Swami Sundaranand (April 1926 – 23 December 2020)[1] was an Indian Yogi, photographer, author and mountaineer who lectured widely in India on threats to the Ganges River and the loss of Himalayan glaciers due to global warming.

[5] Sundaranand lived with Swami Tapovan in the then inaccessible area of Gangotri, at the source of the Ganges, which is considered one of India's most sacred places.

[6][7] Since 1948, he has lived by the Ganges in Gangotri, at 10,400 feet, in a modest hut (kuti) which his master Swami Tapovan Maharaj later bequeathed to him on his death in 1957.

[8] He has witnessed up close the gradual shrinking of the Gangotri Glacier from which the Ganges springs forth, and has chronicled his devotion to the natural beauty of the Indian Himalayas as an accomplished photographer.

[9] Nicknamed "the Sadhu Who Clicks" because of his photography, he was also a noted mountain climber, having scaled over 25 Himalayan peaks, and climbing twice with Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

[13][14] He sought to capture the Eternal in Nature and to document the region as it once was with a special emphasis on planting the seeds of hope and inspiration to solve the environmental concerns of the area.

He attributed this to the unchecked construction of hotels and ashrams in Gangotri and the dumping of waste from these locations, such as faecal matter and garbage, into the Ganga.

He has expressed the view that the pollution of Ganga at its source and melting Himalayan glaciers were the real issues that environmentalists needed to urgently take up, rather than opposing the construction of dams.

He has climbed dozens of its peaks, several of them over 21,000 feet above sea level, and has lectured at Tensing's Himalayan Institute (a famous mountaineering school).

He was very devoted to the ecosystem in which he has lived for forty years and believed that "God does not reside in temples or mosques - he is scattered everywhere in the courtyard of nature.