- Lived:
- born 9 January 1927 in Maroda village, Tehri Garhwal (now Uttarakhand); lived, walked and fasted almost entirely in the Garhwal Himalaya; died of COVID-19 at AIIMS Rishikesh, 21 May 2021, aged 94
- Field:
- environmentalism, Gandhian style — the Chipko movement, the anti-Tehri-dam struggle, and forty years of walking the Himalaya to argue that forests are not timber
- The Big Idea:
- A standing forest is not a warehouse of wood; it is the machinery that makes soil, holds water and steadies the air — so destroying it for quick revenue is not development but a loan taken from your grandchildren at ruinous interest.
- In their words:
- "Ecology is permanent economy."
- If you remember one thing:
- The most famous image of Indian environmentalism — villagers hugging trees to stop the axemen — was made by a band of hill women led by Gaura Devi on 26 March 1974; Sunderlal Bahuguna's genius was to walk that image five thousand kilometres along the mountains until the whole world, and finally the Prime Minister of India, had to answer it.