WHAT IS CARBON FOOTPRINT?

• A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and
methane) that are generated by our actions.

• The average carbon footprint for a person in the United States is 16 tons, one of the highest rates
in the world.

• Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons. To have the best chance of avoiding a
2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop to
under 2 tons by 2050.

• Lowering individual carbon footprints from 16 tons to 2 tons doesn’t happen overnight! By making
small changes to our actions, like eating less meat, taking fewer connecting flights and line drying
our clothes, we can start making a big difference
What causes carbon foot print?

• The major contributors to carbon footprints are: food, consumption, transportation, and
household energy. Food is a major contributor to carbon footprints, and meat in particular is
an issue. Livestock is responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and
beef is one of the biggest contributors
 CHIPKO MOVEMENT
• Chipko movement, also called Chipko andolan, nonviolent social
and ecological movement by rural villagers, particularly women,
in India in the 1970s, aimed at protecting trees and forests slated for
government-backed logging. The movement originated in the
Himalayan region of Uttarakhand (then part of Uttar Pradesh) in 1973
and quickly spread throughout the Indian Himalayas.
• The Hindi word chipko means “to hug” or “to cling to” and reflects the
demonstrators’ primary tactic of embracing trees to impede loggers.
• About 300 years ago, a ruler in Rajasthan decided to fell ‘khejri’ trees in his State to create lime.

• Local women led by a Bishnoi woman, Amrita Devi, clung to the trees to prevent the felling of the
trees that formed the basis of the scarce resources on which they were dependent.

• The women were ruthlessly massacred. It is said that the ruler later realised his mistake.

• The story however has been remembered and was revived in the 1970s when severe tree felling for
timber in the Himalayas prompted local women, supported by people such as Sunderlalji Bahuguna
and Chandi Prasad Bhat, led a people’s movement to prevent deforestation by timber contractors.

• They called their movement the ‘Chipko’ movement in memory of the event during which women had
clung to their trees and given up their lives.

• The movement followed the path the 300 Bishnoi women had taken three centuries ago in Rajasthan.
• Chipko is a movement primarily begun and supported by local women in the hills of Uttarakhand and Garhwal, where the

women have had to bear the brunt of deforestation.

• They have not only realised that their fuelwood and fodder resources have receded away from their ‘resource use areas’

around their settlements due to commercial timber extraction, but that this has led to serious floods and loss of precious soil.

• Chipko activists have made long padyatras across the Himalayas protesting against deforestation.

• The movement has been highly successful and has been primarily supported by empowering local women’s groups who are

the most seriously affected segment of society by deforestation.

• The movement has proved to the world that the forests of the hills are the life support systems of local communities of immense

value in terms of local produce that is essential for the survival of local people and that the forest has less quantifiable but even

more important ecological services such as soil conservation and the maintenance of the natural water regime of the whole

region.
• The ability of local women to band themselves together in the foothills of the Himalayas goes back to

the pre Independence days when women such as Miraben, a disciple of Gandhiji, moved to this region

and understood that it was the deforestation that led to floods and devastation of villages in the valleys

and in the Gangetic plains below.

• They also appreciated that substitutions of oak and other broadleaved forests of the Himalayas by

planting fast growing pine for timber and resin was an ecological and social disaster which reduced the

forest resources used by traditional hill communities

 APIKO MOVEMENT
• Appiko – to express one’s affection for a tree by embracing it. Pandurang Hegde
launched the Appiko Movement in Karnataka in 1983.
• The Chipko movement in Uttarakhand in the Himalayas inspired the villagers
of the district of Karnataka province in southern India to launch a similar
movement to save their forests.
• In September 1983, men, women and children of Salkani ‘hugged the trees’ in
Kalase forest. (The local term for ‘hugging’ in Kannada is Appiko.)
• Its objectives were afforestation as well as development, conservation and
proper utilization of forests in the best manner.
• Appiko movement was a revolutionary movement based on environmental
conservation in India.
• The Bishnois, a Vaishnavite sect, living in western Rajasthan on the fringe of the Thar desert, have for
centuries, been conserving the flora and fauna to the extent of sacrificing their lives to protect the environment.

