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Lesson Everything I Need To Know I Learned in The Forest

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472 views3 pages

Lesson Everything I Need To Know I Learned in The Forest

Uploaded by

geetanayak19
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest

Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned activist for


biodiversity and against corporate globalization. In the essay
“Everything I Need To...” she reveals to the readers all about her early
lessons of environmentalism. She further tells us how she learnt all the
major ideals of a good life from the forests such as diversity, freedom
and co-existence.

In the lesson, Vandana Shiva tells us how she learnt about


environmentalism from the uneducated women of Garhwal, Himalaya.
Her father was a forest conservator and her mother was a farmer. She
learnt a lot about ecology from the Himalayan forests. Her involvement
began with `Chipko'. In the 1970s. peasant women from her region had
come out to save trees. All women declared that they would hug the
trees and the loggers would have to kill them before killing the trees.

Next, the author narrates the Chipko action that took place in the
Himalayan village of Adwani in 1977. She recalls how a village woman
named Bachni Devi led a movement of resistance against her own
husband who had obtained a contract to cut trees. When the logging
officials arrived at the forest, the women held up lighted lanterns
although it was broad daylight. The forester admonished them saying
that they were foolish women and did not know the value of the forest.
He added that the forests produced a profit, resin and timber. The
women sang back in chorus replying that the forests bore soils, water
and pure air and also sustained the Earth and all that she bears. In the
next section titled ‘Beyond Monocultures’, Vandana Shiva tells the
readers that she learned about bio-diversity and biodiversity-based
living economies, from the Chipko movement. Further, she remarks
that our failure to understand biodiversity and its many functions is the
root cause of the impoverishment of nature and culture. Then she says
that the lessons she learned about diversity in the Himalayan forests
she transferred to the protection of bio-diversity on her farms. She
started saving seeds from farmers’ fields and incidentally realized that
they needed a farm for demonstration and training. This led to the
establishment of Navdanya Farm. She started saving seeds and started
Navadanya Farm in 1994 in the Doon Valley. They conserve and grow
630 varieties of rice, 150 varieties of wheat and hundreds of other
species and got more yield which became a solution to the problem of
food and nutrition crisis. Then she started seed banks across India and
instructed and pleaded the farmers to make transition from fossil fuel
and chemical based monocultures to bio-diverse ecological systems
nourished by the sun and the soil.
The United Nations General Assembly organized a
conference on harmony with Nature as part of Earth Day Celebration. It
is significant to note that Ecuador has recognized the rights of nature in
its constitution. The discussion was about the ways to transform
systems based on domination of people over nature, men over women
and rich over poor into new systems based on partnership. The
importance of reconnecting with Nature is stressed all human beings
are an inseparable part of nature and if we do any harm to nature it is
harming ourselves. Cormac Cullinan says that we need to overcome the
wider and deeper apartheid-an-eco--apartheid based on the illusion of
separateness of humans from nature in our minds and lives.
Today it is the need of hour to stop thinking that our living Earth
is transformed into dead matter. One should look at nature as a living
nurturing mother. We need to move away from the paradigm of nature
as dead matter. We should take a shift from anthropocentrism to
ecocentrism. We should recognise, protect and respect the rights of
other species.
In the next section titled ‘What Nature Teaches’, Vandana Shiva tells
the reader what we need to do now. She says that we are facing
multiple crises and hence we need to move away from the paradigm of
nature as dead matter and move towards an ecological paradigm.
Vandana Shiva tells us that to understand what an ecological paradigm
means, we need to go to ‘nature’ herself and nature is the best teacher.
Vandana Shiva presents a model of the Earth University which she says
is located at ‘Navdanya’, a bio-diversity farm. She says that Earth
University teaches Earth democracy. The concept of Earth Democracy
symbolizes “freedom for all species to evolve within the web of life”. It
also refers to the freedom and responsibilities of humans as members
of the Earth family, to recognize, protect and respect the rights of other
species. The author explains that the idea of ‘Earth Democracy’ is a shift
from anthropocentrism to eco-centrism. Anthropocentrism is a school
of thought which argues that humans are the central element of the
universe. It also means that it is man’s responsibility to preserve these
ecosystems. Since we all depend on the Earth for our survival, Earth
democracy gives every human being rights to food and water, to
freedom from hunger and thirst.

Vandana Shiva further elaborates the features of the culture of the


forest. She refers to Tagore’s writings and says that in his writings the
forest was not just the source of knowledge and freedom, but was also
the source of beauty and joy, of art and aesthetics, of harmony and
perfection. It symbolized the universe. She says that the forest teaches
us union and compassion. It also teaches us ‘enoughness’. It means, it
teaches us the principle of equity. It shows us how to enjoy the gifts of
nature without exploitation. No species in a forest takes away the share
of another species and every species sustains itself in co-operation with
others. She concludes saying that the end of consumerism and
accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living. Finally, the author
concludes by saying that the conflict between greed and compassion,
conquest and co-operation, violence and harmony continues even
today and in this situation, it is the forest that can show us the way
beyond this conflict. It is the forest that can show us the way beyond
this conflict. Thus, Vandana Shiva wants to assure us that the forests
teach us the values of diversity, freedom and co-existence.

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