Bengaluru: Renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil passed away on January 7 at Pune, Maharashtra, after a brief illness. He was 82 years old. His cremation will take place at 4 pm on Thursday (January 8) at Pune’s Vaikuntha crematorium.Gadgil, who founded the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bengaluru, had been studying India’s ecology and environment for more than 50 years. His topics of study were very diverse, ranging from the sacred groves of the Western Ghats to traditional ecological knowledge and peoples’ participation, India’s ecological issues and conflicts to environmental movements, and more. Gadgil spearheaded work on the ecological significance of the Western Ghats. It was for this work that in 2024, the United Nations Environment Programme awarded him their Champions of the Earth award for the year under the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ category.Gadgil had also authored and co-authored numerous books, from This Fissured Land in 1992, to A Walk Up The Hill – Living with People and Nature, in 2023. He was also the recipient of several awards including the top civilian awards in the country – the Padma Shri, in 1981, and the Padma Bhushan, in 2006.One of Gadgil’s most widely-known and quoted works is his report submitted to the government as head of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) in 2011. The panel submitted its report after a lot of field visits, interactions with local communities and more. The report categorised the Western Ghats across six states into Eco Sensitive Zones of different gradations: 1 (areas of highest sensitivity), 2 (areas of high sensitivity) and 3 (areas of medium sensitivity). The report made a lot of recommendations, including no mining or quarrying in areas listed under ESZ1. All states rejected the report; many called it “impractical.” And 14 years later, it has not been implemented in any form yet, across any of the six states home to the Western Ghats in India – even after another panel headed by Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan submitted another, more diluted report that also decreased the area across the Ghats that is to be eco-sensitive. In an interview with The Wire in December 2024, he said that the Kasturirangan report advocates “a dictatorial, anti-people approach” because it does not take into account the say of local communities in economic decisions pertaining to the Ghats.“Political will will respond to peoples’ pressure. Today, the political will is entirely responding to the money man’s pressures. Unless people can counter this, things won’t change,” he had told The Wire.He also held clear thoughts on the development projects coming up in the Great Nicobar Island, in tune with the warnings of scientists, conservationists, activists and several other sections of society.“If India has to act as a law-abiding country, then the Forest Rights Act would very much apply to the Shompens and the Nicobarese. Those areas should remain inviolate. They should be community forest resources of particularly vulnerable tribal groups and they should not be touched. So we are violating these laws all the time,” he had said.Gadgil was also very clear that scientists should hold truth to power, however “unpalatable” it may be. In an interview with this reporter in December 2024, Gadgil said:“And all along, I’ve said many things that are unpalatable to those in power but I have stood my ground by always making sure that I give good, solid evidence. And the evidence is based very much on the ground… even with the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report, it has been my strong point I must say and I’m very happy that I managed to do all this.”