Promoting a more rationalist attitude to life at a mass level, that's what the Jan Vigyan Jatha sets out to do

The Chipko movement halted commercial tree felling in UP's Chamoli district, but the women who led it are still fighting corrupt and indifferent forest officials and fund constraints to maintain the pace of development

The traditional Indian strategy of resolving conflict by non-cooperation, the satyagraha, has been revived in the Chipko, or "Embrace the Tree", the movement to protect trees from commercial felling. This paper traces the development of the philosophy and the non-violent resistance activities from the beginnings of Chipko in the early 1970's in Garhwal to its present role throughout most of India. It is unique in that it is based not on the politics of the distribution of wealth but on that of sustainable ecological stability, and it is dominated by women.

From Kashmir to Burma, where tigers once lived amid lush forests, a vast tract of land has been laid bare by the timber industry. In its wake have come landslides, drought and yet further poverty. The only hope for the hill people is a Ghandian like movement which villagers have adopted to thwart developers.