Appiko Movement

“Ulisu, Belesu Balsu” (“save, grow and use rationally”).

In Kannada “Appiko” means hugging. It was inspired from the

famous “Chipako Movement”. Children, men and women of Salkani
“hugged the trees” in Kalase forest, in September 1983 for
continuously for 3 months. The aim of the movement was to save of
the forest region of District Uttara Kannada. Soon the movement
spread to all the south Indian States to save the forest of the Western
Ghats.

Reason of the movement

In the name of “development” of the area, Government gave
permission to various paper and pulp mills, plywood factories and a
chain of hydroelectric dams. As a result trees in the jungle were cut
down to 25% till 1980 which was 81% in 1950.

Effect of cutting down trees in the Western Ghats has resulted in serious
issues like frequent drought in the regions of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala
and Maharashtra. The water supply, power generation and ultimately the
entire economy of southern India is severely affected.

The Aims of the Andolan

 The I st aim of the movement was to save the remaining tropical jungles in the Western
Ghats.
 The 2 nd aim of the movement was to promote the planting of trees
in barren areas.
 The 3 rd aim was to chop down only dry, dead and dying trees to
fulfil local needs.

Hero of Appiko movement

Shri Pandurang Hegde
He is an environmentalist with a long association with the Appiko movement in Uttara Kannada.

“This is now our turn to give back to mother nature”

Nature provides us with everything. But it is still not enough
for human greed, nature is suffering because of that. So it’s
our turn to give back. It’s still not too late to learn from our
mistakes, we can fix them. Climate change is real.