Quarterly A Journal of Ecological Spirituality Vol. II, No.4

Our decision to reprint an article on the Chipko (Embrace-the-Tree) movement in this issue grew out of a conversation between Don St. John and J. Bandyopadhyay in Bangalore, , last July. Don was participating in a Fulbright-Hays summer seminar which focused on Indian social change. This provided him with an opportunity to travel throughout most of India, meet with leading figures from all sectors of Indian life and visit several grassroots projects sponsored by Gandhian organizations. In addition, Don used the trip as a way of meeting with Indian environmentalists and learning about the state of the Indian environment. We hope to present a summary of the Indian situation in a later issue.

Large-scale exploitation such as that discussed in this issue of Ecospirit does not have to be examined very deeply before a pattern emerges. The outline and sequence of events in the exploitation senario described in the following article form a classic case of what can be called the "Exploitation Syndrome." Social groups in which resources are held in common seem particularily vulnerable to this syndrome. Such groups devise social contracts that both control exploitation by individual members of the group and ensure productivity. Perhaps such social organizations prove vulnerable to the exploitation syndrome because their social contracts depend upon tradition and close personal contact. Both can be easily broken by any process of social disruption.

The first stage of the syndrome is the imposition of the idea of private property on the residents by outside forces. Colonialization has been a major contributor to this throughout the globe. Private property then encourages increased domestic need -- greater consumption rather than less -- and fosters a non-local commercialism. For example, because the 18th century English wanted sugar, indigenous people in the Carribean were enslaved and their land impoverished. The second stage in the exploitation syndrome is the foundation of government bureaucracies which condone and "legalize" commercial use because they depend upon the revenue derived from commercialism. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of the Army are two agencies involved in taking the American Indian's land for commercial use. That battle is still continuing.

I have identified at least six factors that can intervene to arrest the exploitation syndrome, though I suspect there are more. Not all of them are found in the article that follows. However, there is no better example of the first type of intervention -- persistent local resistance -- than Indian passive resistance. Brazil furnishes examples of two types of intervention -- loss of economic value and natural forces. For example, when it became possible to produce rubber that was both cheaper and of better quality than that from Brazil, the Brazilian rubber trade was abandoned. Natural forces may well prove that massive daming of the Amazon is impractical because of a generally adverse environment. Applied science can also reverse the decay of local conditions. Agricultural innovation in Africa was a cause of some recent optimism. Ecological legislation is sometimes powerful as well. U. S. commercial whaling was dismantled through Congressional action. A sixth type of intervention is adoption of an alternative worldview. The editors of Ecospirit are proud to join with others throughout the world who are nurturing this new worldview rooted in the sacred vitality of nature.

