||WORK OF DR. ANIL P. JOSHI||

Dr. Anil Prakash Joshi plunged himself to a simple task to ensure rural community get appropriate benefits of its resources. In order to carry forward his mission he formed a voluntary organization in 1983 Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO). His work is pervasive today in mountain villages. His total accomplishment revolve around two major approaches viz. LOCAL NEED MEET LOCALLY and ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY must go together to ensure long term sustainability.

As a teacher he guided many Ph.D scholars and some of them joined him for his mission of rural upliftment. His focus became development of resource based rural economy. In order to promote the same, he concentrated on technology development, innovative market approach and organization of community for the same. He in his 35 years of social dedication worked on mobilization of community of different areas for their resource based economic development.

One of the most important age old water based occupation, watermill, was just abandoned because of invasion of diesel or electric run devices. Dr. Joshi mobilized this community and as well promoted low cost, locally repairable technologies to develop their competence. His efforts to developed hundreds of such mills in different states specially Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and North-East. A mini watermill revolution has been setup after his attempts.

He inspired local shrines to promote offering made of local crops so that forward and backward linkages can be addressed. The major shrine Badrinath, Kedarnath and Yamnotri undertook this. Vaishno Devi shrine of J& K where millions of pilgrims come annually was able to generate Rs. 4-5 millions of worth employment for rural women through sweet balls made from underuse corn crop around the shrine.

Similarly, Horticultural crops especially variety of fruits both cultivated and wild did not pay healthily to local community. His concept of local processing for value addition caught enormous attention. There are 30 small to cottage level processing units working in many mountain states where training and mobilization was imparted by his group. His attempts organized fruit processor of the state called Himalayan Fruit Processor Association. This organization inter-exchange resources knowledge and collectively markets their produce.

Drying water spring due to deforestation have been a major challenge in mountain areas Dr. Joshi with the help of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre was able to recharge the spring through simple technology by identifying recharge zone. Such zones then after treated with dyke, check dams and water harvesting structure brought back water to spring. About 60 water springs have been revived in two states serving 30 villages currently.

There are several hundred research institutes in the country devoted to conduct research for community developments. These institutes in absence of any interface mechanism with community were underutilized. Dr. Joshi mobilized eleven institutes such as Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai and Defence Research and Development Organization, New Delhi for transfer of their knowledge to community through civil society and it has become a protocol for many research institutes of the country now. Hundreds of villages in the country especially in Himalaya have benefitted with this initiative.

He has also initiated Women's Initiative for Self-Employment, a social platform for women to generate employment and marketing opportunities, as well as to address other economy-related issues. The major strength of this group is to develop their own mechanism for loaning, productions and marketing. This group works on local resources and is an independent organization of women. The numbers of WISE members are more than thousand spread in 50 villages.

In order to facilitate mountain rural issues, he moved a program called Technology Intervention for Mountain Eco-system (TIME). This program was run by local research institutes and civil societies successfully at 100 locations across the Himalayan states and has been role models for the different state Government of Himalaya on local resource use.

In Order to offer tribute to Himalayas, Dr. Joshi has initiated celebration of Himalayan Day on September 9^th since 2010. This is to draw attention of planners and policy makers towards Himalayan issues. This day has also been accepted and declared by the State Government of Uttarakhand as Himalayan Day.

Dr. Joshi has undertaken Padyatra to raise the issues on community right and their empowerment. Foot march from Gangotri to Delhi, Uttarakhand to Himachal Pradesh and Manari to Maletha were conducted to raise resource based economic issues. He also organized cycle march from J&K to Uttarakhand and from Kanyakumari to Uttarakhand (5000 Km) and recently from Jailpaiguri to Dehradun (2200km) to assess the ecological status of India and community perspective for the same. In 2015 he has also started Gaon Bacchao Movement to Save the Villages. This movement caught enormous community support and became major movement of Uttarakhand after state demand movement.

Recently, Dr Joshi has also been able to initiate International workshop on rural contribution in global ecology and economy in University of North Taxes, USA and was participated by 27 countries. This resulted into formation of International Association for rural advocate. He is one of the authority on environmental issue in the country and has been regularly publishing editorial in major news paper of the country and his view has been largely accepted by the society and policy maker.

By and large Dr. Joshi has been able to mobilize various programs which impacted both community organizations and Government. His works covers 2800 villages and 15 states of India covering 9 states of Himalayan region. Governments of mountain states have adopted his various rural development protocols.

Positions:

Fellow National Academy of Science.

Member of Indian Society for Forester.

Fellow of Indian botanical Society

Member of Governing council of Institute of Bioresources and sustainable development (IBSD) , Imphal

Research advisory committee (RAC) for Uttarakhand council for Biotechnology.

Member of office of the account General Uttarakhand State

Awards:

Dr Joshi has received several prestigious awards i.e Jawahar Lal Nehru Award by the Indian Science Congress in 1999, Social Science Award for 2001 from Shri Ram Washshran Devi Bhatia Memorial Charitable Trust, Declared Man of the Year 2002 by the popular magazine “The Week”, Dr. T.N. Khoshoo Memorial Award in Conservation for 2005 for his contribution to social upliftment, Padma Shree Award in 2006, Jamnalal Bajaj Award in 2006, Honored as one of the Silvers of the Year 2007 achievers named By Harmony Magazine, 2007, Real Heroes Award, CNN-IBN and Reliance, 2008 , National Award for women's development through application of science and technology, 2009, and Heroes of hopes by times of India, 2010 etc.