Thirty-five years ago this week, a group of peasants in the upper Alakananda Valley stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of forest. That act of protest gave birth to the Chipko Andolan and, by extension,
Thirty-five years ago this week, a group of peasants in the upper Alakananda Valley stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of forest. That act of protest gave birth to the Chipko Andolan and, by extension, to the Indian environmental movement. Through the 1970s, other peasants in the Himalya successfully prevented other loggers from decimating public forests. Then, under the leadership of the visionary Chandi Prasad Bhatt, they turned from protest to reconstruction, reforesting barren hillsides and promoting renewable sources of energy such as biogas plants and microhydel projects.
Unlike in the West, where modern environmentalis