Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Forest
Vandana Shiva
About Author (Vandana Shiva )
Vandana Shiva was born in 1952 in Dehradun. She
was a famous conservationist and ecological thinker. Her father was a conservator
of forests and her mother a farmer with a love of nature. It is due to her
parental influence that she grew to have an ecological consciousness. She is
famous for writing upon the environmental issues. She has written mostly upon
biodiversity, bioethics and genetic engineering. She was recognized as an
‘environmental hero’ by Time magazine. She is founder of Navdanya. She also
advocates reform in agricultural and food practices.
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Summary and Analysis
Vadana Shiva makes a passionate plea for
the reintegration of human with nature in her essay “Everything I Need to Know
I Learned in the Forest”. This essay is autobiographical essay. The essay
begins with the author going back to her childhood and upbringing in the
environment. She recalls her early involvement with gross root movements such
as Chipko Andolan and her setting up of Nadanya. She narrates her own example
of setting up Earth University, inspired by Tagore’s Shantniketean, where
ecological education is imparted with a view to integrate human beings within
the larger web of diverse ecological species.
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Textual Questions:
Q1. Discuss the importance of Chipko
Movement for the Garhwal Himalayan region?
Ans: In 1970’s the women folk from peasantry
section come out in defiance the forests. These women hug the trees to save
them even at the cost of their own lives and this movement is called Chipko
Movement. The Chipko Movement has great
importunate not only for Garhwal region but for the whole region of Himalayas.
For the Garhwal it has more importance due to the water crisis. This movement
was a response to a large-scale deforestation that was taking place in
Himalayan region.
In the Garhwal Himalayan
region due to deforestation, large scale and sliding, floods and scarcity of water
along with fodder and fuel was on rise. The result of this created problems for
all especially woman. The women of this region have to walk to distant places
in search and collection of water, fire wood and fodder for livestock. The
women of that region understood the value of forests not in the shape of timber
but as springs, streams providing pure water, food for livestock and fuel for
their hearts. The women declared that they would not allow this deforestation. They hug the trees so that loggers would have
to kill them before killing the trees.
So, it is clear from the
above that the Chipko Movement has too much importance for Garhwal Himalayan
region. It was very important in the sense that it was a movement for
protection of trees so it saves the forests.
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Q2. How did Navdanya serve Shiva’s purpose?
Ans: Navdanya serve Shiva’s purpose to a great
extent. Shiva stared Novdanya movement in 1987.
This was a great movement for the biodiversity conservation and organic
farming. So far, they worked with farmers to set up more than 100 community
seed banks across India. They have saved more than 3,000 rice varieties. They
also help farmers make a transition from fossil fuel and chemical based
monocultures to biodiversity ecological systems nourished by the sun and the
soil. So, Navdanya serve Shiva’s purpose by saving the environment.
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Q3. What does the author mean by the phrase ‘the
death of nature’ and what, according to her, is the root cause of our
disharmony with nature?
Ans: By the phrase ‘the death of nature’ author
means that the dead of war has been unleashed against the earth by the greedy
man. It the earth is merely dead matter, then nothing is being killed but earth
is living. As a philosopher and
historian Carolyn merchant points out, this shift of perspective from nature as
a living, nurturing mother to insert, dead matter was well suited to the activities
that would lead to capitalism. The domination images created by Bacon and other
leaders of the scientific revolution replaced those of the nurturing earth, removing
a cultural constraint on the exploitation of nature. Separatism is indeed at
the root of disharmony with nature and violence against nature and people. As
the prominent South African environmentalist Cormac Cullinan points out,
apartheid means separateness. The world joined the anti-apartheid movement of
people on the basis of color, apartheid in South Africa put behind us. We need
to overcome the wider and deeper apartheid as eco apartheid based on the
illusion of separateness of humans from nature in our minds and lives. It is
clear from the view point of the author that the root cause of our disharmony
with nature is Separatism and disharmony with nature.
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Q4. What does it mean to
move in an ecological paradigam?
Ans: There are so many disasters intensified by
globalization. According to the author ‘we need to move away from the paradigm
of nature as a dead matter’. We need to move to an ecological paradigm, and for
this, the best teacher is nature herself. That is why the author started the
Earth University at Navdany’s farm. The Earth University teaches earth
democracy. In this university the stress is given upon the freedom for all
species to evolve within the web of life. According the author the freedom and
responsibility of humans, as members of the earth family, to recognize,
protect, and respect the rights of other species. Earth democracy is this shift
from anthropocentrism to egocentrism. All the living creature of the world
including man is dependent feed by earth. The earth provides us our basic needs
such as food, shelter and clothes. The earth saves us from hunger and thirst.
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Q5. The culture of the forest has fuelled the
culture of Indian Society, Explain?
Ans: Tagore writes in his essay “Tapovan”
(Forest of Purity), ‘Indian Civilization has been distinctive in locating its source
of regeneration, material and intellectual in the forest, not the city. India’s
best ideas have come where man was in communion with trees, rivers and lakes,
away from the crowds. The peace of the forest has helped the intellectual
evolution of man. The culture of the forest has fueled the culture of Indian
Society. The culture that has arisen from the forest has been influenced by the
diverse processes of renewal of life…’
Tagore
had started his school Shantiniketan as a forest school. In this school he
wants ‘to take inspiration from nature and to create an Indian cultural
renaissance.’ According to Tagore ‘the
forests are source of water and storehouses of a biodiversity.’ ‘Tagore saw
unity with nature as the highest stage of human evolution’. According to Tagore ‘it was the source of
beauty and joy of art and aesthetics of harmony and perfection. The forest
teaches us union and compassion’.
