#chipko movement

[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.

[kittynannygaming]

[VIRAGO] Écoféminisme : Vertes de rage ? Qui sont vraiment les écofémini...

[uttarakhand-jagran]

मुख्यमंत्री धामी पर्यावरण आंदोलनकारियों को किया कोटिशः नमन, अपर्ति की श्रद्धांजलि

चिपको आंदोलन:  पेड़ों को बचाने के अनोखे तरीके से पहाड़ की महिलाओं ने इतिहास रचा और दुनिया भर में अपनी छाप छोड़ी। चिपको आंदोलन आज अपने 50 वें वर्ष में प्रवेश कर गया है।  वहीं उत्तराखंड के मुख्यमंत्री पुष्कर सिंह धामी ने पर्यावरण आंदोलनकारियों को कोटिशः नमन किया। साथ ही महान आंदोलनकारियों को श्रध्दांजिल अर्पित की। मुख्यमंत्री धामी ने कहा कि “चिपको आंदोलन की 50वीं वर्षगांठ पर वृक्षों को अपने जीवन…

[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…

[bouncinghedgehog]

The origin of the term "Tree hugger"

The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape.

Not only that, the Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, had spread across India, ultimately forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.

Photo: The village women of the Chipko movement in the early 70's in the Garhwal Hills of India, protecting the trees from being cut down. 🌱🌱🌱

[kampeszino]

The origin of the term "Tree hugger"The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape.Not only that, the Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, had spread across India, ultimately forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.Photo: The village women of the Chipko movement in the early 70's in the Garhwal Hills of India, protecting the trees from being cut down. 

via Avantgardens

[callmeanxietygirl]

The origin of the term "Tree hugger"

The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape.

Not only that, the Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, had spread across India, ultimately forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.

Photo: The village women of the Chipko movement in the early 70's in the Garhwal Hills of India, protecting the trees from being cut down. - Avantgardens

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[casualflowerglitter]

The origin of the term "Tree hugger"

The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape.

Not only that, the Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, had spread across India, ultimately forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.

Hart Nursery

[edonascriticaldesign]

CHIPKO ANDOLAN – a movement of village women A key example of an ecofeminist movement is the Chipko Andolan in India in early 1973. Chipko was a forest conservation movement in India led by both male and female activists and leaders such as Indian environmentalists, Chandi Prasat Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna, and the indigenous women of the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in the Chamoli district, then part of Uttar Pradesh.

The story of the Chipko movement in 1973 follows how a contractor was given the right from the state to fell trees for a sports manufacturing company. The area, already denuded, was subjected to landslides and floods due to rapid deforestation from commercial logging. Women also had to trek further for fuel, fodder, and water.

When the loggers arrived at the village, they were met by the womenfolk who formed a circle around the trees, linked arms, and embraced the trees to prevent the men from cutting them down.

[outdoorkeedanorthstate]

North India: Little sweet, little spicykiya tha

North India is defined as the land, which stretches to about 1.4 million km sq. starting from Jammu and Kashmir to Uttar Pradesh. Technically all these states will come under North Indian umbrella Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Although the major language in this region is Hindi, a slight change in dialect as per every region is clearly recognized. Kashmiri, Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Punjabi are some other major languages of North India.

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE BEAUTIFUL STATES OF NORTH INDIA: ONE AT A TIME JAMMU AND KASHMIR The Jammu and Kashmir regions soothes your eyes with breathtaking scenic views of mountains, packed with snow, valleys full of flowers and garden full of apples and peaches. If you are in J&K, do not forget to taste the famous 'Noonchai'. You can also shop for Kesar, Walnut and Almonds which are cultivated in abundance here. The people here were the 'Feram' to protect themselves from cold.

HIMACHAL PRADESH The state of Himachal Pradesh lies in the lap of Himalayas, just beneath J&K. The largest glacier in Asia, 'Shigri Glacier' is here. The Manali-Leh highway is the highest motor able road in India. The famous thukpa is a favorite delicacy here.

PUNJAB Haven't tried the lasii in Punjab. What are you serious.? If you really wanna get the taste of North India, lassi in Punjab is a must. Sitting in a paddy field, eating makka chapattis with sarso saag gives the most patriotic feeling of the country. Sikhism is the major religion practiced here.

UTTARAKHAND Uttarakhand is a major hub of adventure sports in India. The famous Chipko movement of India took place here only. Uttarakhand is famous for being the home to chaar dhaams- Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. It is also the site for Kumbh mela, which is organized in a gap of 12 years.

