Her Voice in the Climate Debate: Indian Women Across Generations
Across generations and geographies, their stories form an unbroken thread of courage. These are just seven of the many women whose voices have shaped India's environmental movement.
The Women Who Hugged Trees
In 1974, Gaura Devi led 27 women to embrace trees and block loggers in Reni, Uttarakhand, sparking the Chipko Movement. The andolan went on to unite hill communities, especially women and students, throughout the 1970s, defending Himalayan forests from commercial exploitation and safeguarding their livelihoods and sustenance.
The Poet Who Saved a Valley
In the 1970s, Malayalam poet Sugathakumari emerged as a leading voice in Kerala's "Save Silent Valley" movement, which sought to protect the lush evergreen forests of Palakkad from submergence under a proposed hydroelectric project. Her poetry and activism united citizens, transforming the campaign into one of India's most significant environmental victories.
Six Decades in the Forest
Born in 1944 into the Halakki Vokkaliga tribe, Tulsi Gowda spent over six decades with the Karnataka Forest Department, planting and tending an estimated 100,000 trees. Her self-taught knowledge of forest species, earned without formal schooling, contributed to the management of five tiger reserves, fifteen conservation reserves, and thirty wildlife sanctuaries.
The Woman Who Took on the Mining Industry
Kinkri Devi, from Himachal Pradesh's Sirmaur district, fought against illegal limestone quarrying that threatened local forests and water sources. Despite never having attended school, she filed a Public Interest Litigation in 1987 and staged a 19-day hunger strike in Shimla. Her perseverance led the High Court to impose a blanket ban on hill blasting and destructive mining across the Shivalik hills.
The Youngest Voice
Climate activist Licypriya Kangujam from Manipur began campaigning for stronger climate policies at the age of six. She founded The Child Movement, which urges world leaders to act decisively against the climate crisis, and has been recognized globally for her advocacy on integrating climate education into school curricula, reducing carbon emissions, and empowering children to become changemakers.
Indigenous Knowledge at the UN
From the Khadia tribe in Odisha, Archana Soreng served in the first cohort of the UN Secretary-General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change (2020–2023), as the sole representative from Asia and from an indigenous community. Her work focuses on documenting indigenous ecological knowledge and securing land and forest rights for indigenous peoples within formal climate justice frameworks.
Courage passed down like memory, like soil, like seed. Across decades, across forests and courtrooms and classrooms, their work reminds us that care is resistance. Care for land, for community, for the generations yet to come.
This Women’s Day, we do more than celebrate these women. We recognise that their struggle is not a chapter closed, but a story still unfolding. And perhaps the most powerful tribute we can offer is not applause, but continuation of their legacy.