“Earth Democracy: Sustainability, Justice and Peace” is the topic of the next lecture in the RENEW Institute’s Distinguished Lecture Series on April 20.

The lecture will be given by Vandana Shiva, an Indian scholar and environmental activist. It will take place from 2:30-4:45 p.m. in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts, North Campus. After networking and introductions and comments from Provost Charles F. Zukoski, Shiva will speak at 3:15 p.m.; a “fireside chat” led by Robert Shibley, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, will immediately follow the talk.

In her talk, Shiva will discuss how exploitation of the earth and injustice to the more vulnerable members of society are rooted in the same causes.

Shiva was trained as a physicist and her PhD at the University of Western Ontario focused on “Hidden Variables and Non-locality in Quantum Theory.” She later shifted to interdisciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, which she carried out at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.

In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun, an independent institute dedicated to high quality and independent research on the most significant ecological and social issues of our times.

In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. In 2004, she started Bija Vidyapeeth, an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K.

Time magazine named Shiva an environmental “hero” in 2003, and Forbes magazine called her one of the Seven most Powerful Women on the Globe in 2010.

Among her many awards are the Right Livelihood Award, promoted as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”; the Order of the Golden Ark; The United Nations’ Global 500 Award and Earth Day International Award; and the Thomas Merton Award.