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embracing tree huggers: the powerful roots of (un)armed environmental protection
http://www.nationofchange.org/embracing-tree-huggers-powerful-roots-unarmed-environmental-protection-1325945868Show the slightest bit of concern for the environment and you get labeled a tree hugger. Thats what poor Newt Gingrich has been dealing with recently, as the other presidential candidates attack his conservative credentials for having once appeared in an adwith Nancy Pelosi in support of renewable energy. Never mind that he has since called the ad the biggest mistake of his political career and talked about making Sarah Palin energy secretary. Gingrich will be haunted by the tree hugger label the rest of his life. He might as well grow his hair out, stop showering and start walking around barefoot.
But is that what a tree hugger really is? Just some dazed hippie who goes around giving hugs to trees as way to connect with nature. You might be shocked to learn the real origin of the term.
The first tree huggers were 294 men and 69 women belonging to the Bishnois branch of Hinduism, who, in 1730, died while trying to protect the trees in their village from being turned into the raw material for building a palace. They literally clung to the trees, while being slaughtered by the foresters. But their action led to a royal decree prohibiting the cutting of trees in any Bishnoi village. And now those villages are virtual wooded oases amidst an otherwise desert landscape. Not only that, the Bishnois inspired the Chipko movement (which means to cling) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in Northeast India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down. Within a few years, this tactic, also known as tree satyagraha, had spread across India, ultimately forcing reforms in forestry and a moratorium on tree felling in Himalayan regions.
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embracing tree huggers: the powerful roots of (un)armed environmental protection (Original Post)
xchrom
Jan 2012
OP
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)1. Thanks , I never knew it went back to 1730
tree hugging . Greed and short sighted oppurtunists of course have been here forever.
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)2. OH MY GOD... how Evil... they defend... NATURE!
quick, label them all terrorists.
PS - thanks for the post!
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)3. thanks!