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• Chipko Movement, 1973

• The Silent Valley Project, 1978

• Jungle Bachao Andolan, 1980s

• Narmada Bachao Andolan, 1985

 Chipko Movement, 1973

• The 1980s saw the debate on environment move from just deforestation to the larger
issues of depletion of natural resourcesThe 1980s saw the debate on environment
move from just deforestation to the larger issues of depletion of natural resources

• “In the wake of reckless deforestation, a unique movement has bubbled,”observed

India Today in March 1982. The 1980s saw the debate on environment move from just
deforestation to the larger issues of depletion of natural resources.“

• Chipko movement in the Garhwal Himalayas, shoved aside urban armchair

naturalists.

• Led by Chandni Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Bahuguna, it was a people’s revolt
against mindless deforestation.

• And they did it simply. By hugging trees when the woodmen came to axe them,”said
India Today in January 1990.
Photograph
 The Silent Valley Project, 1978
The Silent Valley hydroelectric project was to dam the Kunthipuzha RiverThe
It was a battlefield of personal agendas, between the then prime minister
Morarji Desai, the Kerala government and the environmentalists.

submerging the entire biosphere reserve and destroying its four-million-year-old

rainforests.

In 1980, the M.G.K. Menon Committee set up to review the project, came out
with a recommendation to scrap it.

With 40 per cent of its so-called surplus power being supplied to other parts and
many villages of Kerala waiting to be electrified, this grassroots movement
became the bedrock of Indian environmental activism (India Today, August
2003).
New v/s old
 Jungle Bachao Andolan, 1980s

• “Most states exist in the bliss of ignorance,”

observed India Today in March 1982. It was this
observation that led to the birth of the Jungle
Bachao Andolan, that began in Bihar and later
spread to states like Jharkhand and Orissa.The
tribals of Singhbhum district of Bihar bubbled up a
protest when the government decided to replace
the natural sal forests with highly-priced teak, a
move that was termed “a greed game, political
populism”.
Photograph
 Narmada Bachao
Andolan, 1985
• Narmada Bachao Andolan announced the
arrival of the India Greens, protesting against
destructive development.
• “One of the largest and most successful
environmental campaigns, Narmada Bachao
Andolan began with a wide developmental
agenda, questioning the very rationale of
large dam projects in India” (India Today,
December 2007).
A c t ’s
 The Indian Forest Act, 1927
• The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was largely based on previous
Indian Forest Acts implemented under the British. The most
famous one was the Indian Forest Act of 1878. Both the 1878
act and the 1927 act sought to consolidate and reserve the
areas having forest cover, or significant wildlife, to regulate
movement and transit of forest produce, and duty leviable on
timber and other forest produce. It also defines the procedure
to be followed for declaring an area to be a Reserved Forest, a
Protected Forest or a Village Forest. It defines what is a forest
offence, what are the acts prohibited inside a Reserved Forest,
and penalties leviable on violation of the provisions of the Act.
 Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers
Right Act, 2001
• The Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Right
Act, 2001 (PPVFR Act) is an Act of the Parliament
of India that was enacted to provide for the
establishment of an effective system for
protection of plant varieties, the rights of
farmers and plant breeders, and to encourage
the development and cultivation of new varieties
of plants. This act received the assent of the
President of India on the 30 October 2001.
 Forest Conservation Act, 1980

