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Commonwealth NGOs
related to forestry | | |
 Chipko Movement
P.O. Silyara via Ghansali
Tehri-Garhwal 249155
Uttar Pradesh
India
Email:
Website: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipko_movement
Type: NGO
Scope: national
Interest in Forestry: central
Description
The forests of India are a critical resource for the subsistence of rural peoples throughout the country,
but especially in hill and mountain areas, both because of their direct provision of food, fuel and
fodder and because of their role in stabilising soil and water resources. As these forests have been
increasingly felled for commerce and industry, Indian villagers have sought to protect their livelihoods
through the Gandhian method of satyagraha non-violent resistence. In the 1970s and 1980s this resistance
to the destruction of forests spread throughout India and became organised and known as
the Chipko Movement.
From their origins as a spontaneous protest against logging abuses in Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayas,
thousands of supporters of the Chipko movement, mainly village level women, have won bans on
clear felling in an number of regions and influenced natural resource policy in India. The name of the
movement comes from a word meaning "embrace". The women practiced satagraha - non-violent
resistance, and interposed their bodies between the trees and the contractors' axes, thus becoming the
environmental movement's first tree huggers.
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