On an unseasonably warm day at Rock Creek Park, a dozen children — some as young as four — splashed in the creek, dug in mud, uncovered crayfish and hauled clumps of grass from their hair. Brown, 55, who leads ForestKids, a nature-immersion program designed to deepen children’s relationship with the outdoors, remembers when environmentalism was dismissed as “a weird fringe thing.” Back then people used “tree-hugger” as an insult. Now Brown says the label often carries pride.
Nine-year-old Orla McClennen, wearing a Joshua Tree T-shirt, may not know the term’s history, but she loved balancing across a “big, fat tree” to cross the stream. “I mean they give us oxygen, which is pretty like, you really need it,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Today the word “tree-hugger” commonly denotes environmentalists and advocates for woodland preservation. But the phrase’s roots are older and more complex than modern political boxing suggests — reaching from Himalayan villages to U.S. political ads.
Many trace the origin to the 1970s Chipko movement in India. Chipko, Hindi for “to hug” or “to cling,” described villagers who physically embraced trees to block commercial loggers. In 1973, residents opposed cutting of hornbeam trees that were essential to local livelihoods and helped stabilize slopes against landslides and floods. Inspired by Gandhian nonviolent tactics, about 300 people — men, women and children — threatened direct action, and the government backed away. Images of women embracing trees became iconic symbols of the campaign, though some photos were staged later. Scholars emphasize that Chipko was as much about protecting economic and social rights as about reverence for nature.
Environmental historian Ramachandra Guha likens Chipko’s impact to that of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in the United States: both connected environmental protection with social justice and alerted wider publics to ecological dangers. The movement led to restrictions on tree felling in affected regions and a broader awareness of community-based stewardship.
An older episode often cited alongside Chipko involves the Bishnoi community in northwest India. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva recounts a 1730 story in which Bishnoi followers allegedly sacrificed their lives to protect sacred Khejri trees when soldiers came to cut wood for a ruler’s palace. According to the tale, Amrita Devi and others refused to allow the trees to be felled and were killed; the story says hundreds died before tree cutting was banned. Guha and other historians call the Bishnoi account a popular myth without firm documentary proof, but it persists in Indian memory. India declared Sept. 11 National Forest Martyrs Day in 2013 to honor such sacrifices.
In the United States the phrase “tree-hugger” appeared in print before Chipko received global attention. A 1965 Associated Press headline about conservationists trying to save Chicago’s Jackson Park read “Saws Buzz Around Tree-Huggers.” The term took on harsher political overtones in the 1990s, becoming a dismissive label used in debates over logging, energy and climate policy.
The word’s sting lingered into the 2000s. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was briefly tagged a tree-hugger by conservatives after appearing with Representative Nancy Pelosi in a commercial calling for bipartisan climate action — a label he quickly shrugged off. Environmental advocates have long bristled at the phrase because it can trivialize serious work in public health, habitat protection and resource management.
Some critics dispute the caricature entirely, suggesting discomfort with close, nonhuman attachments underlies the mockery. Roger Gottlieb, a philosophy professor who asks students to visit and journal about a campus tree weekly, finds that many skeptical students end up naming and worrying about the tree’s health. “What did he become? A tree-hugger,” Gottlieb said of a student transformed by the exercise.
Younger activists have increasingly reclaimed the term. Leah Thomas, founder of Intersectional Environmentalist, says Gen Z often wears “tree-hugger” as a proud label tied to ecofeminism and radical care. High-profile acts of tree defense, like Julia Butterfly Hill’s 738-day vigil in a thousand-year-old California redwood in the late 1990s, remain emblematic of that commitment.
Back in Rock Creek Park, the affection for trees was easy to see: people napping in the shade of American elms, bikers leaning against oaks, readers sprawled beneath leafy canopies. Brown’s campers inspected leaves for clues, but the creek claimed their attention again. “CRAYFISH!” one shouted, plunging hands into the water. Their excited cries rang through the trees — a small, living reminder of why a word that once stung has, for many, turned into a symbol of care and belonging.