--Paul Larson THE EVOLUTION, STRUCTURE, AND IMPACT OF THE Colonial Roots of Conflict ----- CHIPKO MOVEMENT The conflicts and tension from which by and J. Bandyopadhyay the famous Chipko Movement has emerged can be traced historically to the drastic Conflicts over forest resources in changes in forest management and utilization India are mainly a product of the opposing introduced into India during the colonial demands on these resources. They are period. Forests, like other vital generated by the requirements of resources, were managed traditionally as conservation and the need to satisfy the common resources with strict, though basic living requirements of the informal, social mechanisms for controlling marginalized majority, on the one hand, and their exploitation to ensure sustained the demands of commerce and industry, on the productivity. In addition to the large other. During the past century, there has tracts of natural forests that were been a progressive encroachment by the State maintained through this careful husbanding, on the rights and privileges of the people village forests and woodlots were also to forest resources. The people have developed and maintained through the resisted this encroachment in various parts deliberate selection of appropriate tree of India mainly through the Gandhian non­ species. Remnants of commonly managed cooperation method of protest, well-known as natural forests and village commons still "Forest ". In the forest areas of exist in pockets and these provide insights the Garhwa1 Himalaya this style of protest into the scientific basis underlying was revived in independent India as the traditional land management. "Chipko" or "Embrace-the-Tree" movement to protect trees marked for felling. Although Colonial impact on forest management Chipko was first practiced in the Garhwa1 undermined these conservation strategies in Himalaya, it has now spread to most of the two ways. First, changes in land tenure, country, especially the hilly regions. such as the introduction of the zamindari system, transformed common village This paper will examine the resources into the private property of newly philosophical and organizational continuity created landlords and this led to their of the Chipko Movement with the Indian destruction. The pressure of domestic tradition of resolving conflicts through needs, no longer satisfied by village non-violent non-cooperation, a political forests and grasslands, were, therefore, strategy revived by Mahatma Gandhi and diverted to natural forests. Second, large­ adopted by the Gandhian workers in all parts scale fe11ings in natural forests to satisfy of the country. The Chipko Movement, non-local commercial needs, such as however, is unique" in a fundamental way. shipbuilding for the British Royal Navy and Although it had its roots in a movement sleepers (railroad" ties) for the expanding based on the politics of the distribution of railway network in India, created an the benefits of resources, it soon became an extraordinary force for destruction. After ecological movement rooted in the politics about half a century of uncontrolled of the distribution of ecological costs. exploitation the need for control slowly Further, though the visible leaders of the became apparent. The formation of the movement are men, the strength of the forest bureaucracy and the reservation of movement lies in the support from women. forest areas was the colonial response to The paper will analyse the subjective ensure control of commercial forest and objective factors that account for the exploitation as a means to maintain rapid spread of the movement. Finally, an revenues. Forest conservancy was directed assessment of its impact at the national and at the conservation of forest revenues and global levels will be made. Chipko, as a not at the forests themselves. This narrow model for the resolution of conflicts over interpretation of conservation generated natural resources in general, will be severe conflicts at two levels. At the examined. level of utilization, the new management system catered only to commercial demands and ignored local basic needs. People were Reprinted from Mountain Research and denied their traditional rights which, in Development, Vol. 6, No.2, 1986, pp. 133­ some cases, were re-introQuced as 142. With permission. References deleted. 2 concessions and privileges after prolonged the were taken up. Satyagrahas struggles At the conservation level, since were used by Gandhij i against systems of the new forest management was only concerned material exploitation which were the main with stable forest revenues and not with the tools for profit making of the British, and stability of forest ecosystems, in which was rooted the material under­ ecologically unsound silviculture practices development of the Indian masses. It was were introduced. This undermined biological used in Champaran to save Indian peasants productivity of forest areas and transformed from the compulsory cultivation of indigo in renewable resources into non-renewable place of foodcrops. It was used in Dandi ones. and in other parts of the country to protest against the exploitative Salt Law. It was The reservation of forests and the used to safeguard the interests of the denial of the villagers' right of access led Indian weavers who were pauperized by the to the creation of resistance movements in unequal competition with mill-made cloth all parts of the country. The Forest Act of from Europe. It was used by forest 1927 intensified the conflicts and the 1930s movements to resist the denial of witnessed widespread Forest Satyagrahas as a traditional rights. Unfortunately, in spite mode of non-violent resistance to the new of the fact that Gandhian satyagrahas were forest laws and policies. used to oppose the economic system that Satyagraha and Conflict Resolution created material poverty and underdevelopment, usually they have been Satyagraha, in the Gandhian view, was described and understood as non-material and the use of non-violent resistance as a spiritual transformations without any political weapon in place of the force of materialist base. This common perception of arms. Unlike many other well-known Gandhian movements as unrelated to the political philosophies, Gandhian philosophy material contradictions in society is has never been claimed to be strictly completely fallacious. The subjective and materialist. In the absence of such overt spiritual nature of the force of satyagraha categorization, Gandhian philosophy usually has systematically been confused with the has been assumed to be based on subjective, material and objective contradictions in idealist, or moral forces, rather than society against which the force was used. objective or materialist ones. Accordingly, the most important political weapon used in The classical view of the contradiction the Gandhian movements, the satyagraha, has between the working class and the always been mystified as an emotional force capitalists has dominated the attempts at without any materialist base. A closer analysing the class relations in socio-historical evaluation is needed to de­ contemporary Indian society. The deeper and mystify the image of Gandhian satyagrahas more severe contradiction that touch upon and to establish the materialist basis of the lives of the vast number of people, Gandhian movements such as Chipko. based on the contradiction between the economics of sustainable development and The power of satyagraha, in the form of capitalist production for profit-making and non-cooperation, has been a traditional mode economic growth, is hardly perceived or of protest against exploitative authority in recognized. Gandhij i had focused his India. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhiji wrote that attention on these more fundamental and through satyagraha he was merely carrying severe material contradictions in Indian forward an ancient tradition: "In India the society since he understood the problem of nation at large had generally used passive the invisible and marginalized majority in resistance in all departments of life. We India. The material basis for survival of cease to cooperate with our rulers when they this marginalized majority was threatened by displease us." the resource demands of the capitalist The dominance of the use of moral force production system introduced into India by was not, however, an indicator of the non­ the British. In this manner, without making material objectives of these movements. The any claims about being materialistic, strong material basis of the Gandhian Gandhiji politicized the most severe movements becomes visible after a detailed material contradictions of his time. analysis of the concrete issues and contradictions for the settlement of which

