India, Jan. 8 -- Eminent ecologist Madhav Gadgil, widely regarded as one of India's foremost champions of environmental conservation and a key voice in protecting the Western Ghats, passed away in Pune late Wednesday night after a brief illness, family sources said. He was 83.

Gadgil breathed his last at a private hospital in Pune, marking the end of a distinguished career that shaped India's ecological research, conservation policy and public environmental consciousness for over five decades.

He was the founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science and chaired the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, popularly known as the Gadgil Commission. The panel's 2011 report, which recommended declaring large pa...