Ecologist Madhav Gadgil | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil (1942-05-24)24 May 1942 (age 83) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Gadgil Commission People Biodiversity Register in India |
| Spouse | Dr.Sulochana Gadgil |
| Parent(s) | Smt. Pramila andDr.Dhananjay Ramchandra Gadgil |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Ecology,Conservation Biology,Human Ecology, Ecological history |
| Institutions | Harvard University Centre for Ecological Sciences,Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore |
| Thesis | Life History Strategies: A Theoretical Investigation (1969) |
| Doctoral advisor | William H. Bossert |
Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil (born 24 May 1942) is an Indian ecologist,[1] academic, writer, columnist and the founder of theCentre for Ecological Sciences,[2] a research forum under the aegis of theIndian Institute of Science.[3] He is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Council to thePrime Minister of India and the Head of theWestern Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of 2010, popularly known as theGadgil Commission.[4][5]
Gadgil is a recipient of theVolvo Environment Prizeand theTyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. TheGovernment of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of thePadma Shri in 1981 and followed it up with the third highest award of thePadma Bhushan in 2006.[6] He received theChampions of the Earth in 2024.[7]
Gadgil was born on 24 May 1942[8] inPune, in the western Indian state ofMaharashtra. His parents were Pramila andDhananjay Ramchandra Gadgil, a Cambridge scholar ,[9] economist, former director of theGokhale Institute and the author of theGadgil formula.[10] He graduated in biology fromFergusson College of theUniversity of Pune in 1963, and secured a master's degree in zoology from theMumbai University in 1965.[11][12]
Gadgil was encouraged to joinHarvard University by Giles Mead, then curator of fishes at theHarvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Initially intending to do research under Mead, Gadgil later changed subjects by hearing lectures ofE. O. Wilson, "the brightest young star in the ecology-evolution end of biology at Harvard at that time," and subsequently did his doctoral research on mathematical ecology and fish behaviour, under the guidance of William Bossert,[9] one of Wilson's former students.[13]
It earned him a PhD in 1969.[14] Subsequently, he received a Fellowship fromIBM to continue his work as a research fellow at the Harvard Computing Center and simultaneously worked as a lecturer of biology at the university for two years.[14]
He returned to India in 1971[15] and took up a job as a scientific officer atAgharkar Research Institute of the Maharashtra Association for Cultivation of Science, Pune where he stayed for two years.[11] In 1973, he joined theIndian Institute of Science (IISc),Bengaluru, starting an association that would stretch for over thirty years, superannuating from the institute as its chairman in 2004.[11] During this period, he established two research centres at IISc, theCentre of Theoretical Studies and theCentre for Ecological Studies.[14] He also worked as a visiting professor atStanford University (1991) and theUniversity of California, Berkeley (1995). After his retirement from IISc, he went back to Pune in 2004 to resume his association with Agharkar Research Institute[11] and holds theDamodar Dharmanand Kosambi chair of the visiting research professor at theUniversity of Goa.[16][17]
In 1976, when theGovernment of Karnataka decided to look into protecting the bamboo resources of the state, Gadgil was asked to conduct a study, which is reported to have influenced the government to curb the subsidies provided to forest based industries.[18] A decade later, in 1986, he was appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister of India, a post he held till 1990.[18] During this period, he assisted the efforts to establish the firstbiosphere reserve in the country at theNilgiris in 1986.[18] In 1998, he was appointed the chairman of theScience and Technology Advisory Panel of Global Environment Facility, an agency under the United Nations. He held the chair till 2002. He also served as a member of the environmental education panel of theNational Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and as a member of theNational Advisory Council.[19] He is a member of theNational Tiger Conservation Authority[18] and is the chairman of the committee proposingEnvironmental Education Curriculum at School level.[20] In 2010, when the Government of India constituted an expert panel,Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), to examine the ecological issues related to theWestern Ghats, he was selected as the chairman of the panel.[21]
Gadgil, an active sportsman during his college years, held the Maharashtra State Junior andPune University high jump records in 1959 and 1961 respectively. He has also represented Pune University at the All India University Athletic meet.[22] He is married toSulochana Gadgil, a notedmeteorologist and aHarvard scholar, whom he met during his Fergusson College years.[15] The couple has a daughter, who is a journalist cum Spanish teacher, and a son, a mathematician.[12][15] The family lives in Pune, his home town. His life story has been recorded in a biographical book,Vidnyanyatri – Dr. Madhav Gadgil, written inMarathi by A. P. Deshpande.[23]
