VANDANA SHIVA: THE GREEN SCIENTIST

BY: ZOE HOUSER

EARLY LIFE

On November 5, 1952, Vandana Shiva was born in Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand, India. This was at the foot of the beautiful Himalayas. Her father was a forestry official and her mother was a farmer who loved nature. This love of nature was instilled into Vandana early in her life. From working with her parents to playing in the forests and mountains surrounding her home, nature was everywhere.

Photo Courtesy of SWRGEU.in

SCHOOLINGVandana completed her training to be a physicist at the University of Punjab. She then moved on to get her Master’s. She received a Master’s in the philosophy of science from Guelph University, Ontario in 1976. She then went on to get her DOCTORATE. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 1978. Since completing her schooling, she has since gone on to do research in science, technology, and environmental policy around the world. Photo Courtesy of vandanashiva.com

HER WORK

When she was done with her schooling, she went on to create the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in 1982 in her hometown. From here, she conducts her research and campaigns for environmental issues.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr.com

She is best known for working on environmental issues in India and Asia. She was a critic of Asia’s Green Revolution. This is when people and companies worked to produce more crops.

She said that the methods the companies used caused too much pollution from fertilizers and pesticides. They also used only certain plant types, so native plants were used less and started to disappear. She said that this was not good for the environment. She was also concerned for the poor farmers, that could not pay for the fertilizers.

Because of the Green Revolution, she created seed banks around India to help save the native plants and help out the native farmers as well because they would give her the seeds.

Photo Courtesy of Officience.com

LITERATURE

Below is a list of some of the books she has written.

• 1997: Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge

• 1999: Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply

• 2000: Tomorrow’s Biodiversity

• 2001: Patents: Myths and Reality

• 2002: Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit

• 2005: Globalization’s New Wars: Seed, Water, and Life Forms

• 2005: Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace

Photos Courtesy of (Clockwise from top left): Urban Agriculture @ UCLA, Amazon.com, Amazon.com, Amazon.com, Janehorn.com, Crossword.in

CONNECTION TO IOWAVandana recently visited Iowa to talk to students at the University of Iowa about feminism and how women can help to defend the environment. She said that giant corporations are hurting our planet and destroying the natural resources we all use. She also talked about how our current food system is destroying the nutrients found in the food and the soil. She said “Whatever the issue is, the answer is in the soil. We must save our soil”.

Photo Courtesy of lectures.uiowa.edu

Vandana is still alive today and continues her work. We can all learn from Vandana and her commitment to make the Earth a better place, not just for ourselves, but for everyone and everything that lives on our planet.

Photo Courtesy of Mum.edu

REFERENCE PAGE

• Vandana Shiva. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrievedfromhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/541204/Vandana-Shiva

• About Dr. Vandana Shiva. (n.d.). In Dr. Vandana Shiva. Retrieved from http://vandanashiva.com/

• Matos, D. (2015, March 13). Students Visit Iowa City for Vandana Shiva Lecture. In Maharishi University of Management. Retrieved from https://www.mum.edu/students-visit-iowa-city-for-vandana-shiva-lecture/

IMAGE SOURCES

• Page 2: http://www.swrgeu.in/doon.html

• Page 3: vandanashiva.com

• Page 4: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iisdrs/8084651927/

• Page 5: http://blog.officience.com/en/revolutions-en-asie-du-sud-est-l%E2%80%99impact-des-technologies-episode-1-la-revolution-verte-en-asie-rurale/

• Page 6:

• https://uclaurbanag.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/1930/

• http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Harvest-Hijacking-Global-Supply/dp/0896086070

• http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Biodiversity-Prospects-Tomorrow-Vandana/dp/0500282390

• http://www.amazon.com/Tomorrows-Biodiversity-Prospects-Tomorrow-Vandana/dp/0500282390

• http://janehorn.com/2008/10/06/water-wars-by-vandana-shiva/

• http://www.crossword.in/books/patents-myths-reality-shiva-vandana/p-books-014029824X.html

• Page 7: http://lectures.uiowa.edu/assets/Uploads/_resampled/CroppedFocusedImage60070050-50-Shiva.jpg

• Page 8: https://www.mum.edu/students-visit-iowa-city-for-vandana-shiva-lecture/