Siddharth Agarwal

Wildlife Service Awards 2025

Siddharth Agarwal 
Environmental trailblazer, innovator, advocate for climate action

In 2016, Siddharth Agarwal, a young IIT graduate in Aerospace Engineering, set out on a 3,000-km. walk along the Ganga, beginning at its delta in Sagar Island, West Bengal, and ending at its source in Gangotri, Uttarakhand. He undertook this extraordinary journey to understand the condition of the river that sustains millions of lives, while observing the people whose lives are intertwined with its flow. Before this, he had cycled across India and walked across Rajasthan to explore India’s social and cultural realities. These journeys, he says, exposed him to the everyday struggles faced by communities at the grassroots, ultimately inspiring him to embark on his long walk along the Ganga.

The Ganga Walk sought to draw public attention to the growing disconnect between people and the natural world to remind us of the river as a living entity. “While more and more young people venture into the wilderness for treks and adventure, many remain unaware of the disastrous environmental policies and projects being implemented,” says Siddharth. He documented his six-month journey in the film ‘Moving Upstream: Ganga’, part of the Moving Upstream Project by the Veditum India Foundation, which he founded. The walk, from June 2016 to April 2017, explored the act of walking, people’s reactions to a slow traveller in a fast-paced era, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The film amplified the voices and concerns of riparian communities – a deeply underrepresented segment of Indian society.

Siddharth did not stop here, nor did his mission. In the next seven years, he walked over 6,000 km. across India, tracing rivers and their tributaries, listening to the stories of those who live by them, and engaging in countless conversations along the way.

Since founding Veditum, Siddharth has designed and led all of the organisation’s projects. Based in Kolkata, it is a not-for-profit research, media, and action-oriented organisation working at the intersection of environmental and social justice. Its current focus lies in India’s river ecosystems and freshwater resources, and the communities, biodiversity, and governance systems that depend on them. When Veditum was founded, its purpose was to learn, to prepare for meaningful action through observation and documentation. Today, those years of walking and learning along India’s rivers have matured into impactful partnerships, well-attended events, and strong collaborative networks that bring together researchers, activists, and policymakers.

Veditum’s long-term vision, Siddharth explains, is to influence how environmental governance takes place in India. Its specific focus, shaped by nearly a decade of walking, lies in protecting India’s river ecosystems. “There are many people working on restoration, with the belief that it will lead to conservation. But I think there’s an equally important role for organisations like Veditum, which prioritise non-destruction as a pathway to conservation,” Siddharth says. “We do this by building accountability in our systems, capacity for collective action, and leadership for the future.”

Years of walking along India’s rivers also brought Siddharth face-to-face with a growing crisis: unsustainable sand mining. What began as scattered observations – mounds of sand, earthmovers gouging riverbeds, trucks hauling away heavy loads – soon revealed a far larger pattern of ecological destruction. Rampant, often illegal sand mining was damaging river ecosystems, displacing communities, and even altering the rivers’ natural courses.

This concern led to the creation of India Sand Watch in August 2023, an open, public-facing platform dedicated to tracking and exposing unsustainable sand mining across the country. The project combines storytelling, citizen observations, and machine learning to build transparent, accessible datasets that empower journalists, researchers, policymakers, and grassroots organisations. At its heart lies a living archive of articles, surveys, guidelines, tenders, and legal documents, all aimed at holding extractive industries accountable and safeguarding India’s rivers from silent, granular destruction.

Today, Siddharth continues his journey across India’s diverse landscapes, connecting communities through the message of water, sand, and environmental justice. With every step, he inspires others to join in building a more equitable and sustainable future. What began years ago with a single step has grown into a powerful movement – one that flows, like the rivers he walks beside, toward renewal and resilience.

By walking new paths with purpose, stitching rivers, sand, and people into a powerful story of resilience, and standing at the frontlines of climate action with quiet resolve, Siddharth Agarwal has shown that he is a true earth warrior. For this we honour Siddharth Agarwal with a Sanctuary Wildlife Service Award, 2025.