Dhrubajyoti Ghosh


Dhrubajyoti Ghosh was a UN Global 500 Laureate, Special Advisor on Agricultural Ecosystems, part of the Commission on Ecosystem Management, and Regional Chair for South Asia of the IUCN. He is most credited for devoting his life for the survival of the East Kolkata Wetlands, naming it, and creating the world's only fully functioning organic sewage management system.

Early life

He attended the University of Calcutta in West Bengal, India, and was the first engineer of the university to graduate with a PhD in ecology. He went on to become a sanitation engineer for the West Bengal government, which brought the issues of the Kolkata Wetlands to his sites.

Work

Advocating nature-based solutions, Dhrubajyoti Ghosh's work in the East Kolkata showed it could be used for free-of-charge sewage work, fertile aquatic gardens and fisheries, and flood defenses with minimal harm to the environment.
Using his position in RAMSAR, he secured the protection of the wetlands under the RAMSAR convention. This land soon became the world's only fully functional organic sewage management system, treating 750 million litres/day, using solar UV radiation to purify canals leading into the wetlands. The wetlands are now under threat by developers, which Dhrubajyoti Ghosh constantly resisted during his life. His main complaint on the upkeep of this project is that there is no large scale management or municipal ownership of the system to keep quality control, and there is currently no known governmental plans to change that.
His work included being Chief of the Department of Environment of the Government of West Bengal, member of the Board of Trustees of the India Worldwide Fund for Nature, fellow of the National Institute of Science within the Government of India, member to the management board of RAMSAR, and a member of the National Wetland Committee.
He died in Kolkata on February 16, 2018.

Other Accomplishments