Be a Tree Hugger!

The village women in the Garhwal Hills of India.

Some people use the term "tree hugger" with such disparaged contempt, like it's some sort of outdated hippy term to deride those with environmental conscience because they actually want to make a difference in the world!

In actuality, Tree Hugger is a badge of honor earned by standing in the gap between commercial greed and wanton destruction...between profits and planet...between what's best for society and what's ultimately best for all Citizens of Earth.

Being a Tree Hugger is not simply "hugging a tree" (although it is that too!). A Tree Hugger is an advocate, an activist, an action'ist who has the goal of assuring that our children and our grandchildren have a world into which to arrive.

As Tree Huggers, we are duty bound to leave the world in better shape than how we found it, because the world does not belong to the us, we belong to the Earth. As in the words of an unknown Sage, "We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children".

It is our responsibility as a Tree Hugger to stand in the gap, to protect Planet Earth and to promise that the actions of the present will not cause the demise of the future...

How to be a Tree Hugger?

• Reduce, re-use and recycle!
• Get involved locally with environmental and ecological groups.
• Support other advocates like the DAPL water protectors.
• Give voice to the future by speaking against present adversaries.
• Demand equality, justice and decency!
• Speak up against falsehood, the status quo and "good ol' boys clubs".
• Plant kindness, share love and inspire others.
• Lastly: vote...vote with your ballot, your voice, your pen, your pocketbook. Your vote is your approval, your endorsement, your permission to allow or disallow something.

Be the change you want to see in the world...

Be a Tree Hugger!

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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 (chipko means “to cling” in Hindi) that started in the 1970s, when a group of peasant women in the Himalayan hills of northern 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.

Source

Photo: The village women of the Chipko movement in the early 70's in the Garhwal Hills of India, 

protecting the trees from being cut down.