• The Forest Conservation Act, 1980 focuses on the diversion of

forest areas for non-forestry purposes. The State government
acts as the enforcing authority for all requests and proposals
to use forest land for development and infrastructure building
such as providing drinking water, irrigation projects,
transmission lines, railway, power, defence, mining etc. The Act
also provides that for all forest land lost to such development–
compensatory afforestation, catchment area treatment,
biodiversity and wildlife conservation, rehabilitation of tribal
communities living on forest lands are matters that should be
addressed by the state and other parties involved.
 National Forestry Policy, 1988
• The policy lays emphasis on the concept of Joint Forest
Management where villages and the relevant forest department
manage specific forest blocks together to
• meet the basic needs of rural and tribal populations,
• -increase forest productivity
• -improve the efficiency of forest product utilization
• -minimize pressure on existing forests
• The Joint Forest Management scheme is perhaps the best and most
effective strategy to have emerged from the National Forestry
Policy with 85, 000 village committees set up across 27 Indian
states managing 17.3 million hectares of forest land under them.
Case study
• The Amazon in context Tropical rainforests are often considered to be the
“cradles of biodiversity.” Though they cover only about 6% of the Earth’s land
surface, they are home to over 50% of global biodiversity. Rain forests also take
in massive amounts of carbon dioxide and release oxygen through
photosynthesis, which has also given them the nickname “lungs of the planet.”
They also store very large amounts of carbon, and so cutting and burning their
biomass contributes to global climate change. Many modern medicines are
derived from rainforest plants, and several very important food crops
originated in the rainforest, including bananas, mangos, chocolate, coffee, and
sugar cane . Aerial view of the Amazon tributary Figure 10.6 Amazon Tributary
Credit: Karl Zimmerer In order to qualify as a tropical rainforest, an area must
receive over 250 centimeters of rainfall each year and have an average
temperature above 24 degrees centigrade, as well as never experiencing frosts.
The Amazon rainforest in South America is the largest in the world. The second
largest is the Congo in central Africa, and other important rainforests can be
found in Central America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Brazil contains
about 40% of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest. Its rainforest covers an
area of land about 2/3 the size of the continental United States.World map
showing the areas of tropical wet forests. Some in South America, Africa, and
South East AsiaFigure 10.7 Areas of tropical wet forestsCredit: Public
DomainThere are countless reasons, both anthropocentric and ecocentric, to
value rainforests. But they are one of the
most threatened types of ecosystems in the world today. It’s somewhat difficult to estimate how quickly rainforests are
being cut down, but estimates range from between 50,000 and 170,000 square kilometers per year. Even the most
conservative estimates project that if we keep cutting rainforests as we are today, within about 100 years there will be
none left.How does a rainforest work?Rainforests are incredibly complex ecosystems, but understanding a few basics
about their ecology will help us understand why clear-cutting and fragmentation are such destructive activities for
rainforest biodiversity.trees in the tropical rain forestFigure 10.8 Lateral plane roots. Trees have developed lateral plane
roots in the rain forest to ensure stability because the lack of soil fertility discourages deep tap root growth for this
purpose.Credit: Karl ZimmererHigh biodiversity in tropical rainforests means that the interrelationships between
organisms are very complex. A single tree may house more than 40 different ant species, each of which has a different
ecological function and may alter the habitat in distinct and important ways. Ecologists debate about whether systems
that have high biodiversity are stable and resilient, like a spider web composed of many strong individual strands, or
fragile, like a house of cards. Both metaphors are likely appropriate in some cases. One thing we can be certain of is that it
is very difficult in a rainforest system, as in most others, to affect just one type of organism. Also, clear cutting one small
area may damage hundreds or thousands of established species interactions that reach beyond the cleared
area.Pollination is a challenge for rainforest trees because there are so many different species, unlike forests in the
temperate regions that are often dominated by less than a dozen tree species. One solution is for individual trees to grow
close together, making pollination simpler, but this can make that species vulnerable to extinction if the one area where it
lives is clear cut. Another strategy is to develop a mutualistic relationship with a long-distance pollinator, like a specific
bee or hummingbird species. These pollinators develop mental maps of where each tree of a particular species is located
and then travel between them on a sort of “trap-line” that allows trees to pollinate each other. One problem is that if a
forest is fragmented then these trap-line connections can be disrupted, and so trees can fail to be pollinated and reproduce
even if they haven’t been cut.The quality of rainforest soils is perhaps the most surprising aspect of their ecology. We
might expect a lush rainforest to grow from incredibly rich, fertile soils, but actually, the opposite is true. While some
rainforest soils that are derived from volcanic ash or from river deposits can be quite fertile, generally rainforest soils are
very poor in nutrients and organic matter. Rainforests hold most of their nutrients in their live vegetation, not in the soil.
Their soils do not maintain nutrients very well either, which means that existing nutrients quickly “leech” out, being
carried away by water as it percolates through the soil. Also, soils in rainforests tend to be acidic, which means that it’s
difficult for plants to access even the few existing nutrients. The section on slash and burn agriculture in the previous
module describes some of the challenges that farmers face when they attempt to grow crops on tropical rainforest soils,
but perhaps the most important lesson is that once a rainforest is cut
down and cleared away, very little fertility is left to help a forest regrow.What is driving deforestation in the
Amazon?Many factors contribute to tropical deforestation, but consider this typical set of circumstances and
processes that result in rapid and unsustainable rates of deforestation. This story fits well with the historical
experience of Brazil and other countries with territory in the Amazon Basin.Population growth and poverty
encourage poor farmers to clear new areas of rainforest, and their efforts are further exacerbated by
government policies that permit landless peasants to establish legal title to land that they have cleared.At
the same time, international lending institutions like the World Bank provide money to the national
government for large-scale projects like mining, construction of dams, new roads, and other infrastructure
that directly reduces the forest or makes it easier for farmers to access new areas to clear.The activities most
often encouraging new road development are timber harvesting and mining. Loggers cut out the best timber
for domestic use or export, and in the process knock over many other less valuable trees. Those trees are
eventually cleared and used for wood pulp, or burned, and the area is converted into cattle pastures. After a
few years, the vegetation is sufficiently degraded to make it not profitable to raise cattle, and the land is sold
to poor farmers seeking out a subsistence living.Regardless of how poor farmers get their land, they often
are only able to gain a few years of decent crop yields before the poor quality of the soil overwhelms their
efforts, and then they are forced to move on to another plot of land. Small-scale farmers also hunt for meat
in the remaining fragmented forest areas, which reduces the biodiversity in those areas as well.Another
important factor not mentioned in the scenario above is the clearing of rainforest for industrial agriculture
plantations of bananas, pineapples, and sugar cane. These crops are primarily grown for export, and so an
additional driver to consider is consumer demand for these crops in countries like the United States.These
cycles of land use, which are driven by poverty and population growth as well as government policies, have
led to the rapid loss of tropical rainforests. What is lost in many cases is not simply biodiversity, but also
valuable renewable resources that could sustain many generations of humans to come. Efforts to protect
rainforests and other areas of high biodiversity is the topic of the next section.