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Biopiracy
The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
Vandana Shiva
ISBN: 0-89608-556-2Format: cloth
Release Date: 1997-01-01
Biopiracy examines the North's ongoing assault against the South's biological and other resources. Since the land, forests, oceans, and atmosphere have already been colonized, eroded, and polluted, Northern capital is now carving out new colonies to exploit for gain: the interior spaces of the bodies of women, plants, and animals.
Named a "Break-Through Book" on Intellectual Property in Lingua Franca in its July/August 1999 issue
Biopiracy (paper)
Other books by Vandana Shiva
Water Wars (cloth)
Privatization, Pollution, and ProfitVandana Shiva
Released 2002-01-01
Examining the international water trade, damming, mining, and aquafarming, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of their rights to a precious common good.
Stolen Harvest (cloth)
The Hijacking of the Global Food SupplyVandana Shiva
Released 2000-01-01
Stolen Harvest uncovers the devastating human and environmental consequences of corporate-engineered international trade agreements.
Biopiracy (cloth)
The Plunder of Nature and KnowledgeVandana Shiva
Released 1997-01-01
Biopiracy examines the North’s ongoing assault against the South’s biological and other resources.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Piracy Through Patents
1
Knowledge, Creativity, and Intellectual Property rights
2 Can Life Be Made? Can Life Be Owned?
3 The Seed and the Earth
4 Biodiversity and People's Knowledge
5 Tripping Over Life
6 Making Peace with Diversity
7 Nonviolence and Cultivation of Diversity
Praise
"Shiva…has
devoted her life to fighting for the rights of the ordinary people of India…her
fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her
a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world."
—Ms. Magazine
"A
leading thinker who has eloquently blended her views on the environment, agriculture,
spirituality, and women's rights into a powerful philosophy."
—Utne Reader
"Vandana
Shiva is a burst of creative energy and intellectual power."
—The Progressive
"A
path-breaking work on one of the most important issues of the coming century…Vandana
Shiva's inspiring book is a clarion call…[that] should be widely read and discussed
by everyone concerned with the fate of the Earth."
—Jeremy Rifkin, author of The
Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World
"One
of the world's most prominent radical scientists."
—The Guardian
"Vital
and pertinent."
—Feminist Bookstore News
Vandana Shiva
“Shiva … has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of the ordinary people of India … her fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world.”—Ms. Magazine
“A leading thinker who has eloquently blended her views on the environment, agriculture, spirituality, and women's rights into a powerful philosophy.”—Utne Reader
“One of the world's most prominent radical scientists.”—The Guardian
Born in India in 1952, Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker.
Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India’s leading physicists, and holds a master’s degree in the philosophy of science and a PhD in particle physics.
Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, she is the author of many widely-translated books, including Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (South End Press, 2010), Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis (South End Press, 2008), Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (South End Press, 2005), Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization (South End Press, 2001), Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End Press, 1997), Monocultures of the Mind (Zed, 1993), and The Violence of the Green Revolution (Zed, 1992).Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalization, along with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin. She addressed the 1999 World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, as well as the 2000 World Economic Forum in Melbourne.
The founder of Navdanya (“nine seeds”), a movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds, she also founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in her mother’s cowshed in 1997. Its studies have validated the ecological value of traditional farming and been instrumental in fighting destructive development projects in India .
Shiva is the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the 1993 Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award), the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize for her commitment to social justice, and the 2011 Calgary Peace Prize from the Consortium for Peace Studies at the University of Calgary.
In 2011 Forbes named Shiva "one of the 7 most influential women in the world."

