Go back to people list

Vandana Shiva

Born into a progressive family in 1952 she completed some of her education in both the UK and the USA, graduating in Physics and doing a PhD in the Philosophy of Science. On her return to India she was seriously affected by the change that "aid" had brought to the agrarian society of her beloved Himalayas and she has dedicated her career since to promoting ecological balance.

In 1982 she set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in the Himalayas where research is carried out in support of environmental struggles to justify the voice of local communities and tackle social ecological problems. It has produced initiatives such as the Seed University, International College for Sustainable Living, Diverse Woman for Diversity and the Living Democracy Movement.

At home in India and on a wider international platform she is an advocate for the rights of indigenous people to their own natural resources. This has led to campaigns against the patenting of plants and seeds and concern about the impact of intellectual property rights. Her belief is that the subsistence farmer (and in India the work of women) is at the centre of conservation and biodiversity and that it is seriously threatened by centralised global systems.

As an exponent of eco-feminism she argues that the role of women in the environment and their contribution to sustainable agriculture be set against the impact that liberalisation and free trade has had on agriculture and the people who depend on it. Her belief is that any biodiversity of recent years is being threatened by globalisation. She devotes a lot of time to raising awareness about the need to conserve genetic heritage, research into sustainability and maintaining justice at grass root level. Her work in this area won her the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, known as "the alternative Nobel Prize".

She is a renowned spokesperson in the debate concerning the ethical and ecological issues of globalisation taking her scientific knowledge, social research and activism in India onto a wider international platform as a writer, educator and speaker. This has led to controversial pressure being put on multi-national corporations, The World Bank and the WTO on bio-diversity issues.

An editor and author of many books including Staying Alive, Monoculture of the Mind, Stolen Harvest, Water Wars, Tomorrow's Biodiversity-Prospects for Tomorrow, Patents Myths & Reality and Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, all of which inform and address pressing debate about how the world develops.

In her own words "I personally am committed to feeling and believing that the smallest of species and the smallest of people have as much a right to live on this planet with dignity as the most powerful corporation and the most powerful individual."

www.vshiva.net

Biopiracy The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge Vandana Shiva, 1997 ISBN: 0896085554 - order from Amazon Argues that the intellectual property provisions of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade, the World Trade Organization, and other international institutions perpetuates the assumption that Europeans have the right to appropriate the natural world.

Stolen Harvest The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply Vandana Shiva, 2001 ISBN: 184277025X - order from Amazon Charts the impact of globalized, corporate, agriculture on small farmer, the environment and the quality of the food we eat.

Water Wars Pollution, Profits and Privatization Vandana Shiva, 2002 ISBN: 0745318371 - order from Amazon Examines the "water-war" of the 21st century: the progressive privatization by the multinationals of communal water rights. While drought and desertification are intensifying around the world, corporations are aggressively converting free-flowing water into bottled profits. The water wars of the 21st century may match - or even surpass - the oil wars of the 20th.