Appiko movement

The Appiko movement was a revolutionary movement based on environmental conservation in India. The Chipko movement (Hug The Trees Movement) in Uttarakhand in the Himalayas inspired the villagers of the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka State in southern India to launch a similar movement to save their forests. In September 1983, led by Panduranga Hegde, men, women and children of Salkani "hugged the trees" in Kalase forest. (The local term for "hugging" in Kannada is appiko.) Appiko movement gave birth to a new awareness all over southern India.

In 1950,forest covered more than 81 percent of Uthara Kanara district. The government, declaring this forest district a "backward" area, then initiated the process of "development". Their major industries - a pulp and paper mill, a plywood factory and a chain of hydroelectric dams constructed to harness the rivers - sprouted in the area. These industries have overexploited the forest resource, and the dams have submerged huge-forest and agricultural areas. The forest had shrunk to nearly 25 percent of the district's area by 1980. The local population, especially the poorest groups, were displaced by the dams. The conversion of the natural mixed forests into teak and eucalyptus plantations dried up the water sources, directly affecting forest dwellers. In a nutshell, the three major p's - paper, plywood and power - which were intended for the development of the people, have resulted in a fourth p: poverty.

Southern India is the home of a tropical forest ecosystem. Although this tropical forest constitutes a potentially renewable resource, it is also a very fragile ecosystem and therefore merits special attention. The past 30 years have seen the onslaught of "development" activities and an increase in population, both of which have exhausted this fragile resource system. In the case of Kerala, which comprises 42 percent of the entire Western Ghat area, the forest cover fell from 44 percent in 1905 to a meager 9 percent in 1984.

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