• For these nature-loving people, protection of the environment, wildlife, and plants is a part and parcel of their
sacred traditions. The basic philosophy of this religion is that all living things have a right to survive and share
all resources.

• In the fifteenth century, Jambhoji, a resident of a village near Jodhpur, had a vision that the cause of the
drought that had hit the area.

• Hardship that followed was caused by people’s interference with nature. Thereafter, he became a sanyasi or a
holy man and came to be known as Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj.

• This was the beginning of the Bishnoi sect. He laid down 29 tenets for his followers which included a ban on
killing animals, a ban to the felling of trees – especially the khejri – which grows extensively in these areas, and
using material other than wood for cremations.

• Nature protection was given foremost importance in these tenets. Since then, the sect has religiously followed
these tenets.
• There are many stories about how the Bishnois have beaten up hunters and poachers for intruding in their
area. The sacrifice made by Amrita Devi and over 350 others is a heart-rending example of their devotion.

• The Bishnois will go to any extent to protect the wildlife and the forests around them.

• Recently this sect was in the news due to the activities of some Mumbai film group that had gone on a
hunting spree in their area targeting the black buck.

• The Bishnois, in keeping to their tradition, prevented them from doing so and lodged a complaint against
two of them in the local police station.

• The heartland of the Bishnois in the forests near Jodhpur is abundant in trees and wildlife.

• The landscape around here is greener than elsewhere and the animals mainly antelopes, particularly the
blackbuck and the chinkara, in these forests are not afraid of humans and are often seen near the villages
eating out of the villagers’ hands.

• The Bishnois have indeed proved that human lives are a small price to pay to protect the wildlife and the
forests around them.
 SILENT VALLEY MOVEMENT
History
• The British named the area ‘Silent Valley’ because of a perceived absence of noisy
Cicadas.
• The Kuntipuzha is a major river that flows 15 km southwest from Silent Valley.
• It takes its origin in the lush green forests of Silent Valley.
• In 1928, the location on the Kunthipuzha River at Sairandhri was identified as an
ideal site for electricity generation.
• Initially, the decision was made by the British government to build a dam across the
river, which originates from the forest.
• In 1958, a study and survey of the area were conducted, and a hydroelectric project
was proposed by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB).
• The plans for a hydroelectric project that threatened the park’s high diversity of
wildlife stimulated an Environmentalist Social Movement in the 1970s called ‘Save
Silent Valley’ which resulted in the cancellation of the project.
About the Movement
• The movement was first initiated by the local people and was subsequently taken over by
the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP).

• The KSSP effectively aroused public opinion by publishing a techno-economic and socio-
political assessment report on the Silent Valley hydroelectric project.

• The KSSP generated public opinion against the project.

• As a consequence, in 1979, the Government of Kerala passed legislation regarding the Silent
Valley Protection Area (Protection of Ecological balance Act of 1979) and issued a
notification declaring the exclusion of the hydroelectric project area from the proposed

national park.
Significance of Silent Valley

• The valley is famous for many rare species of birds and animals.

• Birdlife International listed 16 bird species in Silent Valley as threatened or restricted.

• The mammals in the valley include Gaur, the largest of all wild cattle. There are at least 34 species of

mammals at Silent Valley, including the threatened species of mammals.

• Over 128 species of butterflies and 400 species of moths live here.

• Silent Valley is identified as a region with high biodiversity and an important Gene Pool resource for

Recombinant DNA innovations by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, ICAR (India).
 NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN

• Narmada Bachao Andolan – NBA is an Indian social movement led by native tribes,
farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the construction of a
number of large dams under the Narmada Dam Project across river Narmada.

• The river Narmada flows through the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and
Maharashtra.
• The river Narmada is the largest west-flowing river in the Indian peninsula, that arises on the

plateau of Amarkantak in the Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh.

• It covers the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan. Its course is

1312 km to the Arabian Sea through lush forests, hills, agricultural regions and rocky gorges.

• It has around 41 tributaries, surrounded by 3 mountain ranges of Satpura, Vindhya and Maikal, and

on the fourth side merges into the Arabian Sea.

• On its basin, the villages constitute 81% and comprise mainly tribal populations consisting of Bhils,

Gonds, Baigas and others whose primary occupation is agriculture.

• The Narmada basin is rich in its natural resources.

