Guardians of groves

How women of an Uttarakhand village successfully revived a lost forest

- BHAGIRATH CHAMPAWAT, UTTARAKHAND

BHAGIRATHI DEVI'S daily routine has remained the same for the past 25 years. She gets up at dawn and sets out to patrol the forest near her village, Manar. She returns home at noon and goes back to the forest around 2 pm for a second round that lasts till sunset. “I confront anyone I see exploiting the forest,” says the 75-year-old about trespassers who graze cattle, cut trees or damage the greenery. Her dedication has earned her the name Van Amma—mother of the forest.

Home to some 700 people in Uttarakhand’s Champawat district, Manar once had a 12-hectare (ha) forest next to it. But excessive grazing and tree felling turned it barren around 2000. This also adversely impacted the flow of water in local springs. “I remember walking 7-8 km to another forest, Siddhmandir, to collect fodder and dry wood. It took five-six hours every day. All women in the village faced this problem,” says Bhagirathi Devi. She then decided to revive Manar’s forest and convinced other women, who came together in 2000, to form a van panchayat—autonomous forest management committees under the Indian Forest Act 1927. Bhagirathi Devi was unanimously elected as the first sarpanch of van panchayat and held the post unopposed till 2024.