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Vandana Shiva

Vandana Shiva Quotes

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Vandana Shiva is an Indian environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and author. Born on November 5, 1952, she is recognized for her efforts in promoting sustainable agriculture and organic farming. Shiva has authored many books and articles on environmental issues and is a vocal critic of corporate control over seeds and food systems.

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Famous Vandana Shiva Quotes

“I think the structures of exclusion are more systematically built up in American society, for example, so that young girls interested in science eventually lose their confidence over time. The structures of exclusion work against them. We have other structures of exclusion in India, but not around modern scientific knowledge.”

Thinking Young Girl Loses Modern Example Built India Structure Exclusion American Society Scientific Knowledge

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Nobody defines it as something women shouldn't be doing. In a way, there are more mathematicians, more doctors, more scientists in India than there are in this country. We even had a woman head of state, and that's something the United States has yet to catch up with.”

Way Country States United United States Doctors Scientist India Mathematician Head Of State

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics.”

Feels Firsts Comfortable India Environmental Critical Nuclear Physics Theoretical Implications Theoretical Physics Breeders Nuclear Physics

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I did my masters in elementary particles. But the foundations of elementary particles is quantum theory and there were too many conceptual problems around quantum theory that I couldn't live with. So I decided I was going to work on the foundations of quantum theory. That's what I did my Ph.D on.”

Problem Masters Theory Decided Foundation Quantum Going To Work Particles Quantum Theory

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I didn't leave physics because of boredom. I left it because other issues compelled me in a bigger way. And I always say to myself, "When I'm 60, I'd like to go back to what I interrupted."”

Way Left Issues Bigger Physics Boredom Compelled Interrupted

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The first issue that compelled me was a very strange split between India being highly development scientifically (we were the third biggest scientific manpower in the world then) and yet at the same time struggling with amazing poverty. The linear equation that says that modern science equals progress and the reduction of poverty did not apply to India. It wasn't working.”

World Firsts Poverty Struggle Issues Progress Modern Strange Development Thirds India Splits Compelled Equations Reduction Linear Modern Science Manpower Linear Equations

Author:Vandana Shiva

“My father had been a forester and I had grown up on those hills. I had seen forests and streams disappear. I jumped into Chipko movement and started to work with the peasant women. I learned from them about what forests mean for a rural woman in India in terms of firewood and fodder and medicinal plants and rich knowledge.”

Mean Father Term Rich Movement India Plant Disappear Forests Hills Streams Peasants Fodder Firewood

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I saw brilliant ideas coming out of the [Chipko] movement that needed better articulation, that needed elaboration and systematic analysis. I just followed that and it's been very exciting.”

Ideas Saws Movement Needed Exciting Brilliant Analysis Coming Out Systematic Brilliant Ideas Articulation

Author:Vandana Shiva

“When the forest is destroyed, when the river is dammed, when the biodiversity is stolen, when fields are waterlogged or turned saline because of economic activities, it is a question of survival for these people. So our environmental movements have been justice movements.”

People Has Beens Justice Economic Movement Fields Activity Survival Rivers Environmental Forests Destroyed Stolen Our Environment Biodiversity

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The occupation of America (and Columbus's arrival quite clearly was an occupation, no one can deny that) meant that the entire history of the Native Americans was rendered invisible. The land could only be occupied if it was first defined as empty. So it was defined as a wilderness, even though it had been used by native people for millennia.”

People Ifs Firsts America Used Land Empty Deny Invisible Defined Native Wilderness Occupation Native American Arrivals Columbus

Author:Vandana Shiva

“When the wilderness movement emerged, it emerged separate from the issue of social inequality and the economic problems of survival. It was a preservationist ecology movement created by an occupying culture. Clearly, a wilderness movement started by Native Americans would not have had the same roots.”

Problem Culture Social Issues Economic Movement Survival Roots Inequality Native Wilderness Native American Ecology Economic Problems Social Inequality

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies.”

Way Today Jobs Justice Issues Environment Movement Environmental Bread Permanent Artificial Versus Framed Dichotomy Replay

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I think we have reached a stage now where we need to find solutions to economic injustice in the same place and in the same ways that we find solutions to sustainability. Sustainability on environmental grounds and justice in terms of everyone having a place in the production and consumption system - these are two aspects of the same issue. They have been artificially separated and have to be put back again in the Western way of thinking.”