 Narmada Bachao Andolan- HOW DID IT START?
• Narmada Bachao Andolan is the most powerful mass movement, started
in 1985, against the construction of a huge dam on the Narmada river.

• As per the Narmada Dam Project, the plan was to build over 3000 big
and small dams along the river.

• The proposed Sardar Sarovar Dam and Narmada Sagar were to displace
more than 250,000 people.

• The big fight of the Save the Narmada Movement was over the
resettlement or the rehabilitation of these people
Narmada Bachao Andolan – Key Points
1. After the independence, India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for the construction of dams
on Narmada river to arrest excess water flowing into Arabian sea passing through Madhya Pradesh and
Gujarat to aid local people and development of the nation.
2. Two of the largest proposed dams were Sardar Sarovar and Narmada Sagar.
3. The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal approved the Narmada Valley Development Project, which
included 30 large dams, 135 medium dams, and 3,000 small dams including raising the height of Sardar
Sarovar dam.
4. In 1985, after hearing about the construction of Narmada Dam Project, Medha Patkar and her colleagues
visited the project site and noticed that project work was being checked due to an order by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests, Government of India.
5. In 1987, construction began on the Sardar Sarovar Dam and the people who were going to be affected by
the construction of the dam were given no information but the offer for rehabilitation.
6. In May 1990, Narmada Bachao Andolan organized a 2,000-person, five-day sit-in at PM V. P. Singh’s
residence in New Delhi, which convinced the Prime Minister to ‘reconsider’ the project.
7. In December 1990, approximately 6000 men and women began the Narmada Jan Vikas Sangharsh Yatra
(Narmada People’s Progress Struggle March), marching over 100 kilometres.
8. In January 1991, Baba Amte and the seven-member team began an indefinite hunger strike (continued for
22 days) and committed to a sit-in unto death.
9. The Sardar Sarovar Dam’s construction began again in 1999 and was declared finished in 2006. The
height of the project was increased from 138 meters to 163 meters. It was inaugurated in 2017 by PM
Narendra Modi.
 National Green Tribunal of India (NGT)

• India’s record as a progressive jurisdiction in environmental matters through its proactive judiciary is

internationally recognized. ‘

• The National Green Tribunal of India (NGT) – officially described as a ‘specialised body equipped with

necessary expertise to handle environmental disputes involving multi-disciplinary issues’ – is a forum which

offers greater plurality for environmental justice.

• The NGT, in exercising wide powers, is staffed by judicial and technical expert members who decide cases in

an open forum. The experts are ‘central’, rather than ‘marginal’, to the NGT’s decision-making process.
• Against this theoretical background it is suggested that the NGT’s institutional form legitimizes
sustainable environmental governance by adopting reflexive practices.

• By offering ecological, technological and scientific resource knowledge, the NGT experts
either formulate policies or assist states with the implementation of these policies, thereby
adopting both a problem-solving and policy-creation approach.

• The legitimacy not only includes the decision-making process (accountability and
transparency), but also refers to the process through which the ‘environment and public
interest’, as opposed to the ‘economic development interest’, has an influence.

• The adoption of investigative and stakeholder consultative procedures improves active

participation through dialogue, argument and norms for eliciting factual realities and expert
knowledge in order to respond to environmental problems.
• Nevertheless, the NGT’s scientific experts and the use of their knowledge

within a judicially controlled forum offers an internalized, accountability-

focused approach whereby a diverse set of actors such asgovernmental and

local authorities, companies and multinational corporations are restrained in

compromising human welfare and the ecology.

This is occurring not simply through greater public access as a result of its wide definition of
‘aggrieved party’.

Initially it attracted litigants because of its speed in arriving at a decision.

It is enhancing public expectation through judgments and policy directions which clearly reflect a
commitment to its statutory obligation to decide cases according to the principles of environmental
sustainability.

The composition of the bench and the involvement of technical experts has introduced a new
dimension into the decision-making process. The legal lens has been expanded by the new and
dramatically different composition of the bench.

Science has a profound effect upon our understanding of and response to environmental issues.

Science has a similar role and effect within the NGT. Independent, in-house, scientific knowledge has
become part of the analysis that produces judicially binding decisions.