Tree Hugger
Meet Vadana Shiva, a 70 year old physicist turned ecofeminist in India who has dedicated her life to protecting the world’s biodiversity, and increasing the participation of women in conservation, who she believes are the custodians of earth-health.
Vadana was born in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Her father was a forestry official and her mother a farmer, so she grew up spending as much time outdoors as she did in school. Her love of nature led her to physics degree followed by a PhD scholarship in Canada. Before she left overseas, Vadana decided to visit her favourite childhood haunts in a nearby oak forest, only to find it had been cleared for commercial apple orchards. She felt “like I had just been amputated.”
While recounting her horror to friend, a local teaseller overheard the conversation and assured Vanada that no more forests would be lost because of the Chipko, a group of local women who were literally hugging trees to protect them from commercial loggers. The Chipko’s mission sparked a calling in Vadana and she used her scholarship money to return home from Canada every holiday to volunteer. For Vadana the forest had always been a place of beauty but working with the women of Chipko, she learned it was also a powerful source of livelihood and knowledge.
Vadana left her formal scientific work in 1982 to set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in her mother’s cowshed. Inspired by the Chipko, she started building a movement to empower more women to protect their land and worked to bridge the gap between indigenous and scientific knowledge. A few years later, when she became concerned about the rise of monoculture food producers Vadana expanded her mission to protect her country’s agricultural biodiversity.
In 1991 she launched Navdanya, which in Hindi means 'nine seeds.' The program supports small farmers in rescuing endangered crops and plants and makes them available through direct marketing. Over the past two decades Navdanya has helped two million farmers, set up 150 seed banks across India and saved 4,000 rice varieties and 31 varieties of wheat along with pulses, vegetables, and medicinal plants.
For Vadana, feminism and environmentalism are inseparable and both necessary drivers to create an abundant and sustainable future. “We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all.”