“My training in science is actually one that is very critical of mechanistic science. I was trained in quantum theory which emerged at the turn of the last century. We are a whole century behind in absorbing the leaps that quantum theory made for the human mind.”

Mind Humans Made Whole Lasts Turns Behinds Century Theory Training Critical Leap Human Mind Quantum Absorbing Quantum Theory

Author:Vandana Shiva

“For example, the idea that objects have properties out there in fixed ways is an incorrect idea about the world. Properties are created through relationships and processes. They are not inherent in electrons or photons or quanta any more than they are inherent in soil or trees or people. So my critique of reductionistic science is a critique that I have inherited from my scientific training. But it has been deepened by my experiences as an ecologist, in seeing the ecological destruction taking place today.”

People World Way Has Beens Ideas Today Process Seeing Tree Example Objects Training Destruction Property Fixed Soil Quantum Inherent Critique Ecological Electrons Photons

Author:Vandana Shiva

“If you want a cow to be not just a cow but a milk machine, you can do a very good job at that by creating new hormones like the Bovine Growth Hormone. It might make the cow very ill, it might turn it into a drug addict, and it might even create consumer scares about the health and safety aspects of the milk. But we've gotten so used to manipulating objects and organisms and ecosystems for a single objective that we ignore the costs involved. I call this the "monoculture of the mind."”

“Seen from a monocultural perspective, manipulating objects is very, very clever. But seen from a multidimensional perspective, from a perspective of diversity, this is extremely crude because what we have lost out on is a cow that serves as a source of sustainable energy.”

Energy Lost Objects Source Perspective Diversity Clever Cows Crude Very Clever Sustainable Energy

Author:Vandana Shiva

“In India, crossbreeding programs aimed at mimicking the milk yields of Western cows like the Jerseys and the Holsteins actually breed out the capacity of our animals to pull ploughs and pulley-cars. So, thanks to cross-breeding programs, we now have humpless cattle with no stamina.”

Animal Car Capacity Program Crosses India Western Thanks Yield Milk Cows Jersey Breeding Cattle Stamina Mimicking Pulleys

Author:Vandana Shiva

“If you see cattle as a source of organic manure, animal energy, as well as milk products, then Indian cattle are not inferior. It is only when you measure them as milk machines that they become inferior. What if we measured the dairy cows of America or Jersey or the Swiss Alps in terms of their work functions? They would be terribly inferior.”

Ifs Wells Would Be America Energy Term Animal Products Source Machines Function Indian What If Milk Cows Inferiors Jersey Cattle Dairy Swiss Manure Alps Dairy Cows

Author:Vandana Shiva

“A single, one-dimensional way of thinking has created a monoculture of the mind. And the monoculture of the mind has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the root of why we have pitted equity against ecology and sustainability against justice.”

Thinking Way Mind Self Justice Roots Sustainability Ecology Fulfilling Prophecy Equity Way Of Thinking Self Fulfilling Prophecy Monoculture

Author:Vandana Shiva

“When you take the entire system into account, ways of developing more of something in one dimension can actually create scarcities in another. If we say we have to increase production because people need more food, more housing, more meat, or more milk, we can make one thing grow in a certain way. But by doing that we create externalities so that there are scarcities in other related things.”

People Ifs Way Needs Certain Grows One Thing Accounts Increase Productions Developing Meat Related Dimensions Milk Housing Scarcity Externalities

Author:Vandana Shiva

“There are scarcities in drinking water when you pollute the groundwater with nitrates. There is a scarcity in diversity when you create huge cornfields with the same strain of corn so that when one disease strikes - which happened in the United States in the 70s - all the cornfields in the country are wiped out. That was the first time the U.S. realized the value of diversity in agriculture and began to discuss genetic resources and their conservation.”

“The system of technological production that we have today has been justified in terms of creating more goods to feed more people and to meet more needs. But it actually destroys more of the resources that we need in order to meet those multiple needs. If we shift to an ecological perception, a diversity perception, we realize that some of the instruments of which we are very proud are actually extremely primitive for dealing with nature. To me that is the great lesson of ecological awareness at the turn of the millennium.”

“It's a phenomenon that started in the United States in which corporations make claims on the life forms, biodiversity and innovations of other cultures by applying for patents on them.”

