Chipko revisited - Chipko Andolan forest protection movement; India

Whole Earth Review, Summer, 1993 by Brian Nelson

The original tree-huggers build a perpetual structure for village-based forest preservation

I WATCH KALAWATI DEVI weave her way skillfully down the steep and well-worn path with a surefooted ease that comes only from a lifetime in the mountains. She is followed by a small boy in rubber boots who keeps pace close behind. We meet on the front step of a small hut that clings delicately to the mountainside, overlooking the Alaknanda River gorge, as the bright sun lights up the sky and transforms the river below into a glittering ribbon bending around steep, rocky cliffs. For me, it is a setting of breathtaking Himalayan beauty, an image I'll probably remember for the rest of my life. For Kalawati, it is virtually the only landscape she has ever known.

Our introductions are brief and casual. Kalawati offers a sharp, clever smile that puts me immediately at ease. Her eyes and hair are black, contrasting against the rich reds and greens of her sari, and her forehead is adorned with the customary red dot. Only the roughness of her hand gives away the fact that her days are filled with long hours of hard, physical work. As we talk she seems to radiate a quiet, unassuming confidence, like someone who is at peace with herself and everyone around her. Her son, Balbir, sits quietly out of deference to his mother, patiently containing his twelve-year-old urge to go out and play.

Kalawati Devi is one of the leaders of Chipko Andolan, the famous people's movement of the India's Garhwal Hills, centred deep in the foothills of the Himalaya. Chipko, which means "to embrace," got its name in the 1970s from the then-novel practice of tree-hugging: when the forests were threatened, usually by commercial logging interests working in concert with government forestry officials, Kalawati and her friends and neighbours would march together into the forest to put their own bodies between the axes and the trees. They would risk their lives to protect a fragile mountain ecosystem and restore their ancient rights to the food, fuelwood, fodder, building materials they need to survive.

I've come here to learn from those like Kalawati who played a part in this drama, and to find out what has happened to the movement since those early confrontations. My contacts in New Delhi tell me that there is very little tree-hugging anymore -- the battle has largely been won. At first I had difficulty believing that big-money logging interests and well-bribed government officials were somehow subdued by impoverished villagers. But on meeting Kalawati I find my cynicism beginning to fade; she seems like the kind of adversary that people with money and power might easily underestimate.

THE JOURNEY INTO THE Garhwal Hills, taking some twenty hours of bus travel from New Delhi, is visually compelling, at once beautiful and sobering. In between dramatic views of rocky cliffs and deep river valleys with snow-capped peaks off in the distance, there are scenes of brutal deforestation -- steep slopes stripped clean of trees and consequently gouged by landslides that deposit tonnes of rock and gravel into the valleys below. Landslides remain a constant threat along much of this route, and the worst have been known to tear whole villages from mountainsides. The journey to the Garhwal was delayed twice while workers dug through the debris of yet another landslide.

The roots of this devastation date back to the nineteenth century, when British colonial administrators ruled India with a combination of bureaucratic organization and military muscle. The British were interested in resources to feed a hungry empire, and the tall stands of primary-growth forests that blanketed much of Northern India were a treasured prize of imperialist ambition. The British fashioned a system of forest management that was designed to do the job quickly and efficiently. Forest lands, which had for centuries been owned and managed communally by indigenous villagers, were simply taken over by the colonial administration, which then awarded concessions to private logging companies to extract the trees. The concept of "environmental protection" meant little to colonists who saw themselves as conquerors and developers of a wild and uncivilized land. The notion of "the rights of indigenous people" meant even less. And when India gained independence in 1947, the new government simply took a page from the colonial book on resource development and adapted essentially the same system.

For a long time, all of this meant very little to the people of the Garhwal Hills. Life carried on as usual in this rugged and remote area that was largely inaccessible to logging interests. But major roadbuilding programs launched in the 1960s changed all that. New roads pierced into the region; for the first time, century-old forests were within striking distance of axes, chainsaws, and logging trucks.

Within a few short years, vast tracts of forest were clearcut and mountainsides were stripped clean, marking the beginning of an environmental and economic disaster. The crucial protective tree cover was destroyed. Winds and monsoon rains ripped away at the thin soils; landslides became more frequent and more treacherous. With fewer trees to hold the soil and less soil to absorb the seasonal rains, the region began to swing between two increasingly dangerous extremes--chronic water shortages in the dry season and severe flooding during the monsoons. In July of 1970, floods along the Alaknanda caused the greatest devastation in living memory. Bridges, roads, houses, farms, and livestock were washed away in the deluge; nearly 200 people died.