Dr. Vandana Shiva: Early Reader Edition

Vandana Shiva, noted environmentalist in 2007, at RishikeshVia Wikimedia Commons

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a scientist, writer, and environmental hero from India. She has spent her life protecting nature and teaching other people how to protect it too. She started a group called Navdanya, which means “nine seeds,” to save different kinds of plants and protect farmers’ rights. She also leads the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, which studies how science can help people and the environment.

Vandana grew up in a valley in Dehradun in India, surrounded by the Himalayan Mountains. She loved nature from a very young age and wanted to learn more about it. Her father worked hard to protect the forests, and her mother was a farmer.

Vandana’s hero was always Albert Einstein, and she wanted to be a physicist just like him! She went to university to study nuclear physics, but she didn’t like that it could be used to make weapons. Instead, she studied theoretical physics to learn about how things in the universe work.

She used her studied to learn more about why there was so much poverty in India, her home country. Soon, she became an expert on how big industries can harm nature. She learned that large companies were trying to control farming through genetic engineering and patents—rules that could stop farmers from saving or sharing their own seeds.

In 1991, Dr. Shiva started Navdanya, a group to protect local seeds and plant diversity. She believes that seeds should belong to everyone, not just big companies. She says, “I don’t want to live in a world where five giant companies control our health and our food.”

She created a peaceful movement called the Seed Satyagraha, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi once protested unfair laws by making his own salt, saying that no one should control something so important to life. Dr. Shiva says the same is true for seeds, water, and food—they belong to everyone.

Her movement is based on three big ideas from Gandhi:

1. Swadeshi – doing things yourself, like growing your own food.
2. Swaraj – being free to make your own choices about water, food, and seeds.
3. Satyagraha –saying “no” to unfair laws and continuing to protect nature and people’s rights.

Now, at 72 years old, Dr. Shiva is still traveling across India, collecting and saving seeds, building seed banks, and helping farmers grow healthy crops without having to use chemicals.

Dr. Vandana Shiva shows us that one person can make a big difference by protecting nature, standing up for what’s right, and believing that the Earth belongs to all of us.

Read a more advanced version of this story by David Kemker here.