States Form Culture United United States Claims Innovation Corporations Phenomenon Patents Biodiversity Other Cultures

Author:Vandana Shiva

“There is now a patent restricting the use of an herb called philantis neruri for curing jaundice. An even more blatant example is the use of turmeric for healing wounds, which is something every mother and grandmother does in every home in India. Now the Mississippi Medical Center claims to have "invented" the capacity of turmeric to heal wounds.”

Doe Use Home Mother Healing Example Capacity India Claims Medical Wounds Heal Grandmother Herbs Mississippi Patents Mother And Grandmother Jaundice

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I have called this phenomenon of stealing common knowledge and indigenous science "biopiracy" and "intellectual piracy." According to patent systems we shouldn't be able to patent what exists as "prior art." But the United States patent system is somewhat perverted. First of all, it does not treat the prior art of other societies as "prior art." Therefore anyone from the United States can travel to another country, find out about the use of a medicinal plant, or find a seed that farmers use, come back here, claim it as an invention or an innovation.”

“I've just been told that Nestle has taken out patents on the making of pullao. (Pullao is the way we make our rice in India, with either vegetables or meat or whatever.) Before you know it, every common use of plants will be patented by a Western corporation.”

Knows Way Use Common Taken India Plant Western Corporations Meat Vegetables Rice Patents

Author:Vandana Shiva

“It's worse than slave trade because what is being traded is the very knowledge that makes survival possible for 80 percent of the people of this world. These 80 percent live on the biodiversity and the knowledge they have evolved as part of a rich collective heritage involving the use of seeds for growing crops and medicinal plants for healing.”

People World Use Healing Rich Growing This World Survival Percent Trade Plant Slave Seeds Collectives Heritage Crops Involving Biodiversity Slave Trade

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The enclosure of the biological and intellectual commons in this way is a real threat to the future of people everywhere because it creates a situation where common practices that have been part of people's lives for generations become monopolies of a handful of pharmaceutical, agribusiness and agrichemical corporations. People then become incapable of looking after their own needs.”

People Way Needs Has Beens Real Common Situation Practice Generations Intellectual Threat Corporations Incapable Monopoly Handful Pharmaceutical Enclosure Agribusiness

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Every farmer must go to the seed industry every year to buy their seed and pay an 80 percent royalty to a corporation. Over-the-fence exchanges have started to be treated as crimes. Or, if you need a biological pest control, you can no longer use the need seed in your back yard. Instead you have to depend on the Grace Corporation or some other entity. That kind of dependency basically leads to increased poverty and increased ecological destruction.”

Ifs Needs Years Kind Use Pay Poverty Grace Crime Depends Industry Percent Destruction Seeds Treated Corporations Farmers Entity Yards Fence Royalty Ecological Dependency Pests Pest Control

Author:Vandana Shiva

“One of the movements we have developed is to say that, just as intellectual property rights protect the inventions of individuals, common rights are needed to protect the common intellectual heritage of indigenous peoples. These are rights that are recognized through the Convention on Biological Diversity. We are working to make sure that they become foundations of our jurisprudence.”

Individual Common Rights Movement Needed Protect Diversity Intellectual Foundation Property Invention Heritage Conventions Indigenous Property Rights Intellectual Property Indigenous People Jurisprudence

Author:Vandana Shiva

“We have to build movements in the face of trade retaliation on the basis of people's democratic rights, on the basis of an ancient heritage of collective innovation. We work from the grassroots all the way to the national government and the World Trade Organization. It basically means being very multidimensional in our campaigns. And that is where part of the fun is. It involves both resistance and creativity. It involves constructive action, while at the same time saying "no."”

“Nature has given us this for free, it was meant to sustain us, we will not allow it to become a monopoly to finance the Imperial Army.”

Given Army Finance Monopoly

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Nature has gifted this rich biological diversity to us. We will not allow it to become the monopoly of a handful of corporations. We will keep it as the basis of our wealth and our sustenance.”

Wealth Rich Diversity Bases Corporations Gifted Monopoly Handful Sustenance

Author:Vandana Shiva

“For us, not cooperating in the monopoly regimes of intellectual property rights and patents and biodiversity - saying "no" to patents on life, and developing intellectual ideas of resistance - is very much a continuation of Gandhian satyagraha. It is, for me, keeping life free in its diversity.”