3 Forest Satyagraha to Chipko Forest Movements in The years 1930-31 witnessed the spread Forest resources are the critical of forest Satyagrahas throughout India as a ecological elements in the vulnerable protest against the reservation of forests Himalayan ecosystem. The natural broad­ for exclusive exploitation by British leaved and mixed forest have been central in commercial interests and its concomitant maintaining water and soil stability under transformation of a common resource into a conditions of heavy seasonal rainfall. They commodity. Villagers ceremonially removed have also provided the most significant forest products from the reserved forests to input for sustainable agriculture and animal assert their right to satisfy their basic husbandry in the hills. Undoubtedly, the needs. The forest satyagrahas were forests provide the material basis for the especially successful in regions where whole agro-pastoral economy of the hill survival of the local population was villages. intimately linked with access to the Green leaves and grass satisfy the forests, as in the Himalaya, the Western fodder requirement of the farm animals whose Ghats, and the Central Indian hills. These dung provides the only source of nutrients non-violent protests were suppressed by the for food crops. Dry twigs and branches are British rulers. In Central India, Gond the only source of domestic cooking fuel. tribals were gunned down for participating Agricultural implements and house frames in the satyagraha. On 30 May 1930 dozens of require forest timber. The forests also unarmed villagers were killed and hundreds provide large amounts of fruit, edible nuts, injured in Tilari village, Tehri Garhwal, fibres, and herbs for local consumption. when they gathered to protest the Forest Laws of the rulers. During the nineteenth century a third demand was put on these forest resources of After enormous loss of life, the Garhwal. In 1850 an Englishman, Mr. Wilson, satyagrahas were successful in reviving some obtained a lease to exploit all the forests of the traditional rights of the village of the Kingdom of Tehri-Garhwal for the communities to various forest products. small annual rental of 400 rupees. Under This, however, did not mean that his axe several valuable Deodar and Chir satisfaction of the basic requirements of forests were clear-felled and completely the people, or the ecological role of the destroyed. In 1864, inspired by Mr. forests, replaced the revenue maximizing Wilson's flouishing timber business, the objectives as the guiding principle of British rulers of the northwestern provinces British forest management in India. took a lease for 20 years and engaged Wilson Furthermore, the objective of growth in to exploit the forests for them. European financial terms continues to direct settlements, such as , created new contemporary forest management in post­ pressures for the cultivation of food crops, Independence India with even greater leading to large-scale felling of oak ruthlessness, since it is now carried out in forests. Conservation of the forests was the name of "national interest" and not considered. In his report on the forests "economic growth." The cost of achieving of the state, E. A. Courthope, IFS, this growth has been the destruction of remarked: "It seems possible that it was not forest ecosystems and huge losses through mainly with the idea of preserving the floods and droughts. In ecologically forests that government entered into this sensitive regions, such as the Himalaya, contract." In 1895 the Tehri State took the this destruction has threatened the survival management of forests in its own hands when of the forest-dwelling communities. The they realized their great economic people's response to this deepening crisis importance from the example of Mr. Wilson has emerged as non-violent Gandhian and the government. Between 1897 and 1899 resistance: the Chipko Movement. Beginning forest areas were reserved and restrictions in the early 1970s in the Garhwal region of were placed on village use. These Uttar Pradesh, the methodology and restrictions were much disliked and utterly philosophy of Chipko has now spread to disregarded by the villagers, and led to in the north, to Karnataka cases of organized resistance against in the south, to Rajasthan in the west, to authority. On 31 March 1905 a Durbar in the east, and to the Vindhyas in circular (No. 11) from the Tehri King Central India. 