International NGO Journal Vol. 3 (4), pp. 077-083, April 2008 Available online at http:// www.academicjournals.org/INGOJ ISSN 1993–8225 © 2008 Academic Journals Interview

Eco views: an interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva

Farhad Amini

Environmental activist, Khaghani Street, Isfahan, Iran. E-mail: fdamini@yahoo.com.

Accepted 10 April 2008

Vandana Shiva is a well known international figure that her four decades of venture for protecting environment and promoting sustainable development beside her high education in nuclear physics, has made her an outstanding environmental activist. Although her fundamental and comprehensive views to problem solving may seem unattainable, the practical models she has offered proved her claims. Professor Vandana Shiva is a founder of two prominent NGO's and beside her voluntary work she is the author of several books and teaches at different universities. In an interview with Farhad Amini in March 2006, she was asked about different environmental issues in India as well as globally concerned topics and discussed the role of different institutions, including NGOs in confronting these problems.

Q) First and foremost, please tell me about your autobiography? A) Well, I’m basically a physicist and I did my doctoral studies in Foundations of Quantum Theory. I got involved in an environmental movement, particularly with a movement called Chipco in the seventies (70s) where women came out to Himalaya to hut the trees and to stop the cutting, to stop the logging. In 1892, I left teaching in the university to create an independent research institu-tion which I called Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. During 1987, I started another organization called Navdanya which means nine seeds, but it can also mean the new gift. Nav is nine or new and dan is giving or great .And these 20 years through Navdanya I promoted programs to counter what I called the new imperialism of life. In 1987, I happened to be in Geneva in a meeting where the big multinationals were present, laying out how they wanted to control agriculture in a part of the world. They discussed how to obtain patent right to life forms. They also talked on genetically engineered seeds as the only alternative and about free trade agreements like the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs as their right in order to have a right to investment. And I had worked for 2 - 3 years previously on agriculture, partly because of 3 to 4 events that took place in India.

In 1984, we had the worst of extremism and terrorism in the state of Punjab. And the state of Punjab is the state of the Green revolution. The name given to chemical agriculture, where it was introduced by the Americans in India. Recently, President Bush is trying to introduce the second Green revolution, which is to bring Monsanto seeds and genetically engineered seeds into India. It’s knowledge initiative, for we don't have adequate know-

ledge of agriculture at 10 thousand years of practicing farming system. And more so those companies, that ought to have made landmark in agriculture, having prac-ticed it for 10 years, turned to be deficient in this aspect, as they manufactured war chemicals to kill Vietnamese, like Monsanto, for instance. That is not what agriculture entails; it is the culture of farming, and not manufacturing of chemicals and genetically modifying seeds. That’s not agriculture and I just felt, when I was studying the Green revolution that, the connection between war and the US style of agriculture- industrial agriculture was too close and we needed a non violent form of farming. So I started to promote sustainable agriculture. That same year in 1984, there was an accident in another American com-pany, Union Carbide, Bhopal in Central India where 30 thousand people got killed in one night. Millions of people were crippled forever by the leak of the gas from that pesticide plant. And again I said why is this agriculture so violent? Why does it have to kill human beings? Agricul-ture is supposed to meet our needs for food, to nourish us. And here it is destroying our very life.

So in 1984, I started to focus a lot on alternative sys-tems of farming, ecological systems of farming and sus-tainable systems of farming. And so in 1987, I came to know about the multinationals corporation invasion to take over farming in the world. I decided to save and de-fend every seed, farm and every kind of food that I could, because I feel in a world where our food crops-soybean, corn, canola; diet are drastically reduced, and where one company controls seed supply, its dictatorship, and not democracy that is in operation. And a world in which all the food cultures, all the sophistication of the culture of Persia and the culture of Indian civilization is destroyed because cruel and crude civilizations want to make money at all cost it’s unacceptable to me. So I’ve built

Navdanya to save seeds, as an answer to Monsanto. We have done organic farming as an answer to the chemical industry and we are doing ecological and fare trade. We have an outlet in Delhi hurt, we have an organic coffee down street and we are starting outlets in different cities now and we want to have fare trade as an alternative to so called free trade, that is free for corporations but not free for green human beings. Q) So, your main focus in Delhi is on agriculture? A) It has become agriculture but focus is still on environ-ment and when the French were trying to send a ship for ship breaking. You know the case against that was started by my institution, Research Foundation. I have worked on toxic issues, I worked on big dam issues, we have a very big involvement in water issues, particularly the privatization of water, as well as these mega projects, like the river linking project that is being planned for India.

