Overview
- His death on January 7 in Pune after a brief illness was confirmed by his son, Siddhartha Gadgil.
- He chaired the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel in 2011, recommending eco-sensitive status for about three-quarters of the range, a scope later scaled back and still pending full notification.
- He championed community-led conservation, helping craft the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 and promoting People’s Biodiversity Registers to empower local stewardship.
- He founded the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science and shaped research spanning human ecology, conservation biology and ecological history.
- Recognitions included the Padma Shri (1981), Padma Bhushan (2006), the Tyler Prize (2015), the Volvo Environment Prize and UNEP’s Champions of the Earth honor in 2024, with recent disasters such as Kerala’s 2024 Wayanad landslides often cited as validating his warnings.