Shiva Biodiversity

"Microbes have had no conservation movements or campaigns for 'microbe rights' for their protection. Nor has it been recognized that in the final analysis microbes are more powerful than'Man'." (Shiva 2011)

I don’t think we will ever see microbes have a conservation movement. People get behind movements for things that they like or that are cute. No one really likes microbes or thinks they are cute so they are not high on the list for a conservation movement. That shouldn’t be a bad thing either. When the author talks about conservation movements, she makes it sound like a conservation movement for something that is close to a human is wrong. Conservation for any animals or ecosystems should be a good thing and not be put down by the author.

Microbes posted on Conservation Magazine by Richard Conniff

"According to the dominant paradigm of production, diversity goes against productivity, which creates an imperative for uniformity and monocultures." (Shiva 2011)

I agree that diversity goes against productivity. With crops, its hard to be productive if you have to produce 50 different versions of each crop. Not all the crops grow under the same conditions and at the same rate so a farmer is unable to look after all the crops. I agree that monocultures of crops is bad for biodiversity but Im not sure at this point of time we have found a better way to produce enough crops for everyone while still promoting biodiversity. Demand is too high right now and our population continues to grow that if we cut back on production of animals or crops people will not like the drop in availability of things.  We will have to find a happy medium between diversity and production that will allow us to promote biodiversity while still producing enough for everyone and that is definitely easier said than done.

Rows of corn posted on Linn-Benton Community College

"Industrial agriculture, forestry and fisheries convert rich, diverse ecosystems into biologically impoverished chemically intensive monocultures, writing a death sentence for millions of species while claiming higher 'growth'." (Shiva 2011)

I don’t think that it just claims higher growth; industrial agriculture and fisheries do produce a higher growth rate than if it was a more biodiverse farm. One of the bigger problems with this way of farming is all the chemicals that they use in order to produce the amount of crops they do. All the chemicals in the environment kill the other plants around which hurt the environment. Maybe if we were able to find a way to keep the chemicals out of this technique it will help out the biodiversity in the long run. I know that these genetically modified crops were a big deal a while ago and to my knowledge I don’t think that much has changed. As our population and demand continues to grow I don’t see a change in the near future. I don’t think people will support biodiversity over the easily availability of products that they want.

Fishery posted on ZME Science by Mihai Andrei

Shiva, V. (2011). What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It So Important? In University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future (pp. 38-57). Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks.