Center note: The following
letter to the editor of Time magazine denounces Vandana Shiva, the recipient of
a Time "environmental hero award." Shiva is the instrumentality of wealthy
anti-globalization guru, Douglas Tompkins, and receives over a hundred thousand
dollars each year from his Foundation for Deep Ecology to fight against
large-scale agricultural production. She is a member of the anti-capitalist
group,
International Forum on Globalization, which calls for centralizing world
economic rulemaking in the United Nations. See the
Center's analysis of the Forum's plan to cripple the world economy.
Vandana Shiva, Indian small-farm advocate strongly opposed to biotechnology, is founder and director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, based in Delhi. She is also the ecology advisor of the Third World Network, and is author of “Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge.” Receives large annual donations directed by Jerry Mander from Foundation for Deep Ecology, $165,000 in 2000.
Editor, Time Magazine:
The "Green Century" special Earth Summit edition of your magazine called Vandana Shiva an environmental hero, lauding her for representing "tradition's voice" by setting "an eco-friendly standard that agribusiness must show it can outperform."
But when it comes to humanity, this "hero" has been downright villainous.
Repeatedly she has sought to block humanitarian food donations to desperate people, using any excuse available. She has attempted to block the access of India monsoon flood victims to critical US food donations based on false allegations that such foods pose health threats.
Even now she's defending the indefensible decision of the Zambian government to lock away US grain in government warehouses - an act that could kill literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions. This type of grain was declared completely safe by US regulators years ago and Americans have been eating it for over half a decade.
Shiva also opposes the wonderful new "golden rice" under development that Time properly devoted a cover to, in that it that could save millions in developing countries from death and blindness due to vitamin A deficiency.
Ultimately Shiva is no friend to sustainability, either. The very crops she's desperately fighting against have been engineered to require less application of pesticides, tremendously reducing the use of chemicals.
The developing world's growing population cannot sustain "heroes" such as these.
Signed:
Michael Fumento, Hudson Institute
Alex Avery, Hudson Institute
Dennis Avery, Hudson Institute
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