India, April 20 -- The women who led the landmark environmental movement 50 years ago, speak to Down To Earth

Whenever a dictionary of green terms is written, no matter in what language, it will contain at least one Hindi word- Chipko , which means to hug.

In the 1970s, women from the Himalayan villages of Reni and Mandal hugged trees in the nearby forests to protect them from commercial loggers.

The tree-huggers' movement was an assertion of local people's rights over their resources. It told the world that it is the poor who suffer the most when the environment degrades and, therefore, they have a vested interest in its management on a sustainable basis.

Chipko enthused so many people that it inspired a nationwide environmental conc...