Vandana Shiva

A physicist and epistemologist, with a degree in science philosophy, Vendana Shiva is a leading field environmentalist and alter globalist. She campaigns for organic farming, against the food industry's politics of boundless expansion and the perverse consequences of genetics engineering. She fights against the patenting of living organisms and biopiracy, i.e. the appropriation by agro-chemical multinationals of universal resources, such as seeds.
In the 1980's, she was an active member of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, campaigning against the gigantic dams that were being built across the Narmada River, as it upset ecosystems and forced millions of poor farmers to abandon their land.

Vandana Shiva founded Navdanya, a not-for-profit that works to preserve biodiversity and protect farmers' rights. Navdanya farm is a model seed bank, which has enabled over 10'000 farmers from India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal and Bangladesh to rediscover organic farming.

Today, she is at the head of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture.

To share her commitment, she has published numerous books, such as "Biopiracy: the Plunder of Nature and Knowledge", "Patents, Myths and Reality" and "Breakfast of Biodiversity: the Political Ecology of Rain Forest Destruction".

In 1993, Vandana Shiva received the "Right Livelihood Award", commonly referred to as the alternative Nobel prize.