4 announced modifications to these time of the Salt Satyagraha. He died as a restrictions in response to the resistance. martyr for the cause of the 's rights to survive with dignity and The modifications, however, failed to freedom. Both Mira Behn and Sarala Behn diffuse the tension. Small struggles took were close associates of Gandhij i. After place throughout the kingdom, but the most his death, they both moved to the interior significant resistance occurred in 1907 when of Himalaya and established ashrams. Sarala a forest officer, Sadanand Gairola, was Behn settled in Kumaun and Mira Behn lived manhandled in Khandogi. When King Kirti in Garhwal until her departure for Vienna Shah heard about the revolt he rushed to the due to ill health. Equipped with the spot to pacify the citizens. Gandhian world-view of development based The contradictions between the upon justice and ecological stability, they people's basic needs and the State's revenue contributed silently to the growth of women­ requirements remained unresolved and in due power and ecological consciousness in the course they intensified. In 1930 the people hill areas of Uttar Pradesh. Sunderlal of Garhwal began the non-cooperation Bahuguna is prominent among the new movement mainly around the issue of forest generation of workers deeply inspired by resources. Satyagraha to resist the new these Gandhians. Influenced by Sri Dev oppressive forest laws was most intense in Suman, he joined the Independence movement the Rawain region. The King of Tehri was in at the age of 13. Now, at nearly 60, he is Europe at the time. His Dewan, Chakradhar busy strengthening the philosophical base of Jayal, crushed the peaceful satyagraha with the Chipko Movement from the Gandhian view armed force. A large number of unarmed of nature. The rapid spread of resistance, Satyagrahis were killed and wounded, while based on the Movement, in the hills of Uttar many others lost their lives in a desperate Pradesh and its success in enforcing changes attempt to cross the rapids of the Yamuna in forest management was largely due to the River. While the right of access to forest awareness created by folk poets, such as resources remained a burning issue in the Chanshyam Raturi, and grass-roots Garhwal Kingdom, the anti-imperialist organizational efforts of a number of freedom movement in India invigorated the activists, such as in Garhwali people's movement for democracy. Chamoli and Dhoom Singh Negi in Tehri The Saklana, Badiyargarh, Karakot, Garhwal. Kirtinagar, and other regions revolted The Gandhian movement in Garhwal in the against the King's rule in 1947 and declared post-Independence period had organized themselves independent panchayats. Finally itself around three central issues: (1) on 1 August 1949 the Kingdom of Tehri was organization of women power; (2) struggle liberated from feudal rule and became an against the liquor menace; and (3) the integral part of the Union of India and the forest problem. The organizational platform State of Uttar Pradesh. for the Chipko Movement was ready, The heritage of political struggle for therefore, when in the 1960s destruction of social justice and ecological stability in Himalayan forests through commercial Garhwal was strengthened in post­ exploitation became the major cause of Independence India with the influence of ecological instability in the Himalaya. eminent Gandhians, such as Mira Behn and Since forest exploitation was carried out by Sarala Behn. private contractors, the Movement, in its initial stages, attempted to stop the The Chipko Movement is, historically, auctioning of forests for felling by philosophically, and organizationally, an contractors. Auctions were held up by extension of traditional Gandhian protesters in , , Satyagraha. Its special significance is Narendranagar, Tehri, and Uttarkashi. Songs that it is taking place in post-Independence by the folk poet Ghanashyam Raturi were India. The continuity between the pre­ central to the mobilization of support for Independence and post-Independence forms of these protests. The songs reminded the hill this satyagraha has been provided by people of their forest-based culture and Gandhians, such as Sri Dev Suman, Mira Behn, created an environment within which the hill and Sarala Behn, Sri Dev Suman was people became more aware of the need for initiated into Gandhian Satyagraha at the forest protection. In particular, one

