Name Panduranga Hegde | ||
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Panduranga Hegde is an environmentalist from Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka, India and is known as the person who started Appiko movement to protect trees in Western Ghats.
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Birth and early life
Panduranga Hegde was born in 1956 in Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka and studied bachelor's degree at Karnatak University. He worked as Chartered Accountant at Delhi and later trained himself in Social work at Delhi School of Social Work and spent four years in Madhya Pradesh among rural people with Damoh, a non government organisation. He was attracted by Chipko movement led by Sundarlal Bahuguna and got involved with protection of forests and environment.
Appiko movement
Panduranga Hegde is inspired by Sundarlal Bahuguna in the area of environmental protection and is known as disciple of the latter. During the 1980s, Panduraga Hegde led people to protect trees in forest by embracing the trees or appiko (as in local language Kannada) when the contractors tried to fell trees.