HARYANA Almost all major multinational companies have their Indian headquarter in Gurugram, Haryana. Haryana also produces the most number of wrestlers in the country. Delhi the national capital lies in the northern region of India. Famous for great food and diverse culture, Delhi is home to many historical monuments. Also known as 'concrete jungle' ironically, Delhi is one of the greenest cities of the world.

UTTAR PRADESH Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state of India. Famous for wheat cultivation, vibrant temples of Mathura and Vrindavan, and Kachori jalebi of Varanasi, this state is situated on the banks of the river Ganges

DELHI The capital of India, Delhi is a vibrant metropolis with a rich history and culture. It is home to a number of historical landmarks, government buildings, and cultural institutions.

RAJASTHAN Lastly, Rajasthan, the state of golden dessert, is famous for its daal-baati-choorma. Desert safari are quite popular here. A very interesting fact about Rajasthan is that the cities here are color coded Jaipur pink city, Udaipur white city, Jodhpur blue city, Jaisalmer golden city. it Rajasthan is also home to many historical temples like Mehndipur Balaji Hanumaan mandir, Khatu Shyam mandir, Salasar Hanuman mandir and Rani sati dadi mandir in Jhunjhunu and Dargah of Ajmer Shariff. Feeling all spiritual haa Namkeen ke sath kuch meetha ho jaye!

[livesanskrit]

Send from Sansgreet Android App. Sanskrit greetings app from team @livesanskrit .

It's the first Android app for sending @sanskrit greetings. Download app from https://livesanskrit.com/sansgreet

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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[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…

[valkyries-things]

GAURA DEVI // ACTIVIST

“She was a grassroots activist and a rural women community leader from India who played an important role in the Chipko movement. She came to the forefront of the Chipko movement in 1974. She was told by a young girl that local loggers were cutting trees near their village. The men of Reni village had been tricked out of the village by news that the government was going to pay out compensation for land used by the army. Gaura Devi and 27 other women decided to tackle the loggers. She confronted and challenged the men to shoot her instead of cutting down the trees and she described the forest as "Vandevta" (God of Jungle) and her maika (mother's house). Finally, with the help of other women she managed to halt the work of loggers by hugging the trees despite the abuse and threats of the armed loggers. The women of village and Gaura Devi kept guard of the trees that night and over the next three or four days other villages and villagers joined the action.After this incident, the Uttar Pradesh Government established a committee of experts to investigate the issue of felling of trees, and the lumber company withdrew its men from Reni. The committee stated that the Reni forest was an ecologically sensitive area and that no trees should be felled there. Thereafter the government of Uttar Pradesh placed a 10-year ban on all tree-felling in an area of over 1150 km².”

[kayahforde-cs]

Sifting through the Barbican’s RE/SISTERS exhibition catalogue (2023), I have found numerous artists, specifically female artists, who create artwork surrounding the destruction of nature, and the Ecofeminist movement.

Artists such as Pamela Singh, Francesca Woodman and Gurminder Sikand create interesting and thought-provoking artworks that enable us to understand how and why the protection of nature is a women-led movement, and why it more often than not concerns women and gender non-conforming people.

According to SepiaEYE (2023) on Pamela Singh, her photographic artworks explore ‘female existence through the relationship between her own body and her social landscapes’. For example, the RE/SISTERS catalogue exhibits her photographic documentary Chipko Tree Huggers of the Himalayas (1994). Her photographs depict women from northern India peacefully embracing trees (see figs. 1 and 2) to ‘save them from state’. Fig. 2 depicts the women surrounding the tree in a sort of human shield with their arms interlocked, which ultimately encompasses what ecofeminism is about. The photograph is also a powerful documentation of the lengths that women go to in order to protect their land, especially if this land plays a special role in their lives. Pardo (2023) emphasises how the women were impacted by extreme deforestation, leading to a lack of wood and food for people in the village (138). By comparison, Gurminder Sikand’s work depicts many strong women. Her husband, Tim Youngs (2022), shares that much of her work was heavily inspired by Indian folk art. However, it is her watercolour works that are inspired by the women-led protest of Chipko. Figs. 3 and 4 depicts naked women hugging trees; her grip around the tree is delicate and gentle, demonstrating the care and attention women give to nature, and their deep spiritual connection with it, which is reinforced by the fact that Sikand’s women are painted nude. However, it is important to note that, contextually, Chipko women were faced with local men who had accepted subcontracts to cut down the community’s trees. Therefore, the ‘Chipko tree-huggers’ were a physical barrier to prevent this unwanted deforestation. Most of these men were their own husbands, which makes this all the more powerful.

