Thursday, July 5, 2012

Women Chipkos hug a tree

          Women protecting their environment showed us that it was the grass roots where innovative actions were occuring ... and we urban women needed to support such actions...........  

                              Women ‘Chipkos’ on the march!

THE women sight a forest contractor coming.  From the foothills of the mountains they begin to beat their drums and sing across the valleys.
On the other side, women from another village hear. They get up, take their children, and go to the place where contractor is coming to cut off the green trees. When he arrives, he finds a woman and child hugging each tree.  “These trees are our life: we will not let them die.”  Defeated he returns empty-handed.
In March 1974, the women of Reni Village in Chamoli district (about six hours by bus from Rishikesh) started one of the most important movements in India-the Chipko Andolan.
Important because for the first time a movement was questioning the entire relationship of man to nature; Important because women will not let the forests be exploited.
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Why the movement?  What are the women protesting against?
Sunderlal Bahuguna, a white bearded village elder, explains.
“More than a century before, the forest of the Himalayas were owned by the community. They were natural forests, consisting of a whole variety of trees, wildlife, etc.  There was am natural balance in nature, and the people had food, water and fodder in plenty.
Then came the traders. They saw in the forests a means of making money from-resin and wood. They began cutting down the trees and started what they called “scientific management of the forests.
This meant removing the natural forests which allowed people to live in them, which supplied India with regular water and rainfalls; removing this natural resource and replacing it with a single type of tree which would bring them a bigger profit.
“This destroyed the natural equilibrium of the forests.  Result a drop in the rainfall, drying up of streams loss of valuable top soil into the river, slitting of dams, floods and droughts in the plains.”
Where the soil goes, the men follow. So with the washing away of the Himalayan soil due to a lack of protection from trees, the, men have also begun leaving the area.
The single trees meant that the people could no longer find food for their survival the forest – so that men began to migrate to the cities, and soon started the “money order economy”-regular MOs to keep their families –alive!
But the life of the women was still difficult.  Often she had to walk up to 20 km a day to get drinking water, fuel and fodder for the family-and this in a land fed by rivers and trees.
Life was so strenuous, so lonely, for the women that many reportedly committed suicide. But when the woman began to understand that the reason for her impoverished life was the destruction of the forests, she began to save the trees by hugging them whenever there was a danger to them.
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 Began the Chiko Andolan-by women who could neither read nor write, but today are the leaders.  What started in just one village today covers vast areas of the Chamoll ,Tehri Garwal and Almora districts of UP.
The demands of the movement will affect the entire country.  First every tree protects the country against flood and drought.  Thus in the interests of soil and water conservation, they are demanding no more cutting of green trees till 60 percent if the land area of the hills is protected.
Second, they are demanding an active reforestation programme-with priority for five types of trees-food fodder, fuel, and fiber.
And with the movement spreading gaining support, there hopefully will be some effect on government policy.
The women of Chipko are saying that man’s current relationship with nature is one of destruction.  And it is necessary to change that relationship. Every day around us we see examples of how nature is being destroyed – the waters in the cities are polluted by the factories: trees are cut down to widen roads; the air is full of smoke which can poison.
It is our life, and the life of our children which is being gradually destroyed.  Cannot women in every city and town begin a Chipko Andolan to ensure that the world is a better, healthier place for us and our children?

              
                                                                                                  DECEMBER 6TH, 1980

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