PRESS RELEASE Internationally renowned environmental activist and philosopher in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, who has been tirelessly fighting as a member of the Chipko movement for the preservation of forests in the Himalayas and other parts of country and for the protection of rivers, will arrive in Goa on 3rd September 2008 on his way from Delhi to Karnataka. In Goa he will be accompanied by noted environmental activist Mr. Pandurang Hegde leader of Karnataka's Chipko movement which is popularly known as Appiko, and noted gandhian activist Mr. Kumar Kalanand Mani of Peaceful Society.
Sunderlal Bahugunaji is expected to meet social activists and Gram Sabha members from Goa who are relentlessly battling against environmental degradation and for preserving the unique identity of Goa through the Village Panchayats. Besides visiting various sites of environmental degradation and meeting the local people whose traditional livelihood and identity is being threatened by modern development, Bahugunaji will address a public rally organised by Gaon Ghor Rakhonn Manch (GGRM) on the same day at Dando Grounds, Benaulim at 4 p.m.. On the occassion a report on the 'Status of the western ghats' compiled by Mr. Pandurang Hegde leader of Appiko, which is responsible for stalling tree felling in the western ghats, will be released by Bahugunaji. The Chipko movement which literally means 'to stick' (to the trees), spread throughout Uttar Pradesh from 1973 and achieved a major victory in 1980 with a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of that State by order of India's then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. A similar ban was later also implemented in the states of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. The movement spread to Himachal Pradesh in the north, Karnataka in the south, Rajasthan in the west, Bihar in the east and to the Vindhyans in central India. In addition to the ban in Uttar Pradesh, the movement succeeded in halting clear felling in the Western Ghats and the Vindhyas, as well as generating pressure for a natural resources policy more sensitive to people's needs and environmental factors. One of Bahuguna's notable contributions to that cause and to environmentalism in general, was his creation of the Chipko's slogan "ecology is permanent economy." In the late 1980s, Bahuguna joined the campaign that already for many years had been opposing construction of a proposed Himalayan dam on the river near his birthplace of Tehri. In 1989 he began the first of a series of hunger strikes to draw political attention to the dangers posed by the dam and in due course the Chipko Movement gave birth to the Save Himalaya Movement. He helped bring the movement to prominence through a 5,000 kilometer trans-Himalaya march conducted from 1981 to 1983, and met with the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. That meeting is credited with resulting in Ms. Gandhi's subsequent green-felling ban. He received the Right To Livelihood Award in 1987. Bahugunaji ended a 45-day fast in 1995 when the Indian government promised a review of the Tehri dam project. But the promise was not kept and the following year he committed himself to another fast, only broken after 74 days when the Prime Minister gave a personal undertaking to conduct a thorough review, largely on Bahuguna's terms. The veteran environmentalist, then in his 70th year, told the Prime Minister that the Himalayan glaciers were receding at an alarming rate. If this was not checked, the glacier feeding the Ganges would disappear within 100 years.
