Why in News
- United Nations on Tuesday recognized ecologist Madhav Gadgil with the annual Champions of the Earth award.
- It is the UN’s highest environmental honor, for his seminal work in the Western Ghats.
- Mr. Gadgil, the only Indian on the list of this year’s award recipients, chaired the government-constituted Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel to study the impact of population pressure, climate change, and development activities on the ecologically fragile region in India.
- The panel recommended in 2011 that the entire hill range be declared an Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) and divided it into three Ecologically Sensitive Zones.
