Vandana SHIVA

Biographie

Dr. Vandana Shiva is trained as a Physicist and did her Ph.D. on the subject “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory” from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She later shifted to interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India

In 1982, she founded an independent institute, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun dedicated to high quality and independent research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. For last two decades Navdanya has worked with local communities and organizations serving more than 5,00,000 men and women farmers. Navdanya’s efforts have resulted in conservation of more than 3000 rice varieties from all over the country and have established 60seed banks in 16 states across the country.

In 2004 she started Bija Vidyapeeth, an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K. Earth University is a place to learn from nature and sustainable traditions and holistic knowledge systems. As it was founded in the spirit of Gandhian principles and self-organization, the atmosphere and well-being of everyone at Earth University must be created by each individual and group that comes to stay here. The opportunity to join us for an informal internship throughout the year as a Bijak (which literally means ‘the sower of seeds’, which for us is learning and spreading the knowledge of biodiversity and the practice of Earth Democracy). As a Bijak you become a part of a way of life here at Bija Vidyapeeth; you learn to sow, care for and harvest biodiversity. Our intention is that you take these learnings, processes and this way of being with you and sow these seeds in your community.

Dr. Shiva combines the sharp intellectual enquiry with courageous activism. She is equally at ease working with peasants in rural India and teaching in Universities worldwide. Time Magazine identified Dr. Shiva as an environmental “hero” in 2003 and Asia Week has called her one of the five most powerful communicators of Asia. Forbes magazine in November 2010 has identified Dr. Vandana Shiva as one of the top seven most Powerful Women on the Globe.

Dr. Shiva has contributed in fundamental ways to changing the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food. Her books, “The Violence of Green Revolution” and “Monocultures of the Mind” have become basic challenges to the dominant paradigm of non-sustainable, reductionist
Green Revolution Agriculture. Through her books Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest, Water Wars, Dr. Shiva has made visible the social, economic and ecological costs of corporate led globalisation. Dr. Shiva chairs the Commission on the Future of Food set up by the Region of Tuscany in
Italy. She is a Board Member of the International Forum on Globalisation and a member of the Steering Committee of the Indian People’s Campaign against WTO. She also serves on Government of India Committees on Organic Farming.

Dr. Shiva is on the National Board of Organic Standards of India. She also works with the Governments of Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttaranchal for the promotion of organic farming. She has been invited by the Planning Commission to be a member of the expert group on environment, the expert group on nutrition and the expert group on voluntary sector.

She serves on Prince Charles’s expert group on Sustainable Agriculture. Dr. Shiva is a member of President Zapatero’s Scientific Committee. She has been invited by the Prime Minister of Bhutan to help Bhutan go 100% organic.

Dr. Shiva has been a visiting professor and lectured at the Universities of Oslo, Norway, Schumacher College, U.K. Mt. Holyoke College, U.S., York University, Canada, University of Lulea, Sweden, University of Victoria, Canada, and Universitelibre de Bruxelles, Belgium. In 2011, Dr. Shiva was the Wayne Morse Chair at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Dr. Shiva has received honorary Doctorates from University of Paris, University of Western Ontario, University of Oslo and Connecticut College. Among her many awards are the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award, 1993), Order of the Golden Ark, Global 500 Award of UN
and Earth Day International Award. Lennon ONO grant for peace award by Yoko Ono in 2009, Sydney Peace Prize in 2010, DoshiBridgebuilder Award, Calgary Peace Prize and Thomas Merton Award in the year 2011.

Dr Shiva also thought that the biological wealth of poorer countries was too often appropriated by global corporations that neither sought their hosts’ consent nor shared the profits. In her 1997 book, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, she charged that these practices were tantamount to biological theft. Shiva expounded upon her ideas on corporate trade agreements, the exponential decrease in the genetic diversity of crops, and patent law in Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply (1999), Tomorrow’s Biodiversity (2000), and Patents: Myths and Reality (2001), respectively. Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (2002) criticizes corporations for attempting to privatize water resources. Shiva continued to articulate the problems caused by corporate domination and to foster the development of realistic solutions in Globalization’s New Wars: Seed, Water, and Life Forms (2005) and Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (2005). Shiva also edited Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed (2007).