One of the major contributions of Gadgil is his effort towards the preservation of ecology of India. His early researches in the 1980s have helped in the identification of theNilgiris as the firstbiosphere reserve in India.[18] As the chairman of theWestern Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), which later came to be known as theGadgil Commission, he submitted a report in 2011,[24] marking around 64 percent of the Western Ghats region asEcologically Sensitive Area (ESA).[19] The report attracted support and dissension,[25] the environmentalists welcoming the recommendations and the state governments of the neighbouring states and theSyro-Malabar Catholic Church of Kerala disapproving it.[21][24] This paved way for the subsequentKasturirangan Commission, which diluted the recommendations to a level more acceptable to the state governments.[19] He has been credited by many with the introduction of quantitative investigations of ecology and animal behaviour in India and for including humans as a vital part ofecosystems.[18][26] His contributions, as a member of the draft committee, has been reported in the preparation of the Biological Diversity Act 2002[27] and the manual he prepared for thePeople's Biodiversity Registers has been accepted by theNational Biodiversity Authority.[22] He is still associated with the Authority in the preparation of a biodiversity inventory at the local bodies' level.[22]
Gadgil is known to have done extensive researches in the areas ofpopulation biology,conservation biology,human ecology andecological history. His researches have been documented by over 250 scientific articles,[11] published in various journals and magazines.[28] He developed a penchant for writing at an early age and his first publication was a series of ten articles on animal behaviour, published inSrishtidnyan, aMarathi language science magazine, when he was studying in the 10th standard.[18] His doctoral thesis is reported to have been a citation classic.[18][29] He published his first book in English,This Fissured Land, a book on the ecological history of India, in 1992.[30] The next book,Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India,[31] again co-authored byRamachandra Guha, was released in 1995, followed byNurturing Biodiversity: An Indian Agenda, a book co-authored by P. R. Seshagiri Rao, in 1998.[32] In 2005, he published two books,Diversity : The cornerstone of life[33] andEcological Journeys.[34] As a part of his responsibilities as aPew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment,[35] he has contributed towards the preparation ofPeople's Biodiversity Registers and has published a manual,People's Biodiversity Registers: A Methodology Manual.[36][37] Some of his books have been translated into many languages and serve as texts for academic studies.[25] He has also published two books,[16]Nisarganiyojan Lokasahabhagane being one among them,[29] and over 40 articles in Marathi and handled a fortnightly column on natural history, inThe Hindu, from 1999 till 2004.[22] He handles a monthly column in the Marathi daily,Sakal.[22]
TheIndian National Science Academy (INSA) elected him as their Fellow in 1984.[11] Six years later, the two other major science academies of India, TheIndian Academy of Sciences (IAS)[8] and theNational Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), followed suit by electing him as a Fellow in 1990.[39] He is Fellow of theThird World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), an honorary Fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) and a recipient of the National Environment Fellowship of theMinistry of Environment and Forests for his field research in theWestern Ghats.[40] He was elected as a Foreign Associate of theUS National Academy of Sciences in 1991[41] and he serves as a member of theBritish Ecological Society and Ecological Society of America.[3][40]
The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of thePadma Shri in 1981[6] and theCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), an autonomous government agency awarded himShanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, the highest Indian award in the Science and Technology sector, in 1986.[42] In between, in 1983, the Government of Karnataka honoured him withRajyotsava Prashasthi, their second highest civilian award.[22] His alma mater,Harvard University, presented him with theHarvard Centennial Medal, an annual honour given to its alumni for their achievements in their respective field of service, in 2002.[43] The next year, he shared the 2003Volvo Environment Prize of the Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, withMuhammad Yunus, thesocial entrepreneur from Bangladesh.[44]
Gadgil received thePadma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award from the Government of India in 2006[6] and theH. K. Firodia award of the H. K. Firodia Foundation reached him a year later, in 2007.[45] TheCentral University of Orissa honoured him with the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) in 2013[26] andThe Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) recognised the contributions of theWestern Ghats Ecology Experts Panel (WGEEP) and its chairman with the Georgescu-Roegen Award in 2014.[46] TheUniversity of Southern California awarded him theJohn and Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2015, which he shared withJane Lubchenco, a Distinguished Professor ofOregon State University,[25] making him the second Indian, afterM. S. Swaminathan, to receive the Prize.[47] He is also a recipient of theVikram Sarabhai Award andIshwarchandra Vidyasagar Award.[22]
He received the Fergusson Gaurav Puraskar 2019, for being an Outstanding Alumnus from hisAlma Mater,Fergusson College on 6 January 2019. TheUnited Nations awarded hm theChampions of the Earth award in 2024.[7]
Elaeocarpus gadgilii, is a tree species described in 2021 from the Nelliampathy hills in Palakkad district of Kerala, India named in honour of him.[48]
