In 1976, when the Government of Karnataka decided to look into protecting the bamboo resources of the state, Gadgil was asked to conduct a study, which is reported to have influenced the government to curb the subsidies provided to forest based industries. A decade later, in 1986, he was appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister of India, a post he held till 1990. During this period, he assisted the efforts to establish the first biosphere reserve in the country at the Nilgiris in 1986. In 1998, he was appointed the chairman of the Science and Technology Advisory Panel of Global Environment Facility, an agency under the United Nations. He held the chair till 2002. He also served as a member of the environmental education panel of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and as a member of the National Advisory Council. He is a member of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and is the chairman of the committee proposing Environmental Education Curriculum at School level. In 2010, when the Government of India constituted an expert panel, Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), to examine the ecological issues related to the Western Ghats, he was selected as the chairman of the panel.