We work on water, on toxics and on all of that, but Navdanya as an organization, works on food and farm-ing. Research Foundation works on every ecological issue. Q) Thank you. So, you are active in 3 NGOs? A) I'm actually active in many NGOs, but the two I founded. One is called the Research Foundation and the other is called Navdanya. And I have just started a school called Bija Vidyapeeth which means school of seeds, a new school for ecological training which is on our farm in Dehradun. Q) When did you start it? A) I started that in 2002. Q) Is it a new initiative? A) It's a new initiative, yes. And it offers courses on environmental issues. We called it the International School for Sustainable Living. And I have a course going on now in Dehradun on “Health as a people method”, rather than health as a big business method. We have courses on sustainable agriculture and on sustainable cities. In October, we had course on “Women and food sovereignty”. Every December, we have a course on “Gandhi and nonviolence”. Q) So, the main function of this institute is education, yes? A) It is education but in different kind of way. It is education for the contemporary time, because a lot of our education is from a hundred years ago, but it's not appro-

Amini 078 priated today .Another problem with our education is: it's degree oriented. You know, you spend five years learning something you never use, and get a degree. Our education is oriented to living. How to get the appropriate knowledge to live right, to live ecologically, and be addressed to contemporary challenges. The third differ-rences, we mix the highest of intellectual thinking with the most practical of practice. So, we will have a very sophis-ticated lesson in the theories of self organization. And then we will have people working in the farm. So, we have combined it. Q) Are you active in academic activities? A) Yes, actually, I still make my living as a part time pro-fessor. I used to be a full time professor till 82 and now I am a part time professor. I go as a visiting profess-sor 3 or 4 universities in a year in India and around the world. And that’s how I support myself, because all the work I do in my NGOs is voluntary, totally voluntary. So I’m still an academic. I write a lot and publish a lot of books. Q) And in which countries do you teach? A) Many countries. I had a chair on environmental sus-tainability in Norway; I am currently holding a chair in Brussels, in university of Brussels. I have taught in universities in the United States and in Canada, but I teach short times so that I can come back home. Q) Please explain the most important environmental issues and problems in India and how many of them are global? A) I believe that we as a society have very deep ecological roots. We have held our rivers as sacred; we have held our trees as sacred. We have had very low levels of consumption. We have viewed simplicity as a high quality of human evolution. We have not respected consumerism in the past and that meant that India could live sustainably, could have large number of people and yet within the resources of our country we could manage to produce our food, manage our energy needs, manage our water needs. I believed the non-sustainability now leads to the new environmental problems, which are global. They’re global because all the projects that are destroying our resources come from international banks. The World Bank founds the largest amount of environ-mental destruction in this country. All the dams, big dams founded by World Bank, mining of groundwater founded by World Bank, leaving our groundwater famine and spread of chemicals in agriculture by the World Bank money. Now, the genetically engineered seeds of Monsanto brought in through world banks conditionalities. So all of these new environmental problems are linked to international financial institutions. They’re also linked to

