Tom Jaszewski
www.livesoil.com
702-595-7012
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author
of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for
biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights. She directs the Research
Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most
recent book is Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. This
interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva was conducted in St. Louis, Missouri at the
First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering, on July
18, 1998. Dr. Shiva was the keynote speaker at the conference. The interview
was conducted by In Motion Magazine publisher Nic Paget-Clarke
<
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/staffnpc.html> .
In Motion Magazine: Why are patents the new form of colonialism?
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Patents are a replay of colonization as it took place 500
years ago in a number of ways. Interestingly, even at that time, when
Columbus set sail and other adventurers like him, they also set out with
pieces of paper that were called the letters patent which gave the power to
the adventurers to claim as property the territory they found anywhere in
the world that was not ruled by white Christian princes.
Contemporary patents on life seem to be of a similar quality. They are
pieces of paper issued by patent offices of the world that basically are
telling corporations that if there's knowledge or living material, plants,
seeds, medicines which the white man has not known about before, claim it on
our behalf, and make profits out of it.
That then has become the basis of phenomena that we call biopiracy, where
seeds such as the Basmati seed, the aromatic rice from India, which we have
grown for centuries, right in my valley is being claimed as novel invention
by RiceTec.
Neem, which we have used for millennia for pest control, for medicine, which
is documented in every one of our texts, which my grandmother and mother
have used for everyday functions in the home, for protecting grain, for
protecting silks and woolens, for pest control, is treated as invention held
by Grace, the chemical company. <
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/szw> This
epidemic of piracy is very much like the epidemic of piracy which was named
colonialism 500 years ago. I think we will soon need to name this round of
piracy through patents as recolonialization as a new colonialization which
differs from the old only in this - the old colonialization only took over
land, the new colonialization is
Received on Sat Mar 01 2003 - 18:26:22 EST