Helena Norberg-Hodge is an analyst of the impact of the global economy on cultures and agriculture worldwide and a pioneer of the localisation movement. She is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC). Based in the US and UK, with subsidiaries in Sweden, Germany, Australia, and Ladakh, ISEC's mission is to examine the root causes of our social and environmental crises, while promoting more sustainable and equitable patterns of living in both North and South. Its activities include The Ladakh Project, a Local Food program and Global to Local Outreach.
Norberg-Hodge was educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States. She specialised in linguistics, including studies at the doctoral level at the University of London and at MIT, with Noam Chomsky. Fluent in seven languages, she has lived in and studied numerous cultures at varying degrees of industrialisation, giving her a unique international perspective.
Helena's experiences in Ladakh were crucial in enabling her to understand the impact of conventional development and globalisation on people and the environment. Ladakh, also known as Little Tibet, is a remote region on the Tibetan plateau. Although it is politically part of India, it has more in common culturally with Tibet. Helena first went to Ladakh in 1975 as part of a film crew. The Indian government had recently made a decision to open up region to development, yet the traditional culture was still very much intact. Previous to the 1970s, Ladakh had experienced change, from year to year, from generation to generation. Now, however, external forces began descending on the Ladakhis like an avalanche, causing massive and rapid disruption. There were changes at every level...environmental, cultural, economic, social, psychological; conventional development leaves nothing unaltered. The profound changes in the way people thought and how they interacted with each other were reflected in the Ladakhi landscape. She describes these changes: "When I first arrived in Leh, the capital of 5,000 inhabitants, cows were the most likely cause of congestion and the air was crystal clear. Within five minutes' walk in any direction from the town centre were barley fields, dotted with large farmhouses. For the next twenty years I watched Leh turn into an urban sprawl. The streets became choked with traffic, and the air tasted of diesel fumes. 'Housing colonies' of soulless, cement boxes spread into the dusty desert. The once pristine streams became polluted, the water undrinkable. For the first time, there were homeless people. The increased economic pressures led to unemployment and competition. Within a few years, friction between different communities appeared. All of these things had not existed for the previous 500 years."
Ms Norberg-Hodge has, though, been criticised by native Tibetans for what they see as her patriarchal and patronising view of Tibet. Jamyang Norbu, for example, in his essay 'Beyond the Lost Horizon' comments that "what such advocacy conveniently ignores is the harsh geopolitical climate in which such a frail society exists.' As Norbu puts it 'Calling on people in underdeveloped societies to live passive, traditional and ecologically correct lifestyles . . . does not sit too well coming from someone who may own a car or who has hot and cold water in his or her home.'
Ms. Norberg-Hodge went on to found The Ladakh Project, for which ISEC is now the parent organisation. She has helped establish several indigenous organisations in Ladakh including the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG) and the Women's Alliance of Ladakh (WAL).
She is the author of Learning from Ladakh, based on her first-hand experience of the effects of conventