Conversations with Green Gurus: The Collective Wisdom of Environmental Movers and Shakers

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Dr Vandana Shiva

Dr Vandana Shiva is a physicist, environmental activist and author. Born in the valley of Dehradun, Dr Shiva trained as a physicist and received her PhD in physics at the University of Western Ontario in 1978. She later went on to do interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.

Dr Shiva participated in the non-violent Chipko movement during the 1970s. The movement, whose main participants were women, adopted the tactic of hugging trees to prevent their felling. In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which led to the creation of Navdanya. This is a biodiversity conservation programme she founded to support local farmers, rescue and conserve crops and plants that are in danger of becoming extinct and make them available through direct marketing. It has its own seed bank and organic farm spread in northern India.

Her book, Staying Alive, published in 1988, helped to redefine perceptions of third world women. Dr Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as non-governmental organisations, including the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation and the Third World Network. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalisation, and a figure of the ...