Editing Chipko movement (section)

==Effect==
The news soon reached the state capital, where the state Chief Minister, [[Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna]], set up a committee to look into the matter, which eventually ruled in favour of the villagers. This became a turning point in the history of eco-development struggles in the region and around the world.

The struggle soon spread across many parts of the region, and such spontaneous stand-offs between the local community and timber merchants occurred at several locations, with hill women demonstrating their new-found power as non-violent activists. As the movement gathered shape under its leaders, the name Chipko movement was attached to their activities. According to Chipko historians, the term originally used by [[Chandi Prasad Bhatt|Bhatt]] was the word "angalwaltha" in the [[Garhwali language]] for "embrace", which later was adapted to the Hindi word, ''Chipko'', which means to stick.<ref name=hind>{{usurped|[https://web.archive.org/web/20100211130523/http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2002/06/02/stories/2002060200010100.htm A Gandhian in Garhwal]}} ''[[The Hindu]]'', Sunday, 2 June 2002.</ref>

Over the next five years, the movement spread to many districts in the region, and within a decade throughout the [[Uttarakhand]] [[Himalayas]]. Larger issues of ecological and economic exploitation of the region were raised. The villagers demanded that no forest-exploiting contracts should be given to outsiders and local communities should have effective control over natural resources like land, water, and forests. They wanted the government to provide low-cost materials to small industries and ensure development of the region without disturbing the ecological balance. The movement took up economic issues of landless forest workers and asked for guarantees of minimum wage. Globally Chipko demonstrated how environment causes, up until then considered an activity of the rich, were a matter of life and death for the poor, who were all too often the first ones to be devastated by an environmental tragedy. Several scholarly studies were made in the aftermath of the movement.<ref name=un/> In 1977, in another area, women tied sacred threads, called [[Raksha Bandhan|Rakhi]], around trees destined for felling. According to the Hindu tradition of [[Raksha Bandhan]], the Rakhi signifies a bond between brother and sisters. They declared that the trees would be saved even if it cost them their lives.<ref>[http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/contemporary-04.html The Chipko Movement: India’s Call to Save Their Forests] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065132/http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/contemporary-04.html |date=4 March 2016 }} womeninworldhistory.com.</ref>

Women's participation in the Chipko agitation was a very novel aspect of the movement. The forest contractors of the region usually doubled up as suppliers of alcohol to men. Women held sustained agitations against the habit of alcoholism and broadened the agenda of the movement to cover other social issues. The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on felling of trees in the Himalayan regions for fifteen years in 1980 by then Prime Minister [[Indira Gandhi]], until the green cover was fully restored.<ref name=tri>[http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070708/edit.htm#2 Bahuguna, the sentinel of Himalayas] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204182623/http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070708/edit.htm |date=4 December 2008 }} by Harihar Swarup, ''[[The Tribune (Chandigarh)|The Tribune]]'', 8 July 2007.</ref> One of the prominent Chipko leaders, Gandhian [[Sunderlal Bahuguna]], took a 5,000 kilometre (3000 mile) trans-Himalaya foot march in 1981–83, spreading the Chipko message to a far greater area.<ref name=iisd/> Gradually, women set up cooperatives to guard local forests, and also organized fodder production at rates conducive to local environment. Next, they joined in land rotation schemes for fodder collection, helped replant degraded land, and established and ran nurseries stocked with species they selected.<ref>[http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/006/S5500E/S5500E09.htm India: the Chipko movement] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140823084941/http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/S5500E/S5500E09.htm |date=23 August 2014 }} [[Food and Agriculture Organization]] of the United Nations (FAO).</ref>