Vandana Shiva: "What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It Important?”

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            Vandana Shiva’s “What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It Important?” discusses the meaning of biodiversity and why we need it in our world. “Biodiversity means the diversity of life—the rich diversity of life forms on our beautiful planet” (Shiva 38). This definition is pretty straight forward considering bio simply means life, so the literal translation would be life diversity. As Shiva continues to mention, biodiversity is a key component of life on earth. “Biodiversity is the very fabric of life—it provides the conditions for life’s emergence and maintenance, and the many different ways in which that life is expressed” (Shiva 38). I completely agree with this statement. Biodiversity is what keeps life on this earth going. On this planet we have enormous amounts of different organisms all living together in one place. Each one plays a key part of making life possible. Every being has a role to play, if one being is taken away completely it could cause another being to be taken away because that one was relying on the first to live, and this goes on and on. All of the organisms have a duty here, to live with no disturbance everything must remain and continue to play its role in the cycle of life.

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            “The ethical conflict between intrinsic worth and the commercial value of all life forms has become a major issue in negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO), in the commercialization of genetic engineering of plants and animals, and in the patents taken out around the world on plants, animals and microorganisms”(Shiva 41). I completely disagree with genetic engineering, although interesting because it is an advanced science, why are we messing with things that are perfectly fine on their own? Our world does not need more artificial things; we need more of the world’s natural things. We need to rebuild our earth the way it used to be, not continue to make a synthetic version of it. Our planet and the life on it deserves to be healthy and taken care of, this is not the way to making a better world, it is the way to ruin it.

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            “Human beings are clearly highly ignorant of other members of the Earth Family and, at least in the Western worldview, have thought of themselves as sitting on top of a biodiversity pyramid or tree rather than forming a part of a complex web of life” (Shiva 44). I am not quite sure how to feel about this statement. On one hand I do agree that humans think of themselves as high and mighty beings, but on the other we know we are part of an ecosystem and we know we are not invincible. Also, not all humans have the mind set that we are all powerful; many actually understand that we are a part of the world, that we are not the world we are simply a part of a bigger community. At times we may try to control what is going on around us, but other species do this as well. The entire human race is not out to create a monopoly; most are just trying to live in harmony with the world around us.