Forest and tribal rights activist Alok Shukla has been awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize – 2024 for successfully leading a community campaign that saved 4.45 lakh acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines in Chhattisgarh.
The prestigious prize, also known as the ‘Green Nobel’, is awarded by the Goldman Environmental Foundation. It is awarded to grassroot environmental heroes from six regions — Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South and Central America and lastly, islands and island nations.
“Alok Shukla led a successful community campaign that saved 4,45,000 acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In July 2022, the government cancelled the 21 proposed coal mines in Hasdeo Aranya, whose pristine forests—popularly known as the lungs of Chhattisgarh—are one of the largest intact forest areas in India,” a statement from the Goldman Environmental Foundation said.
It recognised that the Hasdeo movement’s “ability to successfully influence policy has made it a model for environmental justice in India and generated an unprecedented amount of national and regional solidarity”.
Saving The Lungs of Chhatisgarh
Spread across 657 square miles, the dense and biodiverse Hasdeo Aranya forests form one of India’s most extensive contiguous forest tracts. They are also home to 25 endangered species, 92 bird species, and 167 rare and medicinal plant species. Nearly 15,000 tribals depend on the Hasdeo Aranya forests for their livelihood, cultural identity and sustenance.
Hasdeo forests, known as the lungs of Chhattisgarh, are also a catchment area for the Hasdeo river, a tributary of the Mahanadi. The river serves as the watershed for the Hasdeo Bango reservoir, irrigating 741,000 acres of farmland.
Meanwhile, the region contains one of India’s largest coal reserves — an estimated 5.6 billion tons of coal sit under the Hasdeo forests.
In 2010, the Union Environment Ministry declared the Hasdeo forests a “no-go” zone for mining in recognition of their rich biodiversity but the declaration was never formalised into law and successive governments have attempted to jumpstart mining operations.
A Natural Leader
The statement by the Goldman Environmental Foundation called Alok Shukla a ‘natural leader’, who had “witnessed the profound environmental and social devastation wrought by extractive industries” in his formative years in Chhattisgarh. Acutely aware of unsustainable resource extraction, he decided to dedicate his life to protecting the water, forests, and land of central India, as well as supporting Adivasi tribes, which are the traditional stewards of the land.
Alok first learned about plans to auction coal blocks in Hasdeo’s forests in late 2011. He realised that the affected communities had little information about the mining process or awareness of their existing legal rights and began advising them on potential legal strategies and tactics. The earlier opposition by Adivasis to the projects had been somewhat disorganised and hence, two mines were brought online around 2010.
Shukla, through his efforts, brought all stakeholders in the struggle to save Hasdeo on a common platform in 2012, when the Hasdeo Aranya Bachao Sangharsh Samiti was founded.
Protests by locals stalled the process of coal block auctions in June 2020. In December that year, the Centre invoked emergency provisions to move 21 coal blocks forward. Shukla organised villagers that year, when the COVID-19 lockdown was in place, to protest against the 21 proposed coal mines.
In October 2020, he led local villagers to lobby the village legislative councils to designate 9,45,000 acres as the Lemru elephant reserve, protecting the elephant corridor and its boundaries from planned coal mines. Three mines were withdrawn from public auction in September 2020, in the face of sustained protests by locals in the area and, after a 10-day, 166-mile protest march to the state capital of Raipur in October 2021 alongside 500 villagers, an additional 14 mines were cancelled.
Shukla, the convenor of Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, garnered widespread support on social media and digital platforms by using the hashtag #SaveHasdeo. The campaign inspired creative acts around the country, including motorcycle rallies and couples using the hashtag in their wedding invitations.
In the spring months of 2022, villagers began an indefinite sit-in and launched tree-hugging protests against the felling of 300 trees that had been cleared for the proposed mines. In July 2022, the state legislature adopted a resolution against mining in the entire Hasdeo Aranya region and demanded cancellation of any existing allocations.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was founded by Richard and Rhonda Goldman in 1989. The winners are selected by an international jury and awarded $200,000 as prize money.
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