History repeats

Remember the Chipko Movement? It was all about hugging the trees to prevent them from being cut down. To be more specific, in 1973, in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, villagers of Mandal led by activists prevented the Allahabad-based sports goods company, Symonds, from felling 14 ash trees. This act took place on April 24 and, in December, the villagers again stopped Symonds agents from felling in the Phata-Rampur forests, about 60 km from Gopeshwar.

This movement spread to almost all villages around and in 1975 marked true victory when the Govt issued a 10-year ban on commercial forestry in Reni and in nearly 1,200 sq km of the upper catchment of the Alaknanda. The ban was extended for 10 years in 1985. Another response to Chipko was the formation of a Van Nigam, a state-owned forest corporation, in 1975 to take over all forms of forest exploitation from private contractors.

On 19th Oct, the Chipko Movement was recreated in Dehradun as hundreds gathered to oppose felling of 10,000 trees for expansion of the airport. Hundreds of locals of Thano, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Bhaniyawala gathered and tied 'Raksha Sutras' to the trees pledging to protect them. Apart from this, slogans were raised on protecting the forests with some hugging trees after tying the Raksha Sutra.

Further, the Uttarakhand government has sought the National Wildlife Board (NWB)'s approval to transfer 243 acres of forest land to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for expanding the airport.

If such protests are not held, the Govt, in this quest to ‘develop’ will create a disaster in ecologically fragile places like Uttarakhand. When will the Govt realise that what works for the plains cannot be replicated for mountainous regions, that’s the simple truth.