The Women's Tree Party symbol

The logo of the Women's Tree Party in Nepal painted on the side of a house. The Tree Party was created in 1990 with the change over to a democratic form of government that gave permission to Nepalis to create as many political parties as they liked. The tree Party gave women a voice in protecting the national resources of Nepal in light of the governments desperate need to pay off large debts to the World Bank and the IMF.

In response, the woman told me, all the women in the district where the forest were being cut mobilized in protest and picketed the cutting areas where the trees were being logged. The contractors kept cutting while the women protested and wrote letters trying to get the government to stop the destruction. The men kept cutting. They cut faster, inefficiently, damaging the hillsides and causing erosion. The women protested more aggressively. Women went up into the logging areas on the steep hillsides and tied themselves to trees. The men pushed the women away and went ahead and cut the trees down. Then women chained themselves to the trees. That held things up for a little while and then, according to the woman telling me this, the loggers cut right through the women and the trees.

At this point I have to be careful. I have not validated this story by doing additional research and because of my poor Hindi and the woman’s poor English, there is room for discrepancy. I double checked with her to the best of our combined abilities and the story she repeated seemed to indicate that a lot of the protesting women were killed in this way, to be cut in two by a chain saw. Again, I haven’t verified it. I do not know how many women were killed, but I think that it is true that some women died. Finally the government stopped the cutting and sent away the loggers.

During the 1990 re-organization of the government of Nepal, the pro-democracy movement, the women organized a Tree Pary. The women who protested the logging were at the forefront of the party and sought stronger laws to protect the trees. Women formed teams to replant the forests that were cut down. They also took up a public display of worshipping trees, particular trees, but saying articulately that trees are sacred.