Jailed Innovator Sonam Wangchuk features in TIME Magazine’s prestigious 2025 TIME100 Climate list

STC NEWS MONITORING DESK
SRINAGAR, NOVEMBER 01 (STC): Jailed climate innovator and educator Sonam Wangchuk has featured in TIME Magazine’s prestigious 2025 TIME100 Climate list. He has been included in the “Defenders” category, honouring those who protect the planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems and communities.
The recognition places the 57-year-old engineer from Ladakh alongside world leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, and activists shaping the future of climate resilience.
TIME’s recognition celebrates Wangchuk’s groundbreaking work in sustainable water management through his invention of “ice stupas”, artificial glaciers designed to combat water scarcity in the cold desert region. Inspired by ancient Ladakhi wisdom, these cone-shaped ice towers store winter meltwater and release it during spring, ensuring irrigation for farmers in one of the world’s driest, highest-altitude regions.
Notably, Wangchuk combined traditional ecological knowledge with modern engineering to create scalable climate solutions. His innovation has since been replicated in Nepal, Pakistan, Chile, and the Swiss Alps, earning him international acclaim.
Its worth mentioning that the annual list, unveiled on October 30, recognizes 100 global leaders driving meaningful action against climate change. Wangchuk’s profile in the magazine highlights how his ideas “turned frozen deserts into fertile land,” describing him as “a defender of both the Himalayas and the people who call it home.”
Pertinently, Wangchuk was arrested in September under the NSA, a preventive detention law allowing incarceration without trial, for leading a peaceful campaign demanding constitutional protection for Ladakh’s land, culture, and environment.
His wife, Gitanjali J. Angmo, who heads the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives (HIAL) that Wangchuk founded, shared the TIME announcement on social media, calling it a moment of “poignant irony.”
“While his own Government is busy proclaiming @Wangchuk66 an anti-national and a threat to national security, TIME Magazine celebrates him as one of the world’s most influential leaders driving real climate action,” Angmo wrote on X (formerly Twitter), tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Rashtrapati Bhawan.
(Input from Agencies / Straight Talk Communications)