About
Dr. Ghanashyam Sharma
Profile
The scientist and the farmer
Himalayan ecologist, agroecologist, policy advisor — and the son of an indigenous farming family who has worked his own land for forty-eight years.
Dr. Ghanashyam Sharma is Programme Manager and Head of The Mountain Institute – India in Gangtok, Sikkim. Across thirty-two years his work has combined scientific and applied research with ecological restoration and community practice, spanning the forest and agricultural ecosystems of the Eastern Himalaya — tropical and subtropical through temperate and alpine to the trans-Himalaya.
These are socio-ecological and socio-cultural landscapes of exceptional biological and cultural diversity, recognised as a global biodiversity hotspot. His work sits where ecological science, traditional knowledge, community institutions and state policy meet.
He began by assisting his father in organic agriculture, upholding a family practice more than two hundred years old, and he worked alongside his grandfather — a farmer, an expert in mountain agricultural farming systems, and a pastoralist who kept more than sixty cattle, some forty buffaloes and a flock of sheep. That apprenticeship meant walking the farms through every season, and going with the herds into the forest areas where the grazing was carried out.
In those same fields he has conserved a Krishnabhog paddy germplasm line for a century and a half. He also holds a doctorate in ecology and environment, and published his agroforestry work in Annals of Botany.
His name is also written Ghanshyam Sharma; papers cite him as Sharma, G.
That combination — the researcher who is also the subject — runs through everything on this site: the peer-reviewed publication record, the springshed and biodiversity programmes standing in the landscape, and the lectures and seminars he gives to universities worldwide.
Education
| Qualification | Institution | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Postdoctoral Fellowship, Environment & Sustainable Development JSPS–UNU Fellow, selected one of five globally. Associate Fellow, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. | United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan | 2005–2007 |
| Ph.D., Ecology & Environment Productivity and nutrient cycling in an age series of Alnus–cardamom agroforestry in the Sikkim Himalaya. | G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment & Sustainable Development / University of North Bengal | 2003 |
| M.Sc., Botany | University of North Bengal | 1992 |
| B.Sc. (Hons.), Botany | University of North Bengal | 1989 |
Career
| Period | Role |
|---|---|
| 2008–present | Programme Manager & Head, The Mountain Institute – India, Gangtok |
| 2009–present | Advisor and Visiting Faculty, School for International Training, World Learning, Jaipur |
| 2018–2019 | Scientific Consultant, Chief Minister’s Office, Government of Sikkim |
| 2015 | International Consultant (Cardamom Expert), HIMALICA programme, ICIMOD, Kathmandu |
| 2009 | National Consultant (Biodiversity), National Biodiversity Authority — GEF-ABS project |
| 2009 | National Consultant (Biodiversity), JICA — Sikkim Biodiversity & Forestry Management Project |
| 2005–2007 | JSPS–UNU Postdoctoral Fellow, United Nations University, Tokyo — and Associate Fellow, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University |
| 2001–2004 | Officer-in-charge, Biodiversity Hot-spot Conservation Programme, WWF-India, Sikkim Regional Office |
| 1997–2001 | Research Associate, G.B. Pant NIHESD (ICAR and Ministry of Commerce funded) |
| 1994–2008 | President, Society for Better Environment, Sikkim |
The two years at United Nations University were international in scope, and he held them alongside an Associate Fellowship at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. Dr. Sharma coordinated UNU’s GEF medium-size project on sustainable land management in mountainous regions across Thailand, Lao PDR and Yunnan Province, China, and worked on UNU’s global GEF project People, Land and Environmental Change in northern Japan and the Southeast Asian mountainous region. The comparative research on traditional farming systems dates from here — the Eastern Himalaya set beside northern Thailand, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Yunnan, and the Japanese tanada and satoyama. He also coordinated, from UNU, the International Expert Meeting on Conserving Agricultural Heritage Systems in Mountainous Landscapes — held with Sikkim University, Kyoto University and ICIMOD — where the case for FAO GIAHS recognition of Sikkim Himalayan agriculture was first set out, and helped coordinate Living with Deserts II at UN House, Tokyo — co-organised by the UNCCD Secretariat and UNU, and the largest event of the UN International Year of Deserts and Desertification in 2006. Three papers from those years, written with L. Liang and K. Tanaka, cover on-farm agrobiodiversity management, sustainable agroecosystem management in Sikkim, and the international initiatives that protect traditional knowledge.
Awards & honours
- Sikkim Sewa Samman, 2013 — the highest civilian award of the Government of Sikkim, conferred as an eminent scientist.
- Overall Best Presentation Medal & Citation, 8th International Conference on Climate Change, Colombo, 2024.
- JSPS–UNU Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2005 — one of five selected globally.
- Certificate of Commendation, Governor of Sikkim, 2017, for the Gazetteer of Sikkim.
- State-level felicitation, Pakyong, 2008; two JSPS Certificates of Appreciation, Japan, 2007.
Committees, past and present, and services
- Member, State Steering Committee, Vision 2047 under Viksit Bharat@2047
- Member, Working Group, State Level Action Plan on Climate Change for Sikkim
- Member, State Steering Committee, Compensatory Afforestation, Management and Planning Authority
- Member, State Level Sikkim Innovation Council
- Member, Sikkim State Biodiversity Board
- Member, Sikkim State Wildlife Board
- Member, State Level Environment Clearance Appraisal Committee (SEAC)
- Member, State TK Committee for Access and Benefit Sharing, Sikkim Biodiversity Board
- Member, Technical Support Group, Sikkim Biodiversity Board
- Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, Sikkim State Council of Science and Technology
- Reviewer for around sixteen international scientific journals of high impact factor
- Translated the Bird Identification Book from English into Nepali for the Centre for Environmental Education, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Guwahati (2004)
- More than forty radio talks and interactive programmes on environment and biodiversity for All India Radio and Doordarshan since 1987