Int.NGO.J. 079 the new trade system. The World Trade Organization, which basically says that you must have a right to trade in everything. And they would like us to trade in the waste of the west, which is why I am fighting this issue of India being reduced to a toxic dam. The western industrialized countries produce the highest amount of waste, and yet India is being asked to deal with it. If we burden ourselves with all the waste of America and Europe, our toxic problems will increase tremendously. They’re already very severe. There is another very big problem. A very big environmental problem I believe that India is related to. I used to be a nuclear physicist. I left nuclear discipline because I realized that it has major implications for the environment and for human health. There is no safe nuclear energy. All nuclear energy has nuclear hazards in it. And yet at the time when India was building close friendship with Iran on the pipeline, the new issue of energy security is being redefined as nuclear energy solution with partnership with the United States. I believe that is a major environmental threat in this country. We’ve already had places where we have nuclear testing, places where we had nuclear plants and I have worked in some of these nuclear plants. There is huge health impact. To cover India with nuclear plants, this highly dense population with nuclear plants and to imagine that 1.2 billion Indians can be driven to consume energy, like the Americans do, is environmental disaster. Q) O.K. I think these are almost the roots of problems, but what are the most serious problems in India? A) In terms of what people face? Q) Yes. A) Water scarcity and water pollution are very serious problems. We are a country where even today 90 percent of water is collected by women from streams, from wells, from rivers. And when Basin Rivers get polluted, we have very serious problems. I am involved in serious cam-paigns against Coca-Cola destroying our water re-sources. In plachimala, the women stood up and fought and shut the plant down. There are 45 plants stands like that every where. Coca cola is extracting two million tons which means more water scarcity and more non sus-tainable use of water. The spread of toxics in our society as we move from an ecological society to an industrial chemical society is very serious and that is why in a very simple ways we in Navdanya are trying to address it. In agriculture we get rid of chemicals in agriculture by promoting organic. We will soon have a festival called Holy festival of colors. All the colors have become chemicals. Navdanya started a movement to bring back natural colors. And those natural colors are going to be sold in Delhi hurt. Delhi government, environmental ministry, promotes use of these natural colors. But use of

toxics in our everyday life is a very big disaster.

Other problems, I believed that intimidate is: we in India used to be called the araNya , Sanskriti. araNya means the forest; Sanskriti, the civilization. A national poet Tagore had created a university called Shantiniketan as an embodiment of this forest civilization. He is to teach under the trees, the housing was like village house. And it is all aimed at putting the least pressure on Nature. As a society we have very high rated trees. Even in Delhi, you can see lots of trees. But, we are undergoing a very serious deforestation crisis. Either it is cutting of trees on our farms, or cutting of our trees along our highways, and the disappearance of trees in India can have very long term implications. First implication it has, is in the hot sun you don’t have shade to sit under. People are dying of heat when it’s 50OC and if you are working unless you have a shade of tree you can not bear it. The second consequence is increase in desertification. It’s a very serious problem. As a result of climate change- lots of carbondioxide being put in large quantities in the atmosphere- we’re being faced with increase of occur-rence of droughts on the one hand, and increase of occurrence of floods on the other hand, both aggravated by absence of trees. When the tsunami happened in India, last year, it was very clear that the villages where the most damage happened are where the mangroves had been destroyed. When mangroves were there, people survived, because the mangroves broke the wave velocity. When cyclones come and if mangroves are not there, then people die, but if cyclones come and mangroves are there people don’t die. So the role of trees in ecological sustainability and in environmental protection is being neglected in India, now. No government program is there to promote protection, there is no government program to plant more trees, as we are yet to have in this country .That’s another very serious environmental problem. Q) So, water is one of your most important concerns and deforestation, another. A) Deforestation and destruction of biodiversity. Q) Destruction of biodiversity?

A) Biodiversity, Yes.

