Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth

by Vandana Shiva, Ronnie Cummins (Foreword by)

Overview

Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Traditional Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth lays out the scientific, legal, political, and cultural struggle to defend the sovereignty of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge.

Two decades ago, at the height of globalization, there was an attempt by corporations, and the countries which represent their interests, to privatize and enclose our biological and intellectual commons. The result of this effort has become the massive destabilization of communities all over the world with the expansion of patents and intellectual property rights into the domain of biodiversity.

Today, there is a renewed attempt by global corporations to establish a regime in which biological and intellectual resources flow freely from poor countries to rich ones; and from the poorest communities to the richest corporations, with-out regulation. Reclaiming the Commons details the thirty-year cultural, political, scientific, and legal journey to protect biodiversity and indigenous knowledge from the unethical framework corporations impose on humankind in order to lay claim to life on Earth.

Vandana Shiva masterfully articulates the devastation this corporate greed has inflicted not only on agricultural communities, but on our planet and our very existence. Ultimately, she poses that the recovery of the commons is essential in restructuring our society into one that can flourish, while protecting and honoring all life on Earth. This, she says, lies in the collective recognition of common creativity and the rediscovery of our place within Nature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780907791782
Publisher:	SYNERGETIC PR
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Pages:	324
Sales rank:	689,847
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Dr. Vandana Shiva is an author, physicist, ecologist and advocate of biodiversity conservation and protection of farmers' and women's rights. Her pioneering work around food sovereignty, traditional agriculture, and women’s rights created fundamental cultural shifts in how the world views these issues. Along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, and Jeremy Rifkin, Dr. Shiva is a leader and board member of the International Forum on Globalization and a prominent figure of the global solidarity movement known as the alter-globalization movement. 

Dr. Shiva founded Navdanya, an organization that promotes agroecology, seed freedom, and a vision of Earth Democracy, seeking justice for the Earth and all living beings. She has authored more than 20 books including Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge, and the Rights of Mother Earth (Synergetic Press, 2020), Philanthrocapitalism & The Erosion of Democracy: A Global Citizens’ Report on the Corporate Control of Technology, Health, and Agriculture (Synergetic Press, 2022) and Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture:  Sustainable Solutions for Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Change (Synergetic Press, 2022). 

Dr. Shiva is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain's Socialist Party's think tank and the International Organization for a Participatory Society. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993, an honor known as an "Alternative Nobel Prize". She has received numerous other awards and honors for her work including the “Save the World” award in 2009 and the Sydney Peace Prize in 2010. Dr. Shiva’s life and work is the subject of the award-winning 2021 documentary, “Seeds of Vandana Shiva.”

Ronnie Cummins is founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), a non-profit, US-based network of more than two million consumers dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and regenerative system of food, farming, and commerce. Cummins also serves on the steering committee of Regeneration International and OCA’s Mexican affiliate, Vía Orgánica. His latest book Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Climate, Farming, Food, and a Green New Deal was published in February 2020. He is based in Minnesota and San Miguel de Allende Mexico.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Ronnie Cummins

Introduction: My Thirty-Year Journey on Biodiversity, Biopiracy, and Intellectual Property

ONE: Protecting Our Rich Biological and Intellectual Heritage

TWO: Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Biodiversity, and Section 3(j) of India’s Patent Act

THREE: Agrobiodiversity, Seeds, India’s Plant Variety Protection, and Farmers’ Rights Act

FOUR: Biopiracy: The Patenting of Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity

FIVE: The Western Corporate Bias in Knowledge and Property Rights which Facilitates Biopiracy

SIX: The Enclosure and Recovery of the Commons

SEVEN: Vasudhaiva Kutumbukam: From Corporate Anthropocentrism to Earth as Family

Notes

Index

What People are Saying About This

Robert F Kennedy Jr

If you ever wondered what a Saint would look like in our modern era, search no further. Vandana Shiva has emerged as one of the globe’s most effective advocate for family farmers, the poor, safe, nutritious food, dignified communities, humane working conditions, democracy, and biodiversity. Her profound spiritual dimension forms the platform for her ideals, and gives her the resilience to withstand daily slanders, vilification, and censure from the global power centers. She risks her life, safety, and freedom in a fierce struggle against the Chemical Cartel; tyrannical governments and the homicidal corporations conspiring in tandem to privatize the commons, commoditize the planet, subjugate its people, and censor dissent. In her new book, Reclaiming the Commons, Vandana argues that “the commons”, the shared assets of community—air water, wildlife—form a social safety net for the poor, and provide the essential foundation stone for dignified, democratized, communities. Vandana brilliantly and pragmatically lays out the philosophical and logistical underpinnings of her battle to preserve the commons as public asset, and to protect them from privatization by the wealthy, authoritarian elite.

Jerry Mander

As she has, nonstop for 30 years, Vandana Shiva has done it again. Reclaiming the Commons is a magnificent, profound, timely and politically vital book; a vital aid to a magnificent local resistance movement in India. At a crucial moment in history, as a handful of gigantic global corporations are aggressively seeking ultimate control over global agricultural resources and products, Shiva steps forward and leads the movement to block their incursions. As she has done so many times before, she clearly articulates, creates and sustains a vital, powerful resistance movement, both globally, and notably in her native India, where global corporatists' powers seek full take-over. Shiva brilliantly articulates what is at stake in the battle between "two paradigms", that of an age-old system based on local community rights, and the outrageous over-reach of global corporations seeking invasion and control of local systems, notably food and agriculture. This is a profound and disturbing book, brilliantly articulated in exquisite detail by the one most powerful local forces on these matters. It is a vital and illuminating work; timely, powerful, and profound.

Frances Moore Lappe

A powerful, deeply moving call to rethink the very way we understand life, including our own. We will protect and, ultimately—save—life on this planet only as we experience ourselves in relation to all—only as we move from the manufactured fear of scarcity to fall in love with the majesty our connectedness. Reclaiming the Commons is about reclaiming ourselves. I love this book.

From the Publisher

"As she has, nonstop for 30 years, Vandana Shiva has done it again. Reclaiming the Commons is a magnificent, profound, timely and politically vital book; a vital aid to a magnificent local resistance movement in India. At a crucial moment in history, as a handful of gigantic global corporations are aggressively seeking ultimate control over global agricultural resources and products, Shiva steps forward and leads the movement to block their incursions. As she has done so many times before, she clearly articulates, creates and sustains a vital, powerful resistance movement, both globally, and notably in her native India, where global corporatists' powers seek full take-over. Shiva brilliantly articulates what is at stake in the battle between "two paradigms", that of an age-old system based on local community rights, and the outrageous over-reach of global corporations seeking invasion and control of local systems, notably food and agriculture. This is a profound and disturbing book, brilliantly articulated in exquisite detail by the one most powerful local forces on these matters. It is a vital and illuminating work; timely, powerful, and profound."- Jerry Mander

"A powerful, deeply moving call to rethink the very way we understand life, including our own. We will protect and, ultimately—save—life on this planet only as we experience ourselves in relation to all—only as we move from the manufactured fear of scarcity to fall in love with the majesty our connectedness. Reclaiming the Commons is about reclaiming ourselves. I love this book." - Frances Moore Lappe

Editorial Reviews

All of us who care about the future of Planet Earth must be grateful to Vandana Shiva.” –Jane Goodall

“A powerful, deeply moving call to rethink the very way we understand life, including our own.” –Frances Moore Lappe

"As she has, nonstop for 30 years, Vandana Shiva has done it again. Reclaiming the Commons is a magnificent, profound, timely and politically vital book." –Jerry Mander

From the Publisher