Gopal Lodhiyal

Work area : Nainital district, Uttarakhand 

Gopal belongs to Nainital district in Uttarakhand. At the young age of 19, he got involved with the working of civil society groups in the region. For 6 years, he worked with various groups which initially shaped his understanding of issues people face, of the various aspects of the natural resources he grew up around, and later on of the impacts of policies and laws on people belonging to marginalized communities.

He worked with Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), an organization working in the Kumaon region for 3 years and moved on to work with Aurobindo Ashram in Ramgarh region (Nainital district) where he realized that it was essential to see the end of discrimination for seeing any positive change in the society. He also worked briefly with SADEO in his home district where he got involved with research on education, van panchayats and the social-economic conditions of dalits and van gujjars.

He closely worked on traditional habitats and the lives and culture of pastoral communities. The atrocities forest-dwelling communities faced by actions of the forest department, negative changes made in laws governing forests and the post-colonial conditions in the hill states made a huge impact on him. Since 2006, he has been working as a core member of the Uttarakhand Van Adhikar Manch, a state-level network taking forward the issues faced by forest-dwelling communities. As an expert on the implementation of FRA – Gopal has used legal understanding to prepare claims, follow up with communities at relevant levels, and secure community livelihood models.

A specific focus of his work has been involving community members, mobilising them to take on leadership, involved in advocacy at the state and national levels. Over a period of 15 years, he has developed close relationships with community members and has taken forward the baton of progressive social change.