Ideas Rights Diversity Intellectual Property Resistance Developing Regimes Monopoly Saying No Property Rights Patents Continuation Biodiversity Intellectual Property Satyagraha Cooperating

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The spinning wheel became the symbol of Indian independence. So we always say, "if the spinning wheel was the symbol of our first independence, then the seed is the symbol of our second independence."”

Ifs Firsts Independence Seeds Symbols Indian Wheels Spinning

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The people who see the population explosion in the Malthusian way - as a geometric progression - forget that population growth is not a biological issue. People are not increasing in numbers out of stupidity and ignorance. Population growth is an ecological phenomenon linked very intimately to other issues, such as the usurpation of the resources which allow people to live.”

“In England, the population explosion can be linked very clearly with the enclosure of the commons that uprooted the peasants from their land. In India, it was the same thing: the population increased at the end of the 18th century when the British took over and Indian lands were colonized. Instead of the land feeding Indian people it started to feed the British empire. So we had destitution. Destitute people who don't have their own land to feed themselves can only feed themselves by having larger numbers, therefore they multiply. It's the rational response of a dispossessed people.”

“The population explosion is an ecological phenomenon of displacement. Unless we solve that ecological problem of displacing people - to build huge dams, to build motorways, to take away what people need in order to survive - we will keep pumping more and more money into population programs. We will have more and more coercive and violent methods through which women's bodies are treated as experimental grounds for new contraceptives. Yet we will not have a solution to the problem of numbers.”

“The problem of numbers can only be dealt with by recognizing that people have a fundamental right to economic security. If you provide them with economic and environmental security, the population will stabilize itself.”

People Ifs Problem Numbers Economic Security Fundamentals Environmental Population Recognizing Economic Security

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Population control is not an issue involving contraceptives for third world women. It is an issue of ecological justice.”

World Justice Issues Thirds Population Involving Ecological Third World Contraceptives Population Control

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I do sculpting sometimes when I have the time, and the first thing I sculpted was a bust of [Albert] Einstein. It still sits on my table and still inspires me. He was a person who triggered my imagination and my ideas.”

Firsts Persons Stills Ideas Sometimes Imagination Inspire Tables My Imagination Sculpting

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I believe that we will see a lot of destruction, but I believe that if we can see the right patterns and draw the right lessons from that destruction, we might be able to rebuild before it's too late. And then I have that ultimate optimism that even if we can't, life will rebuild itself. In a way, the global economy might collapse, but Gaia won't, and people's ingenuity won't. We will rebuild society, we will rebuild local economies, we will rebuild human aspirations.”

“I think we will become disenchanted with the glamour of globalization.”

Thinking Globalization Glamour Disenchanted

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The environmental movement can only survive if it becomes a justice movement. As a pure environmental movement, it will either die, or it will survive as a corporate 'greenwash'. Anyone who's a sincere environmentalist can't stand that role.”

Ifs Dies Justice Roles Movement Pure Environmental Corporate Sincere Environmentalist

Author:Vandana Shiva

“It is time to learn from the mistakes of monocultures of the mind and the essentialising violence of reductionist thought. It is time to turn to diversity for healing.”

Mind Turns Healing Mistake Violence Diversity Monoculture

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics.”

Culture Balance Diversity Harmony Agriculture Bounty

Book:India Divided: Diversity and Democracy Under Attack

Source: India Divided: Diversity and Democracy Under Attack

“The role of geo-engineering should, in a world of responsibility, in a world of scientifically enlightened decision making and ecological understanding, it should be zero. There is no role for geo-engeneering. Because what is geoengineering but extending the engineering paradigm?”

World Should Understanding Decision Responsibility Roles Enlightened Decision Making Zero Engineering Paradigm Ecological Extending Geoengineering

Author:Vandana Shiva

“When you don't take into account the way ecological systems work, then you do damage.”

Way Accounts Damage Ecological

Author:Vandana Shiva

“We could replace people with fossil fuels, have higher and higher levels of industrialization, of agriculture, of production, without thinking of the green-house gases we were admitting, and climate change is really the pollution of the engineering paradigm, when fossil fuels drove industrialism. To now offer that same mindset as a solution is to not take seriously what Einstein said: that you can't solve the problems by using the same mindset that caused them.”

About the Author

Born: November 5, 1952
Known for: Author
Quotes: 152

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