Madhav Gadgil, Ph.D.

Research

Project Details

Gadgil focused on regional conservation networks in India to facilitate and empower community-based environmental management and conservation. He successfully organized a system of 27 science colleges, university departments and NGOs spread over 150,000 sq kms of the Western Ghats. Teachers and students involved in the network collaborate with local communities and environmental stakeholders to document environmental changes taking place in their region, the forces driving these changes, their implications for levels of biodiversity and possible options for biodiversity-friendly development strategies.

The network has completed habitat mapping of designated study sites and sampling for tree and bird species in representative examples of each habitat. Work has also been initiated on other plant and animal groups including butterflies, freshwater mollusks, fishes, mosses and liverworts. The groups are now actively documenting the knowledge and conservation practices of local communities. Results are compiled into community registers of local biodiversity, its uses and conservation practices, and made available in local languages.

Biography

Madhav Gadgil has been active in ecodevelopment-oriented participatory research with numerous organizations and he writes and broadcasts extensively in Indian languages on environmental issues. His research interests include population biology, conservation biology, human ecology and ecological history.

Since 1973, Gadgil has worked at the Indian Institute of Science where he is currently a professor of Ecological Sciences. Prior to this position he was at Harvard University where he held posts as research fellow in Applied Mathematics and as a lecturer in Biology.

MORE INFORMATION

Indian Institute of Science, Gadjil Homepage

CV

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Harvard University
1969: Biology, Massachusetts, USA

Master of Science, Harvard University
1965: Zoology, Massachusetts, USA

Bachelor of Science, Poona University
1963: Zoology, India

KEY LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

CIFOR
1996-Present: Trustee

Indian Prime Minister's Science
1986-1990: Advisory Council

Convention on Biological Diversity, Vice President of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific
1995: Technical and Technological Advice to the Convention

KEY AWARDS & HONORS

Marine Fellow
1993: Pew Fellows Program in Conservation and the Environment

Foreign Associate
1991: U.S. National Academy of Sciences

Fellow
1991: Third World Academy of Sciences

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award
1986

Fellow
1983: Indian National Science Academy

Honorary Member
British Ecological Society

SELECT PUBLICATIONS

• Gadgil, M. and H. Nagendra. 1998. Linking regional and landscape scales for assessing biodiversity: A case study from Western Ghats. Current Science 75(3): 264
• Hegde, V., M.D.S. Chandran and M. Gadgil. 1998. Variation in bark thickness in a tropical forest community of Western Ghats in India. Functional Ecology 12(2): 313
• Utkarsh, G., N.V. Joshi and M. Gadgil. 1998. On the patterns of tree diversity in the Western Ghats of India. Current Science 75(6): 594
• Pramod, P., R.J. Ranjit Daniels, N.V. Joshi and M. Gadgil. 1997. Evaluating bird communities of Western Ghats to plan for a biodiversity friendly development. Current Science 73(2): 156
• Pramod, P., R.J. Ranjit Daniels, N.V. Joshi and M. Gadgil. 1997. Evaluating bird communities of Western Ghats to plan for a biodiversity friendly development. Current Science 73(2): 156
• Gadgil, M. 1996. Western Ghats: A lifescape. Journal of the Indian Institute of Science 76(4): 495
• Gadgil, M. 1994. Inventing monitoring and conserving India's biological diversity. Current Science 66(6): 25
• Gadgil, M. 1993. Biodiversity and India's degraded lands. Ambio 22(2): 167
• Gadgil, M. 1992. Conserving biodiversity as if people matter: A case study from India. Ambio 21(3): 266-270
• Gadgil, M. and R. Guha (eds.) 1992. This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, and University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA