Post #3 Biodiversity

According to Vandana Shiva, Biodiversity means "the diversity of life". In other words, biodiversity is the variety of all life on earth. Biodiversity is very important because it boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no mater how big or small, play an important role in sustaining life. Shiva states that the destruction of biodiversity will lead to none other than the destruction of livelihood to people of third world countries that make their living by farming or fishing. I found Shiva's words to be very powerful. I especially liked when he stated that "all life forms have an intrinsic worth and a right to evolve freely on their own terms". This is very true, and so, humans have absolutely no right to disrupt the natural cycle of things. Shiva states that we are just one of millions of species on this planet, therefore, we have no right to "push other species to extinction, or to manipulate them for greed, profit and power without concern for their wellbeing". This was very well stated, unfortunately that is precisely what we are doing. Shiva brings up another good point when discussing how people in the biotechnology business, as well as most of North America, do not respect plants and animals as they should. They merely see them for how hey benefit us and not as how important they are as part of our ecosystem. For example, in relation to farming, we view animals as food for consumpion. The lack of respect is initially what is ruining biodiversity in the first place. Biodiversity is also diminishing in an agricultural aspect as well. There are fewer crops because mankind has decided that only the appetizing ones are important to keep sustained. For example, in the Netherlands a single potato variety makes up 80% of potato growing. This shows that as a whole, humans are shifting closer towards monoculture and uniformity as opposed to diversity. This does not look good for our biodiversity.