Vandana Shiva: The Future of Food-Part 3

Dr. Vandana Shiva founded the Research for Science, Technology, and Ecology, (RFSTE) organization, inspired by her earlier involvement with the Chipko movement. In 1973, in a mountainous region in the Himalayas, women villagers, in heroic and desperate fashion, clung to the body of trees to protest against their forest being decimated by contractors for the State’s Forest Department. The entire ecology of the region, and thus the local economy of these villagers, depended upon preserving the integrity of their forest. The eventual success of this self-organized environmental movement to protect their own natural resources from exploitation, became a (non-violent) model for future environmental activism throughout the world.