Coronavirus has taken away many extraordinary personalities of very high stature who have carved a niche with their work from us. Environmentalist and Chipko movement pioneer Sunderlal Bahuguna died at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh on Friday after battling COVID-19 for several days. He was 94. Sundarlal Bahuguna was one of India’s best-known environmentalists. His work was speaking for his devotion for his cause, unlike many others who only present lip service and then remain for only speeches. His death is a big loss not just for Uttarakhand and India but for the entire world. He died at a time when the entire world is fighting the menace of global warming and its serious ill effects due to it. Global warming is caused by the greed of humans for money taking a toll on the entire mother planet and at this crucial juncture, the persons like Sundarlal are needed at the most. He was called Himalaya ka Rakshak ( The savior of Himalaya). He was a crusader of protection of the environment from greedy industrialists and builders lobby and he has initiated the Chipko movement in the seventies. Indian values are living with nature in harmony and Bahuguna was the most honest and perseverant compiler of this pathos. The importance of the Chipko movement can’t be overlooked when we write the history of Indian forest conservation efforts. Bahuguna was associated with his movement so closely, that his entire life had been forgotten from public minds and only his Chipko movement remained still alive. Due to his efforts, Indian government seriously started to preserve vast Indian forests which are a source of many rarest of rare medicinal flora. Forest cutting was considered as a profession, then Bahuguna started his crusade and after some years, forest conservation was being considered an extremely noble cause. The government and forest departments started to seriously take their duties to protect forests. Bahuguna has spent a good part of his life on tree farming or conservation of forests in the Himalayas which was so far being considered as impossible.  He used to say emphatically that, we have to look after the well-being of the Himalayas not only for Uttarakhand but for the entire country. His devotion to his cause was not just lip service. In 1981, he refused to accept the Padmashree award, as a disappointment to the fact that, at that time, big trees were felling in a Himalayan region frequently and rampantly. The environment was in the utmost danger. According to Bahuguna, the well-being of the Himalayas is not only good for Uttarakhand but entire India. His good advice was not heeded by governments is a different thing. As the Himalayas is home to many glaciers and rivers that melt in summer and bring floods, the trees are extremely necessary from the environmental point of view. Bahuguna always used to say that, Fruit trees, flowering trees, and nut trees should be planted across the Himalayas to protect this natural water reservoir of the country. Following his beliefs and vision about Himalayan ecology would be a fit tribute to him. Bahuguna was a keen follower of Mahatma Gandhi and so in the seventies, he started his Chipko movement to the conservation of forests in Himalayan states. He was so devoted to his movement that, he carried a five thousand KM march in the Himalayan region in the eighties. Tehri dam was causing a danger to ecology and so Bahuguna took this issue for his movement. Like Medha Patkar's hard-fought battle against Sardar Sarovar, Bahuguna fought against Tehri dam. He then began to take environmental issues in the entire country and his honest efforts brought him Padmavibhushan, the second-highest civilian award. The friend of the Himalayas has gone now.

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