#chipko

[iamadarshbadri]

Chipko’s Lessons for Today’s Global Environmentalism

In the early 1970s, precisely three things happened in global environmental history: at the institutional level, the United Nations held its first Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm; at the academic level, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring gained prominence for advocating environmentalism; and at the local level, the Chipko (tree-hugging) movement began in northern India as a response…

[sharedsentiment]

Photo: Chipko Tree Huggers of the Himalayas by Pamela Singh

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. The Chipko Movement was inspired by earlier protests against tree felling in in India.

[wegarhwali]

Chipko Movement: चिपको आंदोलन, उत्तराखंड की एक ऐतिहासिक पर्यावरणीय क्रांति

Chipko Movement (चिपको आंदोलन): भारत में कई सामाजिक और पर्यावरणीय आंदोलनों ने समाज को नई दिशा दी है, लेकिन उनमें से चिपको आंदोलन एक ऐसा ऐतिहासिक आंदोलन है जिसने न केवल पर्यावरण रक्षा का संदेश दिया, बल्कि वनों के संरक्षण के लिए आम जनता को भी जागरूक किया। यह आंदोलन 1970 के दशक में उत्तराखंड (तत्कालीन उत्तर प्रदेश) के हिमालयी क्षेत्रों में शुरू हुआ और धीरे-धीरे पूरे भारत में फैल गया। इस लेख में हम…

[townpostin]

KSMS Jyoti Club Celebrates Vrikshabandhan, Ties Rakhis to Trees

Students honor nature and Chipko Movement in unique Rakshabandhan observance Kerala Samajam Model School’s Jyoti Club marks Vrikshabandhan, tying rakhis to trees in a nature conservation gesture. JAMSHEDPUR – Students at Kerala Samajam Model School celebrated Vrikshabandhan, tying handmade rakhis to trees as a tribute to nature. The Jyoti Club of Kerala Samajam Model School (KSMS) organized a…

[cowbrains]

Chipko Chipko (1990) - Asha Puthli

[dailyanarchistposts]

In last EF! Journal (Yule, 1990), Chris Manes responds to the question "Why are you a misanthrope?" by saying "Why aren't you one?" After all, humans have a 10,000 year history of massacres, wars, ecocide, holocaust, etc., so the burden of proof is on us non-misanthropes.

I would like to respond to Manes' challenge, and my answer has nothing to do with humanism, anthropocentrism, or the belief that humans are a "higher" life form. Unlike Murray Bookchin, I reject that claim from the git-go. I believe in biocentrism, and think that all life forms are equal. I agree that human population is totally out of control. And I am as appalled as any misanthrope at the havoc that humans have wreaked on the natural world.

But I disagree with Manes' conclusion that the problem is "humankind." You cannot blame the destruction of the earth on, for example, the Quiche tribes of Guatemala or the Penan of Malaysia. These people have lived in harmony with the earth for 10,000 years. The only way you could identify the earth's destroyers as "humankind" would be to exempt such people from the category of "human." Otherwise you would have to admit that it is not humans-as-a-species, but the way certain humans live, that is destroying the earth.

Manes briefly acknowledges that these ecologically sound human cultures exist, but he dismisses them as trivial because "the fact is most of the world now mimics our dissolute ways." This statement completely ignores the manner in which "most of the world" was forced to abandon their indigenous cultures or be destroyed. You cannot equate the slave and the slave-master. Only after massacres, torture, ecocide and other unspeakable brutality did the peoples of the world acquiesce to the conquering hordes with their culture of greed and destruction.

Technocratic man, with his linear view of the world, tends to see tribal societies as earlier, less evolved forms of his own society, rather than as alternative, simultaneously existing methods of living on the earth. The presumption is that, given time, these cultures would somehow be corrupted like ours. But there is no evidence whatsoever that these ancient civilizations would have changed without our violent intervention. So it is not humans, but industrial-technocratic societies, that are destroying the earth.

In the same manner that misanthropy blames all humans for the crimes of the industrial/technocratic society, so does it blame all humans for the crimes of men. The list of atrocities for which Manes condemns the human race—massacres, wars, ecocide, holocaust—are not the work of women. Of course a few women can be found and paraded out who participate in the male power structure. But by and large, throughout history, wars and atrocities have been the territory of men. And the societies that engage in them have been run by men, in the interest of men, and against the interests of women. By categorizing as "human" traits which are actually male, misanthropes are being androcentric (male-centered) instead of biocentric (life-centered) as they claim to be. Vandana Sheeva of the Chipko movement in India put it best. She said the problem is not humans. It is white, technocratic men who are destroying the earth.

So misanthropy is not a form of humility, as Chris Manes says. It is a form of arrogance. By blaming the entire human species for the crimes of white, technocratic men, Manes conveniently avoids any real analysis of who is responsible for the death of the planet. Not surprisingly, Manes himself is a member of the group that most benefits from our consumptive society—privileged white urban men.

If the purpose of philosophy is just to play mind games, then misanthropy can be seen as provocative or enticing. But if the purpose of philosophy is to help us analyze the crisis we are in so that we can try to find solutions, misanthropy fails. It preserves the status quo by refusing to distinguish between oppressor and oppressed. It goes against one of the basic instincts of all life forms, preservation of the species. And, without contributing anything of value to an analysis of the problem, it alienates us from the people we need to work with to bring about change—people whose ideas are grounded in reality and experience, not in college textbooks.

[chibidraws]

On #WorldEnvironmentDay, I return to my roots, quite literally. The Chipko resistance (1973), a grassroots movement led by Vimala Bahuguna and her husband, saw women cling fiercely to trees to protect them from rampant logging. Evidently, It was the women, deeply in touch with the forest through their daily lives of gathering firewood, fodder, and water, who were the first to rise against commercial deforestation. Bahuguna, being a Gandhian activist, infused the spirit of feminism and civil disobedience in the movement. Waves of women and young girls ran to encircle trees, arms linked in steely defiance, turning the act of hugging into a symbol of protection and protest. The movement began in my ancestral homeland of Chamoli, and I can vouch for the women-led ethos of the himalayan range to this day. Every time I see those old sepia-toned photos, I can't help seeing my grandmothers—the same folds in their sarees, the same strength in their eyes.

[hypertypewriter3]

chipko tree huggers of the himalayas

pamela singh (2020)

IMMA, dublin

[tumbler-rambler]

On banks of Konar, In the Forests of Jharkhand, In Kabir Fest and Chipko Mach where I danced and danced and danced with People,,,

kind of weird how parts of your soul are left in various locations without any warning… like yes i’m always at the top of that hill, sitting at the bus stop, in the cool light of the Japanese restaurant, standing at the pier etc etc

[livesanskrit]

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Sarala Behn.

Sarala Behn (born Catherine Mary Heilman; 5 April 1901 – 8 July 1982) was an English Gandhian social activist whose work in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, India helped create awareness about the environmental destruction in the Himalayan forests of the state. She played a key role in the evolution of the Chipko Movement and influenced a number of Gandhian environmentalists in India including Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Bimala behn and Sunderlal Bahuguna. Along with Mirabehn, she is known as one of Mahatma Gandhi's two English daughters. The two women's work in Garhwal and Kumaon, respectively, played a key role in bringing focus on issues of environmental degradation and conservation in independent India.

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