University of North Texas 
Please join us in ENV 130 on October 17 from 3 to 4 pm for a lecture by Dr. George
James on the Appiko environmental movement. Vegan refreshments will be available at
2:30 prior to the lecture.
The Appiko Movement of the Western Ghats
In the 1970’s, The Chipko Movement of the Western Himalayas was a grassroots environmental movement that embraced the non-violent strategy of hugging (chipko) the trees when the forest workers came to harvest them. The movement, largely of village women, brought about a moratorium on the felling of trees in the state for commercial purposes above an elevation of 1,000 meters. It also motivated other grassroots environmental movements.
One such movement was the Appiko Movement of India’s Western Ghats. In the 1980’s, inspired by the Chipko model, men, women, and children hugged trees to stop the government from cutting them down. They named the movement the Appiko Chaluvali or Appiko Movement after “appiko,” the word for “hug” in Kannada, the language of the southern state of Karnataka. Its purpose was threefold. (1) Ulisu: “Save”—save the remaining natural forests of the Western Ghats. (2) Belesu: “Grow”—restore the natural forests by reforestation with trees providing food, fodder, fiber, fertilizer, and fuel. (3) Balasu: “Rational use”—undertake rational use to conserve forest resources through biogas plants and fuel-efficient stoves.
The Appiko Movement demanded basic changes in forest policy from revenue-based to ecology-based management. It succeeded in bringing about a moratorium on the cutting of the natural forests of the Western Ghats, a moratorium on the establishment of monocultures of teak, eucalyptus, and other revenue species, and the elimination of government concessions to forest-based industries.
George Alfred James received his PhD in History and Philosophy of Religion from Columbia University, in 1983. He served on the Faculty of the University of North Texas until his retirement and appointment as Professor Emeritus in 2020. From 2017 until his retirement, he was Bhagwan Adinath Professor of Jain and India Studies. In addition to his work on the life and activism of Sunderlal Bahuguna, titled Ecology is Permanent Economy (SUNY 2013; Motilal Banarsidass 2020; Hindi translation 2022, Kannada translation 2022), he is author of Interpreting Religion, a study of phenomenological approaches to religion, and editor of the volume of essays entitled Ethical Perspectives on Environmental Issues in India. For the past 30 years he has been researching and publishing in the areas of comparative environmental philosophy and environmental movements in India. His research is published in such journals as Zygon, International Philosophical Quarterly, and Worldviews. He has also contributed to the Encyclopedia of Religion, the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, and the Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy.