Kochi: The recent Turkish unrest that gained momentun with the silent defiance of one man, who walked to its sealed-off Taksim Square with no announcement, no explanation and stood there for eight hours, has inspired environmentalists here to to stage a similar protest demanding implementation of the Gadgil Committee report to save the Western Ghats from further degradation.
Environment group, Moozhikkulam Sala and Facebook fraternity, ‘Gadgil report-People’s Magna Carta’ have come together to organise a day- long protest on the lines of the one staged by Erdem Gunduz, a dancer from Izmir, Turkey's third largest city, that went viral on social media as the “Standing Man” protest.
The environmentalists who have formed the Western Ghats Protection Council plan to hold their own Standing Man protest at the High Court junction on December 21 from 10 am to 7 pm and expect around 1000 activists to participate.
“Poet Sachidanandan wrote a poem ‘Standing Man’ inspired by Gunduz's spontaneous defiance of the authorities and we were so inspired by the poem that we decided to use his method to campaign for the protection of our natural environment,” said T R Premkumar, an activist involved in the movement.
