Enviornmental movements after also certain economic and identity issues. Discuss.

Environmental movement generally contain economic and identity issues: For example, in modern period the greatest stress is being given on socio-economic and cultural development.

For economic development for many years there has a great deal of concern about the unchecked use of natural resources (water, forest, minerals etc.) and model of development that create new leaders and further demand of greater exploitation of already, depleted natural resources.

It is not necessary that every development project or scheme equally beneficial for every section of society. For example, construction of big dams or multipurpose project displace people of several villages from there homes and snatch sources of livelihood from them.

Sometimes big industries are setup in a region. Such industry displace agriculturist from their homes and livelihood. Now-a-days we are reading newspaper and see TV and listening news on TV regarding SEZ special economic zones. The impact of industrial pollution is yet another story. Here we take just one example of an ecological movement to examine the many issues that are interlinked in an ecological movement.

Example: The Chipko movement is a good example of environmental or ecological movement. According to Ramachandra Guha in his book Unquiet Woods, villagers rallied together to save the oak and rhododendron forests near their villages. When government forest contractors came to cut down the trees, villagers including large number of women, stepped forward to hug the trees to prevent their being felled. At stake was the question of villagers’ susbsistence. All of them relied on the forest to get firewood, fodder and other daily necessities. This conflict placed the livelihood needs of poor villagers against the government's desire to generate revenues from selling timber.

Economic issues: The economy of subsistence was pitted against the economy of profit. Along with this issue of social inequality (villagers versus a government that represented commercial, capitalist interests), the Chipko Movement also raised the issue of ecological sustainability. Cutting down natural forests was a form of environmental destruction that had resulted in devastating floods and landslides in the region. For the villagers, these ‘red’ and ‘green’ issues were inter-linked. While their survival depended on the survival of the forest, they also valued the forest for its own sake as a form of ecological wealth that benefits all. In addition, the Chipko Movement also expressed the resentment of hill villagers against a distant government headquartered in the plains that seemed indifferent and hostile to their concerns. So concerns about economy, ecology and political representation underlay the Chipko Movement.

Identical issues: In our current information age, soical movements around the globe are able to join together in huge regional and international networks comprising non-governmental organisations, religious and humanitarian groups, human rights association, consumer protection advocates, environomental activists and others who campaign in the public interest...the enormous protests against the World Trade Organisation that took place in Seattle, for example, were organised in part through internet-based network.