Jīvacide, the destruction of the diversity of living (jīvadiversity)^[1] of human peoples, together with ecocide has caused widespread inequity (injustice, poverty, disenfranchisement, identity loss, hunger, violence). This article focuses on jīvacide and how it causes inequity.

A Refresher on Jīvadiversity^[1]

Genetic diversity originates in part from an organism’s physiological adaptation to a particular ecological web (ecoweb), in the context of the existence of many different types of ecowebs, leading to a wide range of physiological adaptations, resulting in biodiversity. Jīvadiversity, on the other hand, originates from a human community’s development of a particular system of Knowledge-Technologies-Practices (Knowtep) adapted to the specific ecoweb the community inhabit and rely on, in the context of a plethora of different ecowebs, leading to a multitude of different systems of ecoweb-rooted Knowtep across communities and bioregions.

Thus, while genetic diversity is the basis of biodiversity, the diversity in ecoweb-rooted Knowtep — and concomitant Knowtep-rooted identity (part of community-ecoself) — lies at the core of jīvadiversity. Across centuries and millennia, ecosymbiotic human communities in different ecowebs across all bioregions developed unique systems of ecoweb-rooted Ādi-Knowtep (ancient Indigenous Knowtep) and corresponding identities optimally adapted to the ecological resources and conditions of their ecowebs. 

What Is the Motivation for Jīvacide (Destroying Jīvadiversity)?

The primary goal of extractivism (supported by the globally institutionalized Economics-Law-Governance-Education (ELGE) system) is to amass wealth and privatized human/ ecological resources for a handful of individuals (mostly men) and corporations. One of the ways to amass wealth is by producing industrially mass-made commodities and then selling these commodities to as many people as possible to make profit. 

Thus, one of the most effective ways to create an ever-growing market for perpetually expanding profit-making is to destroy the inherent creativity, self-reliance, and resilience of human beings, so that they become dependent on consuming commodities that others manufacture, instead of being able to provide and care for themselves. 

Counterintuitively, when the desired objective is to create a captive market of humans to purchase commodities, it is irrelevant whether those humans have the funds to make these purchases, as long as another profit-making or wealth-accumulating corporation/ELGE system exists to give them the funds they need through almsgiving or monetary loans. In fact, causing large numbers of humans to become dependent (whether through alms-receiving from the aid department of nation A or direct indebtedness to interest-charging financial corporation B) to buy commodities (from manufacturing corporation C) enables nation A and corporations B and C to accumulate wealth by exploiting the same human population. This is because much of international humanitarian ‘aid’ (disguised as charity or almsgiving) distributed by mostly Euro (of European origin/descent) governments is in fact a way to fund multilateral organizations, like the UN, and Euro private contractors (profit-making corporations). In 2014, less than 6% of the global ‘aid’ spending of USD 165 billion actually went to communities in need of 'aid.’^[2]

When the ecological resources (i.e., in a healthy ecoweb) human beings creatively and regeneratively utilize to eat, live, and be healthy and happy are destroyed and they are forced to become dependent on others, these human beings are not just robbed of food and health security, but of their ability to be self-reliant and resilient. 

Community Resilience and Destroying Resilience 

Physiological and Psychological Vitality

Resilience can develop and remain strong only when both physiological vitality (requiring nutritious food, effective healthcare, and Knowtep promoting wellbeing) and psychological vitality (which necessitates being treated and treating others with dignity and being able to express creativity that optimizes interconnected (ecosymbiotic) wellbeing) exist within a community and their members. 

Decimating a human population’s creative ability and strong desire to be self-reliant breaks that population psychologically and physiologically, thus greatly diminishing its resilience. A psychologically and physiologically beleaguered population with greatly attenuated resilience is a captive and desperate population that can be readily exploited for profit-making. Thus, the key question for extractivist wealth accumulators (whether corporations and/or parts of the globally institutionalized ELGE system) then becomes how to destroy the inherent creativity, self-reliance, and resilience of human beings. 

For jīvadiverse, ecosymbiotic communities, the answer is devastatingly simple: destroy the biodiverse ecowebs on which they rely. 

Adaptive Ability

Jīvadiverse, ecosymbiotic peoples have through the processes of evolution optimized their wellbeing and maximized human resilience by adapting themselves physiologically and intellectually to the biochemicals produced by biodiverse organisms within their own ecowebs, both through food/nutrient intake and medicinal uses. When these biodiverse resources, along with the jīvadiverse Ādi-Knowtep of ecosymbiotic peoples, are exterminated by extractivist forces and replaced by low-nutrient monoculture and processed foods and reductionist extractivist medicine, for example, the resilience of these human beings decreases.^[3]   

The Role of Privatization in Jīvacide

Only through privatization (exclusion through private property rights) of common public resources (ecowebs on which humans rely) can wealth be accumulated for a small number of humans, which necessarily causes: 

• poverty — through loss of self-reliance and resilience — for all those excluded, i.e., the jīvadiverse communities;
• hunger — resulting from poverty and the destroyed ability to be self-reliant;
• injustice and disenfranchisement — because communities are inequitably severed from their ecowebs and prevented from having decision-making capability over their own resources and persons;
• violence — often perpetrated by the system the community (relegated to low socioeconomic status) must now depend on; and
• identity loss — resulting from loss of the community’s Ādi-Knowtep and community-ecoself because of being severed from their ecoweb.

In other words, the ‘ownership’ of the wealthy is based on the ’dispossession’ of the impoverished.^[4] The privatization of public goods and services and the commoditization of the life support systems of the impoverished is a double theft that robs humans of both economic and cultural security (encompassing jīvadiverse ecoweb- and Ādi-Knowtep-based identities). 

[1] K. Mitra, Beyond Biodiversity: Jīvadiversity — Diversity in Living, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-003 (21 Aug., 2025).

[2] M. Kennard & C. Provost, How Aid Became Big Business, Pulitzer Center (2016) (https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/how-aid-became-big-business).

[3] Based on fieldwork of the Śramani Institute with jīvadiverse, ecosymbiotic communities.

[4] V. Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace, South End Press, Cambridge, MA (2005).