India and Brazil - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 172

make tennis rackets, it was too much for the residents. They had suffered
for years from floods due to deforestation. The local people demonstrated
by going into the forest and literally hugging the trees the loggers were try-
ing to cut down. They gained the name Chipko (to hug). The movement
spread, but the government continued to sell trees. One of the leaders went
on a hunger fast. Thousands demonstrated against the tree harvest. Finally,
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi met personally with leaders and promised a
15-year moratorium in Uttar Pradesh. Elsewhere groups protested by hug-
ging trees. Some saw the movement as embodying the ideals and techniques
of Mohandas Gandhi, even claiming to literally see his spirit in the forest. 4
WWF India, an affiliate of the international group, focuses on big
animals. It estimates that there are 1100-1700 wild Bengal tigers scat-
tered throughout the country from the Himalayas to the mountains of
the Western Ghats and from the forests of Rajasthan to the seven states
of the northeast. The chief danger is loss of habitat, but poaching is a
serious threat, too. Hunters kill them for their skins and for traditional
Chinese medicine. Their ground-up bones supposedly enhance male
sexual performance. Wild elephants, numbering as many as 26,000, live
many places. They eat 200-300 kilograms of vegetation a day, so need vast
tracts of forest. When close to human habitation, they eat crops. The 1989
international ban on the ivory trade has decreased poaching, but it has
not disappeared. Rhinoceroses, numbering about 2,500, live only in small
areas nears Nepal, in north Bengal, in Assam, and in a few other isolated
spots. Besides loss of habitat, a threat is poaching for their horns, which
are used in traditional Asiatic medicine. They are among the world's most
endangered species. WWF hopes to set up three or four new Protected
Areas and establish breeding populations there
Greenpeace has a small presence in India. It campaigns to stop killing
the olive ridley sea turtle along Orissa on the east coast. It recommends a
return to traditional fishing instead of mechanized trawlers, reminiscent
of the Kerala situation 30 years ago. Additionally, Greenpeace objects to
the introduction of genetically modified crops. This is part of an inter-
national campaign. It objects that GM food may contain unknown health
risks, that the food may be less nutritious, that the strain may spread to
ordinary crops, that crops may fail, that the crop may harm beneficial
insects, and that the Monsanto Corporation will profit unfairly.
Birth Control: The one-billion-plus people who live in India put a terrible
burden on its environment, but the government is currently doing little to
limit population growth. Its experiment with birth control in the 1970s