5 popular folk-song by Raturi, written in forests took place in October 1977 in 1973, identifies embracing the trees as a Narendernagar, the district headquarters. method of saving them from the axe-men. It Bahuguna undertook a fast against the is this cultural and political climate and auction and appealed to the forest heritage which marks the birth of the now contractor and the district authorities to famous Chipko Movement. refrain from auctioning the forests. The auction was undertaken despite the There has been a lot of confusion in expression of popular discontent. In the the search for the originator of the Chipko first week of December 1977, the Adwani Movement. However, the Movement is not the forests were scheduled to be felled. Large conceptual creation of anyone individual. groups of women led by Bachhni Devi came It is the expression of an old social forward to save the forests. Interestingly, consciousness in a new context. Chipko, Bachhni Devi was the wife of the local like the earlier forest satyagrahas and village head, who was himself a contractor. movements in Garhwal, is aimed jointly at Dhoom Singh Negi supported the women's protecting forests, preserving a culture, struggle by undertaking a fast in the forest and maintaining livelihoods. It is the itself. The women tied sacred threads to response of a whole culture to the central the trees as a token of a vow of protection. problems related to the survival of the hill Between 13 and 20 December large numbers of people. Today, the women of Garhwal are the women from 15 villages guarded the forests main bearers of this culture. while discourses on the role of forests in This is the primary reason why the Indian life from ancient texts went on non­ contemporary struggle to save the survival stop. It was here in Advani that the base in the Himalaya is led by the women. ecological slogan "What do the forests bear? The first Chipko action took place soil, water, and pure air" was born. spontaneously in April 1973, when the The axe-men withdrew only to return on villagers demonstrated against felling of 1 February 1978 with two truckloads of the ash trees in MandaI forest. Again, in March armed police. The plan was to encircle the 1974, 27 women under the leadership of Goura forests with the help of the police in order Devi saved a large number of trees from a to keep people away during the felling contractor's axe. After this, the operation. Even before the police reached government stopped the contract system of the area the volunteers of the Movement felling and formed the Uttar Pradesh Forest entered the forest and explained their case Corporation. During the next five years to the forest labourers who had been brought Chipko resistance to felling took place in in from far distant places. By the time the various parts of Garhwal Himalaya. In May contractors arrived with the policemen each 1977 Chipko activists in Henwal Valley tree was being guarded by three embracing organized themselves for future action. In volunteers. The police, having been June 1977 Sarala Behn planned a meeting of defeated in their own plan and seeing the all activists in the hill areas of Uttar awareness among the people, hastily withdrew Pradesh State which further strengthened the before nightfall. movement and consolidated the resistance to commercial fellings as well as excessive In March 1978 a new auction was planned tapping of resin from the Chir pine trees. in Narendranagar. A large popular In Gotars forest in the Tehri range the demonstration took place against it and the forest ranger was transferred because of his police arrested 23 Chipko volunteers, inability to control illegal over-tapping of including women. In December 1978 a large resin. Consciousness was so high that, in felling was planned by the public sector the Jogidanda area of Saklana range, the U.P. Forest Development Corporation in the public sector agency, Garhwal MandaI Vikas Badiyargarh area. The local people Nigam, was asked to regulate its resin­ instantly informed Bahuguna who started a tapping activity. fast unto death at the felling site. On the eleventh day of his fast Bahuguna was Among the numerous instances of Chipko arrested in the middle of the night and successes throughout the Garhwal Himalaya in taken to j ail. This act only served to the years to follow, the instances in further steel the commitment of the people. Adwani, Amarsar, and Badiargarh merit Folk poet Ghanashyam Raturi and priest Khima special mention. The auction of Adwani

