Sunderlal Bahuguna is one of India?s foremost environmental activist, who initiated the Chipko Movement, was born on January 9, 1927. He has been fighting for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas. The slogans coined by him are 'ecology is permanent economy' and "Embrace the trees and Save them from being felled The property of our hills, Save them from being looted."

He spent productive years of his life raising voice for environment issues and this remains close to his heart. He always opposed construction of huge dams such as Tehri in Uttarakhand .According to him it serves no purpose to the locals and cause enormous loss to ecology.

He wants government to focus on three points – generate electricity from small run of the river hydrpower projects, make arrangements to lift water from rivers and find a solution to replace pine trees with broad leaf trees that can restore water and bear fruits. He says, Pine works as a catalyst for the fire that takes toll of the thousands of acres of forest every year and Pine was introduced by Britons and now needs to be rooted out. He is against making new roads by blasting mountains or widening existing one.

The Chipko movement had started in the early 18th century in Rajasthan. A local woman, Amrita Devi, risked her life along with 84 villagers to protect the forest trees from being cut. It began, in the 20th century, in the hills where forests are the main source of livelihood. The movement practiced the Gandhian method of Satyagraha. A flashpoint was reached on March 26, 1974 when a group of village women in Chamoli district resorted to hugging trees to prevent them from being felled. The protest soon spread far and wide.In the early 1980s Bahuguna made the movement even more popular by undertaking a 5,000-kilometre march through the Himalayas. He visited hundreds of villages in the region to spread awareness and gather support for the cause. He also met the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, a meeting that is said to have paved the way for a ban on felling of green trees for 15 years in the region.

The other major campaign which Bahuguna spearheaded was against the Tehri Dam along the Bhagirathi river because of its adverse ecological effects. He went on several hunger strikes against the construction of the dam including a month-and-a-half fast during the tenure of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. However, despite the years of peaceful protests, work re-started on the dam and in 2004 when the dam reservoir started filling up, he was forced to move to Koti, a little hillock near the river. He said, building the dam is a temporary solution to a permanent problem, it will benefit the richest farmer, it will uproot the forests of Tehri. The benefits will go to the rich farmers of Western UP and to Delhi?s residents. Despite the setback, Bahugana?s campaigns continued, inspiring many other younger green crusaders in various parts of the country.

References:

environmentportal.in

thelogicalindian

in.com

indianfolklore.org

futurechallenges.org www.ecozoicsocieties.org