Shiva Journal

What is Biodiversity and Why is it so Important?

Quotations by Vandana Shiva

“New technologies, such as genetic engineering, are creating new risks of biopollution while increasing chemical pollution” (Shiva, p.39).

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As time goes on, the world with which surrounds us is slowly pushing out all of the diversity that remains. The economic globalization is creating problems that will affect us in the near future. I researched what genetic engineering was because I had not clue what it meant. Come to find out, genetic engineering is not all bad, it has helped many problems within the medical field and has created many advances as well. However, altering fruits and vegetables to make them resistant to insects grosses me out. I feel like as a technology savvy world, we could find solutions to human and other species problems without hurting the environment with chemical pollutants. We need to treat the environment like a living thing that needs to be cared for just like the human beings living in the environment.

“Humankind is one among millions of other species. It does not have a right to push other species to extinction, or to manipulate them for greed, profit, and power without concern for their well-being” (Shiva, p. 40).

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Throughout reading the entire colloquium reader, this is my absolute favorite sentence. I have always loved animals and have had a great respect and love for the environment since I was very little. How dare human kind think that they have all the power to manipulate Mother Nature? It does not make any sense to me. I believe greed would be the key to this answer. People are so self absorbed that the only concern is for themselves and themselves only. If it isn’t affecting them directly, it doesn’t matter. If people opened their eyes to all of the beautiful and amazing things that were in the world, I feel like things would change. We should not only be concerned about other human beings well-being, but we should become more concerned about the millions of other species that keep the world moving.

“Today the apple varieties sold are less than a dozen. Supermarkets around the world essentially offer three types of apples: a red one, a yellow one, and a green one” (Shiva, p. 48). 

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This quote reminded me of the beginning of Food Inc. when the tomato was being shown in the grocery store. The narrator stated it looks like a tomato and has the color of a tomato but is it really a tomato? That documentary opened my eyes to so many things regarding the fruits and vegetables that I eat. I am a vegetarian so my concern is very high. Why is it that in 1897 there were 275 different varieties of apples and now we only have about a dozen and probably even less than that. We again come to the reality that we are pushing out the diversity that is among us. The world we live on is extremely overpopulated so the demand for food is high, however I believe something could have been done to keep the variety of the apples thriving. It is disgusting to think that even the food that is sold in a supermarket could potentially be unsafe to eat.