Have we forgotten what life is? Known as the “Gandhi of grain”, Dr Vandana Shiva is a one-woman environmentalist movement who has written over 20 books and won some of the world’s most prestigious awards.
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The warrior battling to save Earth
Have we forgotten what life is? Known as the "Gandhi of grain", Dr Vandana Shiva is a one-woman environmentalist movement who has written over 20 books and won some of the world's most prestigious awards.
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What's in a seed? The smallest is as tiny as 0.05 millimetres. Its hard coat is packed with nutrients and protects a tiny embryo.
For Dr Vandana Shiva, seeds are a symbol of everything beautiful in life. They represent courage, survival, and biodiversity. For five decades, Shiva has fought for environmental justice in India and beyond, inspired by the humble seed.
Shiva was born in 1952 in the forests in Uttarakhand, a mountainous state in northern India. The forests were her identity, she says, and from an early age she was captivated by the laws of nature.
After earning her PhD, she became inspired by the Chipko movementA protest against deforestation in India in the 1970s, where people hugged trees in a bid to protect them from loggers., when protesters hugged trees to prevent them from being harvested by loggers.
Shiva says this opened her eyes to the ways in which landscapes, and poor local people, were being devastated by new technologies.
She has campaigned for decades for the protection of traditional seed varieties, resistance to laws allowing big companies to take ownership of seed genetics, and against genetically modified organismsOrganisms whose genes have been artificially altered to modify their characteristics in some way. - GMOs.
With her simple lifestyle, passionate environmental beliefs and struggle for the rights of poor and disadvantaged people, Shiva seeks to remind us all of the humble origins of all life on Earth: a small seed, struggling towards the light.
Have we forgotten what life is?
Yes! Dr Vandana Shiva urges us to never take more than our share, or what we need, or to not alter what is natural.
No! We can shape and alter nature to fit our will and needs. There is no need to be ashamed of progress.
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Keywords
Chipko movement - A protest against deforestation in India in the 1970s, where people hugged trees in a bid to protect them from loggers.
Genetically Modified Organisms - Organisms whose genes have been artificially altered to modify their characteristics in some way.
The warrior battling to save Earth
Seeds of hope: Vandana Shiva (above) argues that dead carbon is the source of the obscene wealth derived from colonialism while living carbon regenerates the life cycle and is in the hands of those who respect ecology. Glossary
Chipko movement - A protest against deforestation in India in the 1970s, where people hugged trees in a bid to protect them from loggers.
Genetically Modified Organisms - Organisms whose genes have been artificially altered to modify their characteristics in some way.