6 Shastri led the movement as thousands of men material costs. At the first stage, the and women from all the villages around growth of commercial interests resulted in joined them in the Badiyargarh forests. The efforts to exclude competing demands. The people remained in the forests and guarded commercial exploitation of India's forest the trees for eleven days, when the resources thus created the need for a forest contractors withdrew. legislation which denied village communities' access to forest resources. The The cumulative impact of the sustained Forest Satyagrahas of the 1930s were the grass-roots struggles to protect the forests result of the Forest Act of 1927 which was a re-thinking of the forest management denied the people access to biomass for strategy in the hill areas. The Chipko survival while increasing biomass demand for declaration of Himalayan forests production for industrial and commercial as protection forests instead of production growth. The growth imperative, however, forests for commercial exploitation was drove production for commercial purposes recognized at the highest policy-making into the second stage of conflict which is level. The late Prime Minister, Indira at the ecological level. Scientific and Gandhi, after meeting with Bahuguna, issued technical knowledge of forestry generated in a directive for a IS-year ban on commercial the existing model of forest management is green felling in the Himalayan forests of limited to viewing forests only as sources Uttar Pradesh. of commercial timber. This gives rise to Ecological Foundation of Chipko prescriptions for forest management which are manipulations to maximize immediate Both the earlier forest satyagrahas and growth of commercial wood. This is achieved their contemporary form, the Chipko initially by the destruction of other Movement, have arisen from conflicts over biomass forms that have lower commercial forest resources and are similar cultural value but may be very important to the responses to forest destruction. What people, or have great ecological differentiates Chipko from the earlier significance. The silvicultural system of struggle is its ecological basis. The new modern forestry embraces prescriptions for concern to save and protect forests through destruction of non-commercial biomass forms Chipko Satyagraha did not arise from a to ensure the increased production of resentment against further encroachment on commercial forms. The encouragement given the people's access to forest resources. It to the replacement of ecologically valuable arose from the alarming signals of rapid oak forests by commercially valuable ecological destabilization in the hills. conifers is an indicator of this shift. Villages that were self-sufficient in food Ultimately, this increase in production may had to resort to food imports as a result of be described as mining of the ecological declining food productivity. This, in turn, capital of the forest ecosystems which have was related to the reduction of soil evolved through thousands of years. fertility in the forests. Water sources began to dry up as the forests disappeared. The contemporary Chipko Movement, The so-called "natural disasters," such as which has become a national campaign, is the floods and landslides, began to occur in result of these multi-dimensional conflicts river systems which had hitherto been over forest resources at the scientific, stable. The Alaknanda disaster of July 1970 technical, economic, and especially the inundated 1,000 km of land in the hills and ecological levels. It is not a narrow washed away many bridges and roads. In 1977 conflict over the local or non-local the Tawaghat tragedy took an even heavier distribution of forest resources, such as toll. In 1978 the Bagirathi blockade above timber and resin. The Chipko demand is not Uttarkashi resulted in massive floods across for a bigger share for the local people in the entire Gangetic plains. the immediate commercial benefits of an ecologically destructive pattern of forest The over-exploitation of forest resource exploitation. Since the Chipko resources and the resulting threat to Movement is based upon the perception of communities living in the forests have thus forests in their ecological context, it evolved from concerns for distribution of exposes the social and ecological costs of material benefits to concerns for growth-oriented forest management. This is distribution of ecologically-generated clearly seen in the slogan of the Chipko

