The value of the raindrop: ‘Anil Agarwal reader’ edited by Pratap Pandey and Sunita Narain

Soil ours, water ours, ours are these forests; our forefathers raised them, it's we who must protect them. This old Chipko song, translated from Garhwali, drives home the vital message of the trailblazing movement which took off in the early 1970s in the hill regions of what is now the state of Uttarakhand. Courageous, resolute women formed the backbone of the struggle, which involved hugging trees to prevent contractors licensed by the government from clearing forests. It is this key message of community sovereignty – a prerequisite for ecological democracy – that constitutes the predominant motif and the core wisdom of the Anil Agarwal Reader, a three volume compilation of articles and editorials by the pioneering environmentalist who preferred to call himself a journalist. Though these articles address issues that were of contemporary interest in the nineties, their relevance to today's grim reality reminds us that not much has changed.

Founder of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India's leading environmental group, Agarwal's life was dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis head on by writing about and campaigning for innovative approaches to deep-rooted problems. Whether he was writing about the path-breaking Chipko movement, bringing out CSE's influential State of India's Environment Citizens' Reports or travelling across rural India to document community-based environmental regeneration efforts, Agarwal's passion for the interests of the poor who are entirely dependent on their natural resource base guided his vision for the environment. In his own words, as quoted in the CSE tribute in their 2000-2002 annual report: