Appiko Movement | Indian History | PDF Download

MOVEMENT

• The people’s struggle against commercial forest policy has come to light in the region of UttaraKannada.
• The destruction of tropical natural forests has caused irreversible changes in the ecosystem of the forests. The destruction of mixed species denied people’s access to biomass for fodder, fertilizer, etc.

MOVEMENT

• The clear felling of natural forests has led to severe soil erosion and drying up of perennial water resources. Moved by the destruction of essential ecological processes, the youth of Salkani village in Sirsi launched a Chipko movement, which was locally known as

“Appiko Chaluvali”.

• They embraced the trees which were to be felled by contractors of the forest department.

• The protest within the forest continued for 38 days and finally the felling orders were withdrawn. The success of this agitation spread to other places and the movement has now been launched in eight areas covering the entire Sirsi forest division in Uttara Kannada and Shimoga districts.
• The Appiko Movement, a movement similar to the Chipko Movement, was launched in September 1983 by the representatives of a Yuvak Mandali to save the Western Ghats in Southwest India.

OBJECTIVES

• The movement’s objectives can be classified into three major areas. First, the Appiko Movement is struggling to save the remaining tropical forests in the Western Ghats.
• Second, it is making a modest attempt to restore the greenery to denuded areas.
• Third, it is striving to propagate the idea of rational utilization in order to reduce the pressure on forest resources. To save, to grow and to use rationally – popularly known in Kannada as Ubsu (“save”), Belesu (“grow”) and Balasu (“rational use”) – is movement’s popular slogan.

• The Appiko Movement uses various techniques to raise awareness: foot marches in the interior forests, slide shows, folk dances, street plays and so on.
• The second area of the Appiko Movement’s work is to promote afforestation on denuded lands. In the villagers to grow saplings. Individual families as well as village youth clubs have taken an active interest in growing decentralized nurseries.
• The third major area of activity in the Appiko Movement is related to rational use of the ecosphere through introducing alternative energy sources to reduce the pressure on the forest.

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