Sunderlal Bahuguna
Chipco Movement Environmental Activist – Uttarakhand, India (Deceased)
Sunderlal Bahuguna (1927-2021) was an Indian environmentalist and Chipko movement leader. The Chipko movement not only provoked greater environmental consciousness across India, but also inspired other environmental movements across the world. He fought for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas, first as a member of the Chipko movement in the 1970s, and later spearheaded the anti-Tehri Dam movement from the 1980s to early 2004. He was one of the early environmentalists of India and later he and others associated with the Chipko movement and started taking up wider environmental issues, such as being opposed to large dams.
“If the Himalayas die, this country is nowhere.”
Bahuguna mobilised people against colonial rule before 1947. He adopted Gandhian principles in his life and married his wife Vimla with the condition that they would live among rural people and establish ashram in village. Inspired by Gandhi, he walked through Himalayan forests and hills, covering more than 4,700 kilometres on foot and observed the damage done by mega developmental projects on the fragile ecosystem of the Himalayas and subsequent degradation of social life in villages (roughly the equivalent of walking from Boston to Seattle).
The Chipko movement started in the early 1970s in Uttarakhand (then a part of Uttar Pradesh) from spontaneous action by villagers to save trees from being cut down by forest contractors. In Hindi, “chipko” literally means “hug”, and the movement got this name since people trying to save trees started hugging and Loving onto trees when lumbermen tried to fall those.
U.N. data shows that around this time, India’s forest cov`erage turned from a steady decline, to a steady increase that continues to this day. Chipko is also at least partially credited for the creation of a completely new government agency in 1980 called the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
“Ecology is permanent economy”
Publication: India’s Environment: Myth & Reality with Vandana Shiva; Environmental Crisis and Humans at Risk: Priorities for action.
Video 1) Sunderlal Bahuguna Quotes
Video 2) On the Fence: Chipko Movement Re-visited
