While India’s natural heritage and its architectural heritage are usually seen as occupying separate silos, there are rare individuals whose work has, in fact, spanned both domains. The Indian environmentalist Chandi Prasad Bhatt, who was the pioneer of a movement to save forests in the Himalayas is one of them. As this article reveals, he was also the “savior”, in a manner of speaking, of the historic fabric of the famous Hindu shrine at Badrinath. He did so by deploying the very methods—simultaneously pressurizing government and leading a ground-level agitation—that he used in protecting forests. Evidently, fighting to safeguard a temple’s traditional form mattered as much to Bhatt as saving forests and trees.