M. K. Prasad (1932 – 17 January 2022) was an Indian environmentalist known for his grassroots level activism to protect tropical rainforests in the Indian state of Kerala. In the late 1970s, as a member of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad, he led the Save Silent Valley movement, to prevent development of a hydroelectric project in the Silent Valley National Park, a project that would have flooded the rainforest. He was a principal of the Maharaja’s College Ernakulam, Kochi, and pro vice chancellor of Calicut University. Earlier, as a part of KSSP, he had contributed to the national literacy mission which had resulted in his native Ernakulam district being declared the first fully literate district in the country. Early life Prasad was born in an Ezhava family in Cherai on the island of Vypin in the coastal district of Ernakulam in present day Indian state of Kerala. He studied in the Rama Varuna Union High School, a school that was established by local Hindu and Christian community leaders. The headmaster of the school and Prasad's early mentor, K. C. Abraham, would later go on to serve as the governor of Gujarat. While his family was expecting him to follow in his uncle's footsteps to become an Ayurveda physician, he joined Maharaja's College in Kochi. He received an undergraduate degree in botany before going to Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani to graduate with a masters degree in botany. Career and activism Prasad joined the Kerala State Educational Service in 1955 and went on to spend over 30 years in the academic arena holding various positions in the Kerala higher education system including Principal of the Maharaja’s College Ernakulam, Kochi and Pro Vice Chancellor of Calicut University. Prasad joined the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP, ) in 1967. The organization was set up in 1962 as a publishing house focusing on publishing scientific magazines and journals. He wrote extensively for the organization's science journals before stepping in to set up the Ernakulam district unit for the organization. Some of the topics that he wrote in the initial years in the 1960s included industrial pollution, particularly focusing on the estuaries of the Periyar river. In 1971, he partnered with scientists Syed Zahoor Qasim and U. K. Gopalan to organize a seminar and draw attention to the problems of industrial pollution in the Ernakulam district. In the late 1970s, he led efforts to