A wonderfully clear speech about how commodification destroys real wealth - robbing the poor of sustaining resources -and how intellectual property rules, imposed by the WTO, are a central mechanism of this theft.
Producer: L.A. Sound Posse Uploaded by: dave adelson
Recorded by Cheryll Roberts and Dave Adelson. This recording is anti-copyrighted. If aired, please give production credit to the L.A. Sound Posse.
Dr. Shiva's lecture was part of the Scripps College Humanities Institute's Fall 2003 program "Poverty." The Program in Science, Technology, and Society of the Claremont Colleges was also a co-sponsor of this event.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is the founder and director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology RFSTE), based in Dehra Dun, India.
Since 1982, the foundation has focused on protecting people' s rights from threats to their environment by centralized systems of monoculture, forestry, agriculture and fisheries. Dr. Shiva's goal is to conduct research "with people, not on them" to create a greater understanding of "the interconnections in the web of life."
Aside from her work with the RFSTE, Dr. Shiva has also written a number of books, including Stolen Harvest, Ecofeminism, Breakfast of Biodiversity: The Truth about Rain Forest Destruction, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development, and the recently published Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.