Bhagwan Kesbhat

Founder

Founder of Waatavaran Climate Environment & Sustainability Foundation

Bhagwan Kesbhat is the founder of Waatavaran Climate Environment & Sustainability Foundation [1], an Indian non-profit working on environment from Navi Mumbai.

Bhagwan Kesbhat is the founder and chief executive of the Waatavaran Climate Environment and Sustainability Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-profit set up in 2018 and registered as a section 8 company. Waatavaran works on climate justice, clean air, sustainable mobility and the protection of Mumbai's wetlands, mangroves and green cover.

Before founding Waatavaran he worked with the Paani Foundation, YUVA and Video Volunteers, running campaigns on decentralised watershed management and community media.

Early life and education

Kesbhat holds a postgraduate qualification from SIES, Mumbai, and an MBA in social entrepreneurship from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Career

He has described more than two decades of work in programme design, community organising and policy advocacy, specialising in decentralised watershed management.

He established Waatavaran in 2018. The organisation campaigns on air quality, on public and non-motorised transport, and on the ecology of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. In 2020 it convened Biodiversity by the Bay, a campaign bringing together young Mumbai residents and specialists around five demands including protection of the city's flamingo habitats, no-development status for the Aarey forest, and safeguards for the livelihoods of the Koli fishing community. Waatavaran has also organised public and legal discussion on the protection of Mumbai's wetlands.

Recognition

He was named a Distinguished Alumnus of NMIMS in 2020.[2][3][4][5]

Waatavaran Climate Environment & Sustainability Foundation

Waatavaran is a Navi Mumbai-based Section 8 nonprofit working on climate action, air-quality improvement, biodiversity conservation and forest rights for indigenous communities. It partners with institutions including IIT Bombay, TISS and the Government of Maharashtra on hyper-local environmental programmes.

Waatavaran Climate Environment & Sustainability Foundation reports the following, on its own site:

Intensively working with 15 tribal villages of Raigad district, Maharashtra on community forest rights and resource management in 2023-24, with Community Forest Resource Management Committees (CFRMCs) formed and women mandated as President or Secretary of each