allured many logging companies that wanted to take advantage of the forest’s vast natural
resources. The villagers were barred from accessing the bounty of the forests by government policies which didn’t
let them manage the area and denied them access to lumber-even though the villagers relied on the forest for
food, fuel and other services such as water purification and soil stabilisation. Poor planning of commercial logging
projects led to forests being cut down at a rapid pace and it led to soil erosion, low crop yield, immense flooding
and other environmental issues. This was the prologue to the Chipko movement where people protested by
hugging the trees to protect them from getting cut.

CHIPKO MOVEMENT: The Incident

In 1970, extensive floods inundated the area and the blame was on the commercial loggers. Another incident was
when a sports manufacturing company was allowed by the government to cut trees and use them as raw material,
which aggravated the people and the vexation turned into the movement we know today. The first Chipko Movement
took place near the village of mandal led by the Gandhian Social Activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt. Bhatt founded the
cooperative organisation Dasholi Gram Swarajya Mandal (previously named as Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh)
which rose in opposition towards the industries responsible for environmental deterioration and logging. The
movement in Mandal, government cancelled the sports manufacturing company’s logging permit and granted it to
DGSM. This Movement spreaded a lot in other villages by the help of DGSM workers and an eco activist named
Sunderlal Bahuguna. Bahuguna coined the term “ecology is the permanent economy”. The movement’s triumphant
victory took place in 1980 when Sunderlal Bahuguna appealed to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to bring a stop to
commercial logging and this led to a 15 year ban on commercial felling of trees in the region. Many such bans were
carried out in other areas such as Himachal, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

CHIPKO MOVEMENT: An Eco-Feminist Movement

Mahatma Gandhi invited women during his endeavour to come out of their dwellings to work for bringing
revolution. The Chipko movement needed women’s support and women supported them after a discussion between
the Chipko workers and the victims of environmental haphazards which were mostly women. Women at that time
were the ones in charge of cultivation, livestock and children and these were heavily impacted by these disasters.
They were made to understand the source of their grief was because of commercial logging and denudation of
mountain slopes for commercial interests. This resulted in heavy participation of women and made them step up for
themselves and support the ecological cause.
 APPIKO MOVEMENT: Context
In the year 1950, Northern Kannada district’s forest used to cover more than 81 percent of its geographical area. The
government to curry favour with the industries listed the forest as a “backward” area and then started exploitation of
nature in the name of “development”. There were three major industries in Kannada at that time, namely pulp and
paper mills, plywood factories and a chain of hydroelectric dams. These overexploited the natural resources and the
dams submerged huge chunks of forest and cultivation areas. The percentage of forest shrank to 25 percent till 1980.
The dams even led to the displacement of people, particularly the poor ones and destroyed the livelihoods of many
others. The Government even forced the conversion of natural mixed semi-evergreen forests into monoculture teak
and eucalyptus plantations. There was even immense deforestation in the western ghats in the name of development
which brought recurring droughts in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. All of this angered people and
they started to band together for the cause of saving nature.

APPIKO MOVEMENT: The Incident

In August 1983, the residents of the Sirsi Taluk of Northern/Uttara Kannada pleaded to the forest department not to
continue the deforestation operations in the Bilegal forest. However, the forest department and the concerned
authorities did not pay any heed to the villagers and the deforestation continued by the contractors and the industries.
The villagers paid for this mismanagement and suffered the repercussions of the rapid felling of trees. There were
droughts in the region and loss of perennial water resources. Spice garden farmers of the Northern Kannada and
people who depended on biomass from forests were affected the most. In September 1983, men, women and children
of Salkani village, commenced the Appiko movement in Kalase forest by embracing or hugging the trees in an effort
to save them from the loggers . Hugging in Kannada literally translates to Appiko and thus the name. Appiko
movement was founded and led by environmental activist Panduranga Hegde. Hegde gathered women and youth
from Saklani and other villages. They walked five miles to the nearby forest of Kalase and hugged trees there. They
forced the loggers and the contractors of the state forest department to stop the wrongful act of cutting trees. The
distress continued for thirty eight days and this compelled the state government to finally give in to their demands
and withdraw the order for the logging of trees in the region.

APPIKO MOVEMENT: The Ideas

The Appiko movement’s objectives can be classified into three major areas—to protect the existing forest cover, to
regain forest cover in denuded lands and, to utilize bounties of forest with due consideration to conservation. All
these objectives are implemented through established Parisara Samrakshna Kendras (environmental conservation
centers). Like the Chipko movement, the Appiko movement revived the Gandhian ways and practices of protest and
mobilisation for an ecological and sustainable society in which there is a viable balance between humans and nature.