In agriculture we get rid of chemicals in agriculture by Q) O.K. what do you think about the trend of environmental situation in the world? Is it improving or deteriorating? And how do you evaluate the global efforts in this area? A) I personally believe that the environmental situation in the world is deteriorating. In some places it might be improving because in privileged parts of the world, they are exporting their pollution to us. They are taking away

our valuable land. So, they might have a clean environ-ment, but our environment is being destroyed. So, glo-bally the environment is being destroyed. At the earth summit at which I was present which was the Rio con-ference of 1992, major commitments were made to con-serve biodiversity, to reverse climate change. In the years from 1992 to 2006, many of these commitments are being reversed. The commitment to protect biodiversity is being reversed by the World Trade Organization. The commitment to reduce hazards of genetic engineering is being reversed by the World Trade Organization rules. The commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide is being undone by increasing traffic around the world. People now frequently use flights because it’s cheaper than taking local bus, flights are being used to take food that could be grown locally thousands of miles. Now in that kind of a situation where economic globalization and free trade is taking place at the expense of the environ-ment, and as long as economic globalization and free trade is there the environment can not be protected. We have to regulate the trade to protect the environment. We can not deregulate commerce and also protect the environment. Q) So, what do you think is the solution? What can we tell next generations? What do we have for them? A) Yes. You know, I have written a new book, and it is called the “Earth democracy”. In the book, I have provid-ed the solutions. The solutions are that, first of all, our systems of production and consumption have to reduce the environmental impact. It’s possible; you don’t have to destroy the environment in order to grow food. I work in Navdanya, and through organic farming it shows that you can protect the land, the water, the biodiversity, protect small farmers and produce good and more food through ecological systems. You do not have to destroy your water through building mega dams and destroy your rivers. It is possible to conserve water at small scale, to increase the water availability to people. Conservation and sustainable utilization can go hand in hand. The second issue I have said in Earth Democracy is that the current notion of democracy is very false. The United State is not a Democratic society. Its people are not free because they cannot even choose what they eat. They are being forced to eat genetically engineered food. Everywhere else in the world people are free to choose what they want to eat. In America no one is free to say what he/she wants to eat, because they do not know, even labeling is denied to them. The right to know what you are eating is denied to them. The right to choose your food is denied to them. Democracy, to me, is when humans can decide this is how we eat our food, this is how we grow it, this is how we have our water and using that democracy to conserve and protect the environment for the future.

I have called it “Earth democracy” because: I don’t

Amini 080 believe a real democracy can exist if we do not take the earth into account. And if you take the earth into account we also take the needs of ordinary people to account, because the majority of people in the world live through the earth. My thesis is when majority of the people of India, and I’m sure that is the same for Iran as India, have as their employer, the earth, and not government or a corporation. It’s the earth. You work with the earth; it gives you food. You work with the sea and it gives you fish. The employer is this planet. And if your first and your last employer is the earth, then it is an economic imperative to ecologically protect its resources. And that’s why for me, earth democracy is the only way we can organize our economy. And we need to sharpen it today, we need to leave examples today, that’s why I have built these farms, that is why I have created the seed banks around the country, that is why we have water conse-vation systems, for examples. So that through these examples the future generations can say, “this is the path you, we will follow, because if we do not follow that path- for protecting the earth, earth will continue, it can live in and out of us, but we as human species will not find the earth habitable for our conditions”. Q) Thank you, Please explain more about big dams and anti dam movements in India. A) The era of big dams in India started with the building of the Pakra dam. And in the last 50 years, largely with the World Bank financing, many mega dams have been built and they have destroyed the homes of more than 40 million people, uprooted this displaced people who then go to the city slums and become unemployed. There is a new problem being added to this mega project for two hundred billion dollars and this is called the river linking project. And the project is designed to make more big dams to reroute the rivers and link them to each other. This project will displace all of India. There will be no one left for the home, there will be no one left in a place where they belonged. It will also create major ecological problems. It will create problems, of course destroying forests. Many of these dams are being built in national parks. Many of these river linking projects or canals are through national parks. Also in our kind of tropical cli-mate, intensive irrigation can create its own environment-tal problems. As water evaporates, it brings up salts with irrigation, and this too much irrigation and the water level is brought closer to the surface, then the salts that are in the soil start to evaporate and then get deposited on� the surface, causing salinity.

