Member of the Council of Elders
Based in India. A founder of the Indian environmental action group Kalpavriksh (an early ICCA Consortium Member), Ashish has taught at the Indian Institute of Public Administration. He coordinated India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan process, has served on Greenpeace International and India Board, and currently chairs Greenpeace India. He has served two terms as co-chair of TILCEPA, the IUCN Strategic Direction on Governance, Equity, Communities, and Livelihoods, and was a Steering Committee member of two IUCN Commissions, CEESP and WCPA. Ashish has been active in various people’s movements and civil society networks relating to destructive development, and natural resource rights, including Narmada Bachao Andolan. His involvement with ICCAs is three decades old; he served on the first Steering Committee of the ICCA Consortium, and he coordinated a global study of recognition of ICCAs co-published by the Consortium with the CBD Secretariat and others. Ashish currently helps coordinate the Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives Confluence) process in India, Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and Radical Ecological Democracy network. He is the (co)author or (co)editor of over 30 books, including Churning the Earth: Making of Global India (with Aseem Shrivastava), Alternative Futures: India Unshackled (ed., with KJ Joy), and Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (ed., with Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Federico Demaria, Alberto Acosta).