On an 80-degree day in Rock Creek Park, a dozen children as young as four dug into creek mud, found crayfish under rocks and picked grass from their hair. Brown, 55, who runs ForestKids, a nature-immersion program meant to help children connect with the outdoors, has been passionate about environmentalism since the early 2000s, when it was still treated as a “weird fringe thing.”
“‘Oh my gosh, you’re a tree hugger,’” Brown recalled people saying then, as an insult. Now, she says, the label inspires pride. Nine-year-old Orla McClennen, wearing a Joshua Tree T-shirt, may not know the term, but she treasured walking across a “big, fat tree” to cross the creek. “I mean they give us oxygen, which is pretty like, you really need it,” she said.
Today, “tree-hugger” commonly describes environmentalists and woodland preservation advocates. But the phrase has older roots — and a complex history that stretches from India’s Himalayas to modern U.S. politics.
The origin often traced to the Chipko movement of the 1970s. Chipko, meaning “to hug” or “to cling” in Hindi, described villagers who resisted commercial logging in the Himalayas by physically embracing trees to stop them from being felled. In 1973, residents protested the commercial exploitation of hornbeam trees, vital to local livelihoods and important for preventing landslides and floods. Inspired by Gandhian nonviolent action, roughly 300 men, women and children threatened to take direct action; that show of collective resistance prompted the government to back down. Photographs of women hugging trees became associated with the movement, though some were staged afterward. Scholars stress that Chipko was as much about asserting economic and social rights as it was about love of nature.
Environmental historian Ramachandra Guha compares Chipko to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in the U.S.: both served as wake-up calls that tied social justice to environmental sustainability. The movement’s successes included government restrictions on tree cutting in affected areas.
The Chipko story echoes an older account tied to the Bishnoi community in northwest India. According to environmentalist Vandana Shiva, in 1730, followers of the Bishnoi faith sacrificed their lives to protect sacred Khejri trees when the ruler of Jodhpur’s soldiers arrived to collect wood for a palace. Amrita Devi and others reportedly offered their lives rather than allow the trees to be cut; the tale says 363 people died before the king banned tree felling. Guha calls the Bishnoi episode a popular myth lacking solid historical evidence, but the story endures in Indian memory. India designated Sept. 11 National Forest Martyrs Day in 2013 to honor such sacrifices.
In the United States, “tree-hugger” showed up in print earlier than Chipko’s global fame. A 1965 Associated Press article about conservationists opposing a highway through Chicago’s Jackson Park used the term in its headline: “Saws Buzz Around Tree-Huggers.” The label grew more prominent in political discourse in the 1990s and carried a strongly negative tone. Jay Turner, an environmental studies professor, says the phrase became a dismissive tag heaped on activists as debates about logging, energy and climate intensified.
That politicized sting endured into the 2000s. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was briefly branded a tree-hugger by conservatives in his party after appearing with Rep. Nancy Pelosi in an ad urging common ground on climate — a label he quickly shrugged off. Environmentalists bristled at the term because it seemed to erase their practical work in public health and stewardship, reducing complex efforts to a caricature.
For some, the image of hugging trees taps into broader cultural discomfort about nonhuman connection. Roger Gottlieb, a philosophy professor, sees value in making people care for trees. He requires students to visit one campus tree several times a week and journal about it; many who start skeptical end up naming and worrying about their tree’s health. “What did he become? A tree-hugger,” Gottlieb said of one student’s transformation.
The term has been reclaimed by younger activists. Leah Thomas, an environmental author and founder of Intersectional Environmentalist, says Gen Z embraces “tree-hugger” as a badge connected to ecofeminism and radical care. She points to Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in a 1,000-year-old California redwood for 738 days in the late 1990s to prevent logging, as an emblematic figure.
Back in Rock Creek Park, appreciation for trees was obvious. People lounged in the shade of American elms, bikers rested against oaks and readers stretched out under leafy canopies. Brown’s campers examined fallen leaves, but the creek soon called them back. “CRAYFISH!” one camper screamed, hands plunged into the water. The children’s shrieks of excitement echoed through the trees — a small, living reminder of why the label has shifted from insult to something many now wear with pride.