Furthermore, artists creating work surrounding ecofeminism use their own bodies and blend it in with the natural landscape. Much like Mendieta, they use organic matter such as leaves and twigs to ‘become one’ with the land around them. For example, Fina Miralles’ photo-performance Relations. Relating the Body and Natural Elements, portrays an intrinsic connection with nature, with the artist’s body slowly being covered by straw as she stands in a natural environment (see fig. 5). In the fifth image, she has fully surrendered to the land, becoming one with it and embracing what it has to offer. Moreover, Francesca Woodman’s photography explores her body and its relationship to nature. She often creates works in deserted environments, with only herself blending into these environments in the image. In Fig. 6, Woodman has herself entangled in the roots of this tree, with the glistening water flowing underneath it. I believe this is a beautiful and almost serene image, illustrating how women feel when being in nature, being surrounded by it, and becoming one with it, also reinforcing how the protection of nature is more so considered as a women’s issue.

However, the works of Uýra shows us how the nature problem is not only a woman problem, but also concerns that of gender non-conforming individuals. Uýra often transforms into ‘multispecies characters, fluidly merging the human and nonhuman’ through her use of organic matter on herself (Pardo, 2023: 292). On top of that, Uýra also uses the art of drag to disrupt gender normativity (see figs. 7 and 8). I think this is an interesting take on the concept of ecofeminism, and it raises the question of whether ecofeminism is only a woman-based issue, or if other genders on the spectrum also have this connection to the natural landscape, and how far they will go to protect this destruction of nature.

Bibliography

Brownhill, L. (2010) ‘Earth Democracy and Ecosocialism: What’s in a Name?’, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 21 (1), pp. 97-98.

Pardo, A. (2023) RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology. Munich: Prestel.

SepiaEYE (2023) Pamela Singh. Available at: https://www.sepiaeye.com/pamela-singh (Accessed 10 March 2024).

Tim Youngs (2022) Gurminder Sikand obituary. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/14/gurminder-sikand-obituary (Accessed 10 March 2024).

[skumburgers]

The Chipko movement (Hindi: चिपको आन्दोलन, lit. 'hugging movement') is a forest conservation movement in India. Opposed to commercial logging and the government's policies on deforestation, protestors in the 1970s engaged in tree hugging, wrapping their arms around trees so that they could not be felled.

Sunderlal Bahuguna, Chipko movement leader

“ In a lecture on a college campus some years back, I gave examples of activities being undertaken in defense of life on Earth—actions in which people risk their comfort and even their lives to protect other species.

In the Chipko or tree-hugging movement in north India, for example, villagers protect their remaining woodlands from ax and bulldozer by interposing their bodies.

On the open seas, Greenpeace activists intervene to protect marine mammals from slaughter. After that talk, I received a letter from a student I’ll call Michael. He wrote:

I think of the tree-huggers hugging my trunk, blocking the chain saws with their bodies. I feel their fingers digging into my bark to stop the steel and let me breathe. I hear the bodhisattvas in their rubber boats as they put themselves between the harpoons and me, so I can escape to the depths of the sea. I give thanks for your life and mine, and for life itself. I give thanks for realizing that I too have the powers of the tree-huggers and the bodhisattvas.

What is most striking about Michael’s words is the shift in identification. Michael is able to extend his sense of self to encompass the self of the tree and of the whale. Tree and whale are no longer removed, separate, disposable objects pertaining to a world out there; they are intrinsic to his own vitality. Through the power of his caring, his experience of self is expanded far beyond that skin-encapsulated ego. I quote Michael’s words not because they are unusual, but to the contrary, because they express a desire and a capacity that is being released from the prison-cell of old constructs of self. This desire and capacity are arising in more and more people today, out of deep concern for what is happening to our world, as they begin to speak and act on its behalf. ”

- from Joanna Macy's essay in Spiritual Ecology: Cry of the Earth

[sisterhooddiaries]

The Chipko Movement

“ When their appeals were denied, Bhatt led a group of villagers into the forest and embraced the trees to prevent logging. After many days of agitation, the government canceled the company’s logging permit. The Chipko movement can essentially be called a women’s movement. Women, being solely in charge of cultivation, livestock and children, suffered the most due to floods and landslides, caused due to rise in deforestation in the face of urbanisation. ”

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