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From the Chipko Movement and the Green Belt Movement to the Standing Rock Movement we have seen women stand up for the Mother Earth.  Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s foremost environmentalist and women’s rights advocate, founded the Green Belt Movement on Earth Day, 1977, encouraging the farmers (70 percent of whom are women) to plant “Green Belts” to stop soil erosion, provide shade, and create a source of lumber and firewood.  With this movement came massive attracts. She was harassed and threatened daily for her activism. At Standing Rock “Native women say they are protecting the basic human right to clean water. But for some indigenous activists, the internationally recognized movement has become a larger fight against a history of misogyny, racism and abuse by law enforcement.” Women at Standing Rock have gone through many traumatic experience while fighting for the water of a Nation.  The name of the Chipko movement comes from the word ’embrace’, as the villagers hugged the trees, and prevented the contractors’ from felling them. These courageous women who started the fight for protection of land fought for the right for women
to have a safer more stable environment to live and sustain the communities.

Without the web of intersectionality some may be completely unaware of theses movements and the degree of which black women and indigenous women are discriminated against because of their beliefs their race, their sex, all pieces to remember when speaking of the deeper oppressions of women and nature around the world.  As eco-feminists are looking forward we need the sight of intersectionality to make changes on this planet. If we don’t see the crossroads of racism and sexism then how will we see our own Mother Earth being raped of it’s sustenance. Women around the world feel pains of the earth in their souls and it is no wonder why women are associated with nature.   The Chibakio Movement was started to stop the deforestation of the south in India. It would have destroyed a culture. A whole community would have been destroyed along with the land if it hadn’t been the movement of visionaries. I feel that women are visionaries. We feel so deeply and can see the impact happening before it happens. Too much is at stake for our planet and our future kin to sit back and think only of ourselves is foreign to many women.

The movement celebrates 45 years on March 27th this year.  Here are the communities determined to protect the land.

‘ Embrace the trees and
Save them from being felled;
The property of our hills,
Save them from being looted.’

The Chipko protests in Uttar Pradesh achieved a major victory in 1980 with a 15-year ban on green felling in the Himalayan forests of that state by the order of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India.  (Edugreen) I feel that men used the word “tree hugger” in a hostile way through the 80s. Using it to make fun of people and this has been used to degrade people who care about the environment and has been used in hate speech.   Without the knowledge of intersectionality involving people and the environment, eco-feminists may not be able to seriously address the behavior of individuals that act in hateful and just plain out wrong ways towards women and the planet. Crenshaw speaks of the unseen biases women of color face daily that we are (many people are unaware of their own implicit biases).

https://youtu.be/akOe5-UsQ2o

As Kimberlé Crenshaw states we just don’t see the Cross roads because we aren’t aware of them.  If we are aware of the Crossroads of discrimination then how can we be aware of the crossroads of the destruction of life and the planet.  Marginalized groups aren’t able to get resources and things they need to better themselves/their communities and environment because the greater populace is dismissive of those being marginalized.  When Indigenous women are being devalued and harmed by police enforcement and by our very government what is clear to me is this is also who is hurting the land and the jeopardizing the clean water supplies.  Where will we be if we don’t fight for the right of women and those that are marginalized all over the world. When we stick up for one we stand up for many more. The more we educate on environmental issues and intersectionality the crossroads of mutuality the more we may see change.

These movements are still being threatened daily.  The Greenbelt movement faces threats upon threats to be destroyed.  This happens to missions to save our earth as well as the discriminating rhetoric of being dismantled my greed and hierarchical male dominated sources.

I absolutely agree that disempowerment and environmental degradation are behind the material deprivations and cultural losses of the marginalized and the poor. Looking at the deeper picture no land or thing should be privatized or ruled it is for everyone not just a selected few.  When things are privatized it leaves those that can’t afford filtered clean water (that should be free) who will suffer first and those who suffer the most are the marginalized.

https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/ click on link to support the Green belt mission by planting a tree or buying a tree for someone to plant!

http://ddnews.gov.in/people/%E2%80%98chipko-movement%E2%80%99-completes-45th-anniversary