7 Movement which claims that the main products of the forests are not timber or resin, but growing tension between two streams of the soil and water. Basic biomass needs of Chipko Movement; one, guided by the food, fuel, fodder, small timber, and ecological world-view of Sunderial fertilizer can, in the Chipko vision and the Bahuguna, and the other, represented by the Garhwal practice, be satisfied as positive eco-development model of Chandi Prasad externalities of biomass production Bhatt. primarily aimed at soil and water The Bahuguna philosophy is based on the conservation to stabilize the local agro­ ecological thesis that protection of pastoral economy. livelihood and economic productivity is The Chipko Movement has been successful directly dependent on the maintenance of the in forcing a fifteen-year ban on commercial life-support systems. The contemporary green felling in the hills of Uttar Pradesh, economic crises can be solved only by in stopping clear-felling in the Western directly addressing the ecological crises Ghats and the Vindhyas, and in generating symptomized by the destablization of the pressure for a national forest policy which hydrological system and the disruption of is more sensitive to the people's needs and nutrient cycles. Ecological rehabilitation to the ecological requirements of the of the hill areas is the primary task, and country. Unfortunately, the Chipko this involves a temporary moratorium on Movements has often been naively presented green-felling for commercial objectives, by vested interests as a reflection of a both local and non-local, to facilitate conflict between "development" and regeneration. Economic development in this "ecological concern," implying that perspective can only be based on minimizing "development" relates to material and the ecological costs of growth while objective bases of life while "ecology" is maximizing the sustainable productivity of concerned with non-material and subjective nature for the satisfaction of primary human factors, such as scenic beauty. The needs. deliberate introduction of this false and The eco-development model of Bhatt is dangerous dichotomy between "development" based on the acceptance of present modes of and "ecology" disguises the real dichotomy resource utilization with a new emphasis on between ecologically sound development and the location of manufacturing activities in unsustainable and ecologically destructive the hill areas and strengthening of their economic growth. The latter is always raw material base. This model explains achieved through destruction of life­ poverty as the absence of processing support systems and material deprivation of industries and not in the impoverishment of marginal communities. Genuine development the environment. Poverty is seen by Bhatt can only be based on ecological stability as having a technological solution, in which ensures sustainable supplies of vital contrast to Bahuguna who sees the solution resources. Gandhi and later his disciples, to poverty in the ecological rebuilding of Mira Behn and Sarala Behn, clearly described nature's productivity. For Bahuguna, how and why development is not necessarily material benefits arise from lowering contradictory to ecological stability. ecological costs due to resource destruction Conflict between exploitative economic and increasing productivity of natural and growth and ecological development implies man-made systems. For Bhatt, material that, by questioning the destructive process benefits are not seen in the perspective of of growth, ecological movements like Chipko essential ecological processes. The are never an obstacle to the process of instruments of production do not include development. On the contrary, by constantly nature and its ecological processes, and keeping ecological stability in focus, they productivity is defined through the provide the best guarantee for ensuring a technological productivity of labour alone. stable material basis for life. In this respect Bhatt's model is subsumed by Ecological Development or Eco-Development? the dominant development paradigm which equates economic growth with social and The philosophical confusion created by economic development. The development taking sectoral growth as synonymous with prescription is that with the help of modern development, however, has permeated scientific knowledge the instruments of movements such as Chipko. There is a production are improved and the standard of