Another problem is water logging. These problems are linked to large dams and they improve with the river linking project. A very big problem with large dams is that large dams kill the rivers downstream. No water flows, all life along that river, whether it be the aquatic life, whether it be agriculture downstream, or it be the marine life goes down, because the nutrients from river actually nourish

Int.NGO.J. 081 the sea. But when those nutrients are blocked, fishes start to die and also ecosystems. And when water doesn’t flow downstream your agriculture suffers, your ground-water is not recharged, you have water scarcity and you actually have an absolute end to habitation downstream of these dams. And in the command area where the dam takes water you get water logging and salinization. So, both areas are left in ruin. That’s why movements like us talk about decentralized alternatives of water conserva-tion. It is easier to conserve water in larger quantities in smaller levels in higher, decentralized ways than collect-ing all the water in one place.

Q) Is interlinking of the rivers in India a new Idea?

A) The idea of interlinking is an old idea; it has been rejected again and again, because its technical feasibility never works. It’s very clear to use more energy than to generate. And there are people who get a grand idea of minds mastery over nature, and in that they say, “Oh, we will link the rivers”. But it is an idea that is being rejuve-nated in recent times. And now the World Bank started to finance it and we have a very big movement against first link in the center of India. Q) Is it approved at this time?

A) It is not approved at this time, the feasibility studies being done, detail project reports are being done but memorandum of understanding was signed between two states that we are not agreeing to it. And this happened immediately after the World Bank president has visited India. The same president who planed the Iraq war, Paul Wolfowitz. We had a protest in front of the World Bank and we told Paul Wolfowitz “Keep your hands off our waters; we know how to manage it”. Q) When I was going from Mumbai to Goa, I saw many tree cuttings in rural areas and some man in the train told me that it is because of fuel problems in rural areas. I think there are many appropriate technologies like biofuels and solar ovens and other technologies to use instead but somebody has to initiate them. What do you think about this?

A) Well, you know I have been living in this country and I know that women don’t cut trees for fuel; they gather firewood and firewood is dead and fallen timber, is little twigs from your crops in the farm. Tree cutting is usually organized in the commercial level. And yes when fire-wood goes to the cities, then trees are cut, but for village use, trees are never cut you take the dead and fallen twigs.

Q) I mean the branch.

A) Oh! Cutting the branch? O.K, Yes, there are alterna-tives and in India since Gandhi time- these ecological

alternatives, biogas, biofuels. We used to have a department of renewable energy. That department of renewable energy used to make affordable solar cookers available in villages. All those programs have been wrapped up in order to promote nuclear option. So, we have our big challenge with the nuclear energy issue. We need to create energy security in an environmentally sustainable way. And it is an issue our organization will take up. At our farm we use solar in Dehradun, and water heater is solar. We recycle our water and we will have to get involved in a bigger way to make sure that the idea that the nuclear is the only way to the future is not adopted. Q) There are many big problems with small initiations to solve them. A) I totally agree with you. Q) Who has to initiate? A) I think everyone has to initiate. There is no one group to whom we can say you solve the problems. Everyone has to initiate, everyone has to become protector of the earth. Everyone has to adopt lifestyles that reduce environment damage. Q) Everyone has to do this, but who must initiate? I mean somebody needs to show this, promote these technologies. A) Anyone with scientific skills, technical skills and ecolo-gical awareness. It could be a professor in a university, it could be a village teacher, it could be a professional who works part time in sustainable solutions. But, anyone who has the capacity. If, I as a physicist can initiate the orga-nic movement of India, then I believe anyone with care and commitment can initiate solutions. Q) Do you have any specific definition for sustainable development? A) Yes, I have very clear definition of sustainable development. It is not development of corporate profits. It is development of ecosystems in their own terms, deve-lopment of cultures in their own terms and it is sustain-nable for society and sustainable for nature. Not sustain-nable for profiteers. Q) Have you published your definition? A) Yes, I have in my book, Earth Democracy.

