Water

What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It So Important?

Vandana Shiva

"The erosion of biodiversity and the erosion of cultural diversity are related. Both have been threatened by the globalization of an industrial culture based on reductionist knowledge, mechanistic technologies and the commodification of resources."

I was surprised to read such a devastating fact of our modern society. The commodification of our earth's resources has not only drastically altered the natural structure and diversity within the environment, but between us as people.

I am determining what Shiva meant by "Reductionist knowledge". I came across a definition that defines reductionist knowledge as a way to break things, phenomena, into simpler terms. Is it then wrong to think of the state of our environment in simple terms? Does he suggest we should think of the environment in a more holistic way? 

I believe the commodification of our resources have stunted the growth of the species here on earth. It is a sad fact that we are only getting more greedy for resources that we cannot afford to replace. 

https://natureneedsmore.org/history-of-commodification/

"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."

As I was a child, first learning about biodiversity, I was taught that humans are a the top of that pyramid. Shiva is going against that way of thinking. I never noticed it was a Western way of thinking about our relation to the living beings around us. I found comfort in being in this position on the food chain. This sense of comfort dissolved my relationship with the environment around me. 

https://cherisecolloquium.tumblr.com/post/100254737066/tomorrows-biodiversity-by-vandana-shiva

"Mass extinctions have taken place during geological time, but the erosion of biodiversity has become a systematic product of industrialization."

This statement draws the line between mass extinction being the natural turn of events due to the way the Earth is surviving, and the erosion of biodiversity being a product of industrialization. I have talked to some people who believe that the eroding state of our environment is a natural thing. They compare it to mass extinctions. But, as Shiva indicates, it is brought on unnaturally by the commodification of the animals and trees and everything that makes up an environment. 

https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/conservation/issues/biggest-threat-to-biodiversity.htm