Vineet Soni

Friends, I would like to introduce all of you with my hero, who is working to conserve the threatened plants of our beautiful planet. His name is Dr Vineet Soni, a 32 year old plant conservation biologist from Jaipur, India. I never saw the down-to-earth personality like him in my life. It was really great moments for me to meet and work with him.

Vineet Soni is the founder of the "Save Guggul Movement", a community-based conservation effort to conserve threatened plant species, particularly guggul. Dismayed to see the guggul plant slipping towards extinction in an apparent climate of indifference, he founded the Save Guggul Movement in November 2007. Less than three years later, the fortunes of the guggul plant are looking up. Vineet Soni is living proof that, with a little determination and some help from your friends, one person can make a difference.His conservation efforts were well received by local villagers and conservation communities. Soni was profiled as one of 20 global "Earth Movers" by IUCN and interviewed by UNESCO.

He obtained his doctorate in India in 2005 and performed postdoctoral work at the University of Geneva in 2007. He is a member of three International Union for Conservation of Nature commissions: the Species Survival Commission, the World Commission for Protected Areas, and the Commission on Education and Communication.