Renowned environmentalist and “barefoot ecologist” Tulsi Gowda, whose unparalleled knowledge of plants earned her the title “encyclopaedia of forests,” has died at the age of 86 at her home in the Honnalli village of Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka. Prime Minister Narendra Modi mourned her death on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), writing, “Deeply saddened by the passing of Smt. Tulsi Gowda Ji, a revered environmentalist from Karnataka and Padma Awardee. She dedicated her life to nurturing nature, planting thousands of saplings, and conserving our environment. She will remain a guiding light for environmental conservation. Her work will continue to inspire generations to protect our planet. Condolences to her family and admirers. Om Shanti.”
Fondly known as “Tulsi ajji,” Gowda nurtured hundreds of thousands of saplings since she was a young girl after her mother started working at a government nursery. Gowda worked as a daily wage worker for 35 years at the nursery before being given a permanent job in recognition of her work towards conservation. She served another 15 years there before retiring at the age of 70 in 2008. Along the way, Gowda made invaluable contributions to the forest department’s afforestation efforts with her traditional knowledge of the land and was known for her ability to recognise the mother tree of any species of tree.
In honour of her monumental legacy, here’s all you need to know about Tulsi Gowda’s life and work.
Born into the Halakki Vokkalu tribe of Karnataka, Tulsi Gowda came from an economically backward family. Her father died when she was around two or three, and when she turned 10 or 12 years old, she got married. Her connection with the natural world developed around that time, and despite lacking formal knowledge, she started to plant saplings and became an autodidact, gaining knowledge about the ecosystem and growth patterns of forests and trees of her own accord. Over a 60-year period, she planted so many trees that she lost count; in her own words, the figure numbers in “lakhs, maybe crores.”
When A N Yellappa Reddy, a retired Indian Forest Services officer who worked as an administrator of forests during his career, found that 90 per cent of native Indian trees had regeneration problems, he set about finding a way to solve the problem. He soon met Gowda and noticed her wealth of knowledge on trees and forests, like the fact that regeneration is best done with seeds from the mother tree. Together, they worked on afforestation efforts, with Reddy commending Gowda for her knowledge on the timing of flowering and germination of seeds, as well as the best time to collect them from the mother tree of a plant.
While many humans today suffer from “plant blindness,” a term that refers to people’s tendency to ignore plant species, Gowda knew them deeply. She could identify more than 300 medicinal plants, a trait she inherited from her tribe, who are well-known for their knowledge of medicinal plants which they mostly utilise to prevent diseases. This knowledge and tradition has been passed down through generations. Gowda's contributions strengthened one community reserve, five tiger reserves, 15 conservation reserves and 30 wildlife sanctuaries, ensuring the preservation of diverse ecosystems.
In addition to the Padma Shri, which she received in 2021, Gowda garnered more accolades for her pioneering work in nature conservation. She received the Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award in 1986 and the Kannada Rajyotsava Prashasti in 1999. In 2023, the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, awarded her an honorary doctorate.
By the end of her life, Gowda was a respected member of the community and a beacon of wisdom and dedication. But despite all that she achieved, she remained humble and worked tirelessly for her cause until the very end. This Vriksha Maata (“mother of trees”) showed the world how one person’s passion and dedication can create a massive impact on the environment. Despite having no formal education, her wisdom about plants and forests surpassed even the most trained environmentalists, and her legacy will continue to inspire people to care for the planet and protect forests.
