● The Chipko Andolan (Hug the Trees Movement) was the result of a grass root level effort to end the separate of people from their forests.

● The movement originated from an incident in a remote village called Reni in Garhwal during the early 1970s.

● There was a dispute between the local villagers and a contractor who had been allowed to cut trees in a forest close to the village.

● On a particular day, the contractor’s workers appeared in the forest to cut the trees, seeing this the women of the village reached the forest quickly and clasped the tree trunks thus, preventing the workers from felling the trees.

● The protest spread in that area, as a result, the contractor had to withdraw its plan to cut trees.

● The Bishnoi movement:

● Amrita Devi, a female villager could not bear the destruction of both her faith and the village’s sacred trees.

● She hugged the trees and encouraged others to do the same. 363 Bishnoi villagers were killed in this movement.