Poovulagin Nanbargal

Description

Poovulagin Nanbargal is an environmental movement working on socio-environmental issues in Tamil Nadu, India.

It started in Chennai in the late 1980s and was regrouped in 2008, registering as a public trust to govern its activities. It has introduced environmentalist literature to the Tamil language and translated works such as The One-Straw Revolution and Silent Spring. It publishes a bimonthly environmental magazine, Poovulagu, and a children’s magazine, Minmini.

The organisation has used legal action to oppose projects it sees as environmentally harmful. It filed a public interest litigation against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant after the Fukushima disaster, and gave legal support to protests against the plant. It has also filed cases against projects such as the Chennai-Salem Expressway and a proposed neutrino observatory, and opposed hydrocarbon extraction in Neduvasal.

It holds annual conferences and festivals on ecological themes drawn from Sangam literature, covering topics such as landscapes, water and the seasons. It issues public statements on environmental and land-use policy in Tamil Nadu.