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Quote by Vandana Shiva

“My personal background is actually very unusual for the kind of career I chose. I didnt meet anyone who had ever done physics in my life. I grew up in the Himalayan forests. My father was a forest conservator, which meant that if I wasnt in school I was in the forests with him. That has been very largely responsible for my ecological inclinations.”

Quote by Vandana Shiva

Author

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. more

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“One particular spark was when I went back to my favorite spot in the mountains where my father always used to take us before my graduate studies in Canada and finding that the stream I had gone swimming in wasnt there. The forest had been converted into an apple orchard with World Bank financing. The entire place, literally, had changed.”

World Used Father Gone Study Changed Particular Mountain Findings My Favorite Forests Spots Streams Apples Canada Sparks Swimming Graduates Financing Orchard World Bank

Author:Vandana Shiva

“The director of the institute where I was working apologized about these young, enthusiastic researchers when the World Bank visited because he was afraid the institute would lose the World Bank consultancies.I went back home and started the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecologyan extremely elaborate name for the tiny institute that I started in my mothers cow shed. My parents handed over family resources and said, Put them to public purpose. Thats how I survived.”

“The Chipko activists have always been close to my parents, since my father was among the few forestry officials who supported them within the bureaucracy. And I was involved with the Chipko movement in my student days.”

Father Parent Movement Students Involved Officials Activist Bureaucracy

Author:Vandana Shiva

“Ecofeminism is a good term for distinguishing a feminism that is ecological from the kind of feminisms that have become extremely technocratic. I would even call them very patriarchal.”

Kind Term Feminism Ecological

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I saw some women had written that the cloning of Dolly was wonderful since it showed that women could have children without men. They didnt even understand that this was the ultimate ownership of womenof embryos, of eggs, of bodiesby a few men with capital and control techniques, that it wasnt freedom from men but total control by men.”

Men Children Body Saws Wonderful Written Ultimate Technique Eggs Ownership Embryos Cloning

Author:Vandana Shiva

“That amazing power of being able to stand with total courage in the face of total power and not be afraid. That is stri shakti.”

Able Faces Shakti

Author:Vandana Shiva

“My mother was a tremendous woman. I was just cleaning up old trunks and I found a book with her notes written during the war years, in the 1940s. She was studying in Lahore, which became Pakistan. She was writing about how women alone could bring peace to the world, that the men with all their greed and egos were creating all these tensions and violence. I always knew she was a feminist, ahead of her time.”

Men World Writing Years Book War Mother Found Study Violence Written He Man Ego Creating Notes Greed Feminist Tension Pakistan Cleaning Trunks Cleaning Up Lahore

Author:Vandana Shiva

“My mother taught that if anyone needs you, you should be available to them.”

Ifs Needs Should Mother Taught Available Need You

Author:Vandana Shiva

“I have a deep connection with Mahatma Gandhi, partly because my mother was a very, very staunch Gandhian and brought us up that way. When I was six years old, and all the girls were getting nylon dresses, I was very keen to get a nylon frock for my birthday. My mother said, I can get it for you, but would you ratherthrough how you live and what you wear and what you eatensure that food goes into the hands of the weaver or ensure that profits go into the bank of an industrialist? That became such a checkstone for everything in life.”

Way Years Said I Can Hands Mother Girl Six Connections Dresses Profit My Birthday Six Year Olds Weavers Deep Connections Nylon

Author:Vandana Shiva

“My links with [Mahatma] Gandhi now are very political links because I do not believe there is any other politics available to us in the late twentieth century, a period of a totalitarianism linked with the market. There is really no other way you can do politics and create freedom for people without the kinds of instruments he revived. Civil disobedience is a way to create permanent democracy, perennial democracy, a direct democracy.”