Charlotte Uhlenbroek
British primatologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek began habituating communities of chimpanzees in Tanzania more than a decade ago. Till date she has survived a face-to-face encounter with a leopard, been chased by African killer bees, shared living quarters with a venomous snake and has been wrestled to the ground by a playful, 250-pound gorilla.

She is now grappling with even bigger beasts — land developers and marketers of illegal bush meat, both of which threaten chimps and apes. Charlotte now lends her expertise to the International Ape Alliance’s new campaign. She also hosts several BBC programmes on primates.

Padmamma
Padmamma, hailing from rural Andhra Pradesh, was instrumental in solving the problem of soil erosion in her village. Soil erosion had rendered the land around her village unproductive and barren. The village women organised themselves in ‘Sangams’ and under the guidance of Youth for Action, an NGO, they established many water-harvesting techniques such as pit digging, contourbunding, minor irrigation works, etc. Results were visible in just a year’s time.

According to Padmamma, “Till a year ago, we were ableto produce only a bag of groundnut. Today we are able to reap three to four bags. The soil and water conservation measures have helped double, and at times triple, the crop yields.”

Wangari Maathai
Alarmed by the extent of deforestation and soil erosion in Kenya, one brave woman, Wangari Maathai began a small tree-planting nursery in the 70s. This culminated in a historic grassroots operation called the Green Belt Movement, composed largely of women who planted trees across Kenya to meet fuel needs.

Wangari, unafraid to speak her mind against ruthless development programmes, evoked the wrath of politicians in Kenya who slandered her in parliament. But undeterred by threats and intimidation, her fearless army of green women forced the nation’s President to cancel a project.

Louis Gibb
When she found her son often falling ill, Louis Gibb grew suspicious. After some investigation on her own, she found that the whole neighbourhood was ravaged by the prevalence of cancer, stillbirths, miscarriages and birth defects due to toxic poisoning from chemical waste leaking into their community.

As the community protested, media frenzy generated a huge public outcry, forcing President Carter to fund the relocation of all residents and order a clean-up.

Mama 86, Ukraine
This is a shining example of how ordinary mothers were driven to do extraordinary things when their children battled disease and death due to one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters — Chernobyl. Ukrainian mothers watched in horror as the deathly nuclear radiation catapulted thyroid gland cancer fatalities among children and breast cancer among women.

To make matters worse the state wasn’t willing to divulge information to mothers who were crying out for help. Mama 86 was born to create a new environmental consciousness among people and to assist mothers on health and medical issues. One super-mum summed it aptly, “Maternity gives a sacred feeling: a feeling of responsibility for life and for the future.”

Chipko Movement, India
The life and soul of this extraordinary movement were the invisible rural women of Uttar Pradesh, who believed in sustainable use of natural resources they so greatly depended upon. In the 70s, forests in India were dying due to unbridled commercial felling and local communities suffered as they lost their means of livelihood to rich contractors.

Thousands of local women, imbued by Sunderlal Bahugana and other local leaders, embraced their trees to protect them from the butchery of axes. The women were victorious when a 15-year ban on felling in the Himalayan forests of UP was ordered by Indira Gandhi.

With inputs from Juhi Garg, Rucha Chitnis and Sohaila Kapur
Background Photograph Courtesy Kerala Tourism

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