The icon of the struggle against the distortions caused by globalization Vandana Shiva on visit in Piedmont

by Eleonora Anello

Vandana Shiva, Indian environmental activist, a degree in quantum physics directs the Center for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in Dehra Dun and she is president of the Foundation of Navdanya Delhi. Famous in this last decade to have theorized the social ecology, the new science that is based on the assumption that the damage caused by industrial civilization, is to search into the equation woman-nature and definition of both as passive, inert, matter first to handle.Instead under this theory "women are the keepers of knowledge original, derived from centuries of familiarity with the land, a knowledge that modern science Baconian and male has condemned to death". West culture is far removed from nature and the woman and, in fact, men have created a development “devoid of principle female, conservative, green" founded “on the exploitation of women and nature".

In these days, Indian physics was in tour in Piedmont, May 15 at the Fiera del libro (Turin - Italy) to present her latest work "Return to the land". In the meeting with the readers have spoken Ermanno Olmi and Carlo Petrini. In her new book Vandana Shiva highlights three global problems to be addressed urgently: hunger in the world, oil dependency and global warming. Three questions deeply interrelated. A threefold question that could be at the same time a threefold opportunity to rethink a global agricultural policy, energy and environment. In the book is contained the explicit invitation to think about a new reality in which human beings are worther than profits. Furthermore, the author advocates a return to the principles of the manner of countrymen, based on the production of niche, sustainability, local communities and environmental justice.

On May 16 it was the turn of Cuneo (Italy), Vandana Shiva has attended the conference sponsored by the National Movement for the Stop the consumption of the Territory, "Soil: common good, not consumer goods".
The movement is fighting against cementation that just in our country, from 1950 to today, has almost swallowed up by concrete 250 thousand hectares of land for year, for instance an area as large as the entire North of Italy.
According to these activists, nature does not have infinite resources. They throw a sharp warning: "the country is reaching the point of no return, it’s in the collapse hydrogeological, heritage and artistic landscape is likely to be irreversibly compromised, agriculture slips towards an impoverishment without return, cultural identities and the peculiarities of each area and each city seem to converge into a single, uniform and indistinct gray container”.

The Movement of opinion for the defence of the right of territory without cementation reports to complaints this growth without limits which considers territory an inexhaustible resource. Its protection and preservation is subordinated to financial interests: a vicious cycle that if not stopped, will continue to lead to collapse entire areas and urban regions.
Legislators and administrators can follow alternative routes based on a new urban policy which is based on the principle of conservation of soil and the "zero growth", which leads for example to steer the sector on rebuilding and restructuring the energy of existing buildings.

The meeting was organized by Pro Natura Cuneo and Legambiente Cuneo, under the patronage of the Province and the City of Cuneo.