The biological concept of development has been taken over by the economic sector, bringing about a change in its real meaning, environmentalist Vandana Shiva has said.
She was speaking after launching the ‘Campus Leaders for Sustainable Development’ programme rolled out by the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) here on Saturday. “Development is that of a seed or of an embryo that develops inside the mother’s womb. Development in biology, unlike economics, is internal. It is the self-evolution and self-organising of a seed. It is internally driven, and structural changes happen. That’s magic. You plant a coconut, you get a coconut, you don’t get an oak tree. It is built into those seeds to evolve into what they are to become,” she said.
Speaking about Cyclone Ockhi, she said such catastrophes were results of earlier actions at some point of time. “If a river isn’t allowed to flow due to destruction of the catchment area, you don’t have a sustainable eco system. If you pump more greenhouse gases, it will cause atmospheric pollution, which will lead to climate change. There is no point trying to deny it,” she said.
She was upset about the increase in farmer suicides in the country and its negative effect on sustainable development. Stating that the soil was where our future lay, she said it was important to eat what we grow. Kerala had tremendous opportunity when it came to sustainable development, as it is a State where all religions existed in harmony, she said.
Former Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan, who presided over the launch function, said it wasn’t the western world that taught us sustainable development. It was the Upanishads that did that. The term ‘sustainable’ was added to ‘development’ as a compromise by the developed nations, as their idea was the economic growth of the nations, he added.