8 living is raised. Co-operative felling and the use of trees by the local people can than elsewhere. The urgency to establish a provide employment and thus regenerate the new economy of permanence based on hill economy. There is no consideration of ecological principles is created with each ecological limits to commercial environmental disaster in the Himalayan exploitation of natural resources in order region whLch spells destruction throughout to sustain the productivity of nature; the . Chipko I s search for a water, for instance, whose economic strategy for survival has global significance is immense, is ignored in implications. What Chipko is trying to modern economic analysis. conserve is not merely local forest resources but the entire life-support The absence of an ecological system, and with it the option for human perspective in the eco-development model survival. Gandhi's mobilization for a new results in the neglect of special strategies society, where neither man nor nature is to regenerate and stablize vital soil and exploited and destroyed, was the beginning water resources. It also leads to failure of this civilizational response to a threat to assess the impact of other economic to human survival. Chipko's agenda is the activities, including afforestation carrying forward of that vision against the programmes, on the essential processes of heavier odds of contemporary crises. Its soil and water conservation. The political contemporary relevance, and its economy of eco-development is based upon a significance for the future world, is new distribution of the goods produced by clearly indicated in the rapid spread of the the existing resource-intensive and ecological world-view throughout the whole resource-wasteful technologies. In Himalaya, following the historical S,OOO-km contrast, the political economy of trans-Himalaya Chipko foot-march led by ecological development is based on the Bahuguna, and subsequently through other distribution of both the benefits and the vulnerable mountain systems such as the costs created through ecological , Central India, and Aravalli. disruption. It involves a development shift to resource-prudent and resource-conserving Since the ecological crises threaten technologies which are more productive at survival irrespective of the industrial the systems level. status of societies, the philosophical significance of re-directing development In the ecological view, the old onto an ecologically sustainable path restricted notion of productivity as an relates to the industrialized North as much increase of labour productivity is counter­ as to countries of the South. This is why productive at two levels. At the resource the ecological strategy of Chipko finds new level, it consumes more resources to produce application in the people's movement in less useful goods. At the human level, it European countries such as Switzerland, displaces labour in a labour-surplus context Germany, and Holland. The spread of the and thus destroys livelihoods instead of message of an alternate world-view is creating them. Gandhi critically crucial to the creation of a sustainable articulated the fallacy of increasing labour world, particularly in the context of a productivity independent of the social and highly integrated global economic system. material context. Gandhi's followers in the The ecological world-view of Chipko provides Chipko Movement continue to critically a strategy for survival not only for tiny evaluate restricted notions of villages in the Garhwal Himalaya, but for productivity. It is this concern with all human societies threatened by resources and human needs that is captured environmental disasters. in Bahuguna's well-known slogan that "ecology is permanent economy." Ms. Vandana Shiva, consultant to the United Growth for its own sake has been the Nations University, Tokyo, has done work in overriding concern in resource use in India a number of fields ~ncluding farm forestry. in the past. The threat to survival from Mr. ~. Bandyopodt~~ is on the faculty ~f ecological distruption is becoming the major the Indian lust; t.n r r- of He: Jgerr"'nt, concern in resource use for the future. And Bangalore, and 'In ,j .' i culr ,,; expor- " C r a n human survival in sensitive ecosystems, such ecological anp r 'ach 0 de v e . opmerrt as the Himalaya, is more severely threatened

q THE INSTITUTE FOR ECOSOPHICAL STUDIES

Board of Directors

Donald P. St. John, Executive Director; Ed Moran, Free-Lance Writer, Assistant Professor of Religion, Moravian Preservationist, Jim Thorpe, Pa. College Harry Newman, Attorney-At-Law, Bethlehem, Paul Larson, Treasurer; Assistant Professor Pa. of Music, Moravian College Jean Pearson, Eco-poet, Author, Animal Stephen Cutcliffe, Secretary; Director of Advocate, Bethlehem, Pa. the Technolgy Studies Resource Center at Dale Prinkey, Director, Jacobsburg Lehigh University Environmental Education Center Kathleen Liebhardt, Assistant to the Julie Wagner, Mellon Fellow, Cornell Provost, Lehigh University University

Editors: Paul Larson The Institute for Ecosophical Studies is an Don St. John educational non-profit organization located Logo: Rudy Hilt at but independent from Moravian College. Typing: Jean Siska Ecospirit was printed with the aid of a grant from the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges.

INSTITUTE FOR ECOSOPHICAL STUDIES c/o Donald P. St. John, Ph.D. Moravian College Bethlehem, PA 18018

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