A tribute to Sunderlal Bahuguna, founder of the Chipko movement (tree huggers) in India
On the 27th of March 1973 — exactly 48 years ago — a group of peasants in a remote Himalayan village stopped a group of loggers from felling a patch of trees. Thus, was born the Chipko movement, and through it the modern Indian environmental movement itself. Everything he believed in and stood for, is hugely relevant even today maybe even more so…
Sunderlal Bahuguna is an Indian eco-activist and Gandhian peace worker, who has been one of the leaders of the Chipko movement of the 1970s. Chipko means ‘embrace’ or ‘tree huggers’ and this vast movement has been a decentralized one with many leaders, usually village women, who have worked to protect the environment. They would often chain themselves to trees so that loggers could not cut down the forests. These actions slowed down deforestation, but more importantly they brought it to the public’s attention. His activism also led the then Indian Prime Minister, to pass a legislation to protect some areas of the Himalayan forests from being destroyed. The Chipko Movement received the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize, for its dedication to the conservation, restoration and ecologically-sound use of India’s natural resources.”
Bahuguna did not have any formal education in the subject. It was his love for the hills that drove him to pursue environmental conservation. “Hills are a storehouse of resources but people in the hills are still poor. Protecting these resources will definitely improve the lives of people,” he said.
Bahuguna was an evangelist of sustainable practices and often spoke about the need for India to produce biogas from human waste, harvest solar and wind energy. He suggested the importance of improving machines so they consume less energy. “Industrialization and development have adversely affected the environment. Earlier, people used to have a connection with the environment, which is disappearing nowadays. People need to understand the importance of the balance between the environment and human development for the healthy existence of all species,” he said.
Sunderlal Bahuguna, the indefatigable environmentalist, ‘Guard of the Himalayas’, ‘gentle warrior’, who taught Indians to care for the environment, passed away on 21st May 2021, due to COVID at 94 in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India.