Indian environment activist wins Sydney Peace Prize

MELBOURNE - Indian physicist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva has won the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize for her efforts towards women empowerment in developing nations and her scientific contribution to climate conservation.

The 57-year-old activist has been recognised for her work on the empowerment of women in developing countries, her advocacy of the human rights of small farming communities, and her scientific analysis of environmental sustainability.

Shiva will give the City of Sydney Peace Prize lecture at Sydney Opera House November 3, and will be presented with the prize November 4, Australian news agency AAP reported.

Speaking from her hometown Delhi, Shiva said she was honoured to receive the award.

“The protection of biodiversity, support for women in agriculture and for all subsistence farmers are human rights issues which I’ll address in Sydney,” she said.

Sydney Peace Foundation director, Professor Stuart Rees, said Shiva was an inspiring recipient of the award.

“Many communities are threatened by the consequences of global warming, yet in Australia the movement to address this issue has gone to sleep,” he said. “Vandana’s presence in Sydney in November should wake them up.”

Nobel laureates Muhammad Yunus and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson and journalist John Pilger have also been the winners of Australia’s only international prize for peace.

“Vandana Shiva’s work highlights the fundamental connection between human rights and the protection of the environment,” said Mary Kostakidis, chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation.

“She (Shiva) offers solutions to some of the most critical problems posed by the effects of globalisation and climate change on the poorest and most populous nations,” Kostakidis said.