CHIPKO MOVEMENT

CHIPKO

The Chipko movement or Chipko andolan is a movement that practiced the Gandhian methods of satyagraha and non-violent resistance, through the act of hugging trees to protect them from being felled.

Causes
In India the forest cover started deteriorating at an alarming rate, as trees were increasingly cut for commercial and industrial purposes. This led to soil erosion as the water sources dried up in the hills. Water shortages became widespread. Communities gave up raising livestock, which added to the problems of malnutrition. The crisis was heightened by forest conservation policies like the Indian Forest Act 1927.

 Incidences of landslides became common in an area which was experiencing a rapid increase in civil engineering projects.
Due to the increasing hardships ,the Garhwal Himalayas soon became the centre for a rising ecological awareness of how reckless deforestation had denuded the forest cover.

ORGANIZATION
On March 26,1974,the day the lumbermen were to cut the trees , the men of the Reni village were in Chamoli. The labourers arrived to start the logging operations. Gauri Devi led 27 of the village women to the site and confronted the loggers. The loggers started to shout and abuse the women ,threatened them with guns .

 The women resorted to hugging the trees to stop them from being felled.The women kept an all-night vigil guarding their trees from cutters till a few of them relented and left the village.

AFTERMATH
The news soon reached the CM,Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna,who set up a committee to look into the matter, which eventually gave a report in favour of the villagers. Since then the movement has spread to other parts of India like Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan etc.