To Cut That Tree, Cut Through Me

Any new-age nature-lover can hug a tree, and many do. But it takes a special kind of person to embrace a tree that is about to be chopped down and to dare the woodsman: “If you want to cut the tree, you’ll have to cut through me.”

The Chipko movement in north India was founded on this kind of challenge.

I met Srimati Bali Devi Rana, a leader of this unstructured movement, at her 210-person village of Reiny, about an hour north of the Indian hill station of Joshimath, in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Sitting on the roof of her two story-house, with hay drying at our feet and tall peaks just a few kilometers away, she welcomed me with glasses of cold, clear water, tea and homemade nibbles made of corn flakes, peanuts, and masala. Srimati, an animated woman wearing an orange woolen head scarf and homespun jacket and shirt, ran me through the historical origins of the movement.