Q) And what do you think about sustainable development. Is it a practical issue or only a theoretical issue? A) I think sustainability is not just a practical issue, it is a necessity, and anybody who says that economic reasons prevent us from becoming sustainable, that Mr. Bush said we can not afford to stop carbon dioxide emissions, we have to look after our economy, well you are not looking after your economy because the economy includes ecology. Ekos is the root of the word. Ekos means home. Economy is the management of the home, ecology is the science of home. And sustainability is not just a practical possibility, it is a practical necessity because if you do not become sustainable as I said earlier we are going to wipe out ourselves as human species. The human species is in danger, because of the environmental habitat it has created. Q) So, you think it is possible? A) It is possible, absolutely. Q) And do you know any successful model and paradigm in India or in the world? A) Well, the work of Navdanya, I believe is a very successful model. We work with more than two hundred thousands farmers, thousands of hectares and totally sustainable. Not just that level of soil being sustainable, the biodiversity being made sustainable, the water re-sources becoming sustainable, but the life of farmers being made sustainable .The current systems of agricul-ture organized globally, largely driven by U.S. agrobusi-ness is a non sustainable system. It is killing our farmers. 40 thousand Indian farmers have committed suicide, since the new seeds of Monsanto came in to this country. It is a system that destroys water. It is a system that wipes out soil and of course, this system kills the biodi-versity. We have managed to not just practice but spread sustainable economies in rural areas. Q) And how old is your project, Navdanya? A) I established Navdanya 20 years ago. Q) 20 years ago? A) Yes. Q) So, can it be introduced to the world as a paradigm of sustainable development in rural areas? A) Absolutely. It’s totally relevant. Also, because we worked in such different ecosystems- We worked in deserts, in wetlands, in cold areas, in hot areas. We

Amini 082 worked on rice, we work on wheat, and the principles are the same. it does not matter where you work if your Principles are right, then you can do. And I do believe. Q) And any successful model in cities, do you know? A) Unfortunately, no. I am told cities like Portland are sustainable. I am told cities like China now is trying to build ecological cities, I know cities like Benares used to be very sustainable, but it isn’t today. No! Q) What do you think about the] importance of environmental education and public awareness in environmental protection? A) I believe public awareness of environmental protection is extremely important. And I believe the education for this must come from multiple sources. It must come from universities, it must come from schools, it needs to come from programs, communications, it needs to be there in our films, in our culture. I think public awareness is a very important issue.

Q) And do you know any specific model or framework for public awareness? A) Our models for public awareness, is something I learnt from Chipco, which was you must travel with your mes-sage. So, we do what we called Yatras. We do preach yatras for the seed and biodiversity. Getting to areas and we travel trough it. We save seeds, we give seeds, we have pictures, we show videos and people join. We have water yatras, we just completed it yesterday, the Ganga yatra to protect the Ganges. Q) Yatra, what does it mean? A) Yatra means a journey, pilgrimage. The journey that’s almost popular.

Q) How you evaluate the role of governmental organizations, NGOs and International organizations in improvement of environmental goals in India? A) I believe the strongest part of environmental protection in India has been people’s movements. Not only NGOs, not only legal bodies, but society at large. Government has followed when the movements are strong. When society is strong, government follows. Government has never led International agencies. Using the name of environment has usually destroyed that.

Q) But some international organizations like Global Environmental facility, and UNEP, what do you think about them? A) Yah, I think they do good work, but I do not think they

Int.NGO.J. 083 make a huge difference. India is too big and their existence here is too small. Q) And what about governmental organizations? A) I said, the governmental organizations follow. When we are strong they follow, if we are quiet they will destroy the environment. Q) And finally, do you have any message for environmental NGOs, and environmental activists in Iran? A) My message to environmental activists and NGOS of Iran is; you are from one of the most ancient civilizations of the world, and the ancient civilizations stay ancient when they have sustained their environment. Your exis-tence is proof of sustainability. Let your future be even proof of the sustainability, of Iranian agriculture, Iranian practices, Iranian thought.

Q) Thank you very much and thank you for your time. I very enjoyed it and I hope to repeat this meeting in future. A) Nice meeting you.