Vandana Shiva begins her excerpt by describing bio diversity as “the rich diversity of life” and goes into much detail about the extent to which modernization is destroying the biodiversity of life. She has statistics on how many different species are going extinct every year, the lack of diversity of species found in supermarkets, and array of others. Her view of conservation differs from most. She believes in taking a bottom-up approach to conservation, not trying to protect the species most similar to us, but by protecting the microbes and small organisms that are the basis of life. She then moves from conservation of life of small organisms to conservation of the livelihood of third world countries. Much like in the National Geographic movie Strange Days on Planet Earth she talks about how international commercial fishing is creating a food shortage in fishing villages around the world.
Shiva believes there are two primary reasons for the rapid destruction of biodiversity in third world countries. The first is the idea of an “empty earth” which needs to be taken over and colonized. The seconded comes from what Shiva refers to as the, “monoculture of the mind.” She describes this as the idea that the world should be uniform and one dimensional.
I agree with Shiva in her concept of beginning to conserve the smaller organisms in the world, but also think we need to continue to protect larger species as well. I think that we as humans have a desire to live comfortably and making money is a means of living your desired lifestyle. However I believe everyone should find a happy medium between living comfortably and sustainably.
No comments:
Post a Comment