In an interview, Mongabay-India Editorial Director S. Gopikrishna Warrier speaks with historian Ramachandra Guha about the life and work of renowned ecologist Madhav Gadgil, who died at the age of 83 on January 8, 2026.
Beyond his academic background as a Ph.D. scholar at Harvard on mathematical ecology and fish behaviour, Gadgil also spent much of his life studying and campaigning for the protection of the Western Ghats. He was best known for chairing the Western Ghats Ecology Experts Panel, which submitted recommendations to the Ministry of Forests, Environment and Climate Change to declare the entire mountain range as an ecologically sensitive area. His open criticism of the Wildlife Protection Act being unconstitutional made him a critical voice for promoting community-centric approaches to conservation that uplifted Indigenous and local economies.
Guha met Gadgil when he was a Ph.D. scholar at the age of 24, while Gadgil was 40, and a professor. He recounts how Gadgil was open to his work being critiqued despite the hierarchical differences between the two. They co-authored two books, This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India and Ecology and Equity: The Use and Abuse of Nature in Contemporary India.
In this video, Guha shines a light on Gadgil’s legacy as a scientist, linguistic prowess, democratic approach to his work and adaptability to the challenges of working in the field. He fondly shares anecdotes of Gadgil’s egalitarian, interdisciplinary approach to wildlife conservation and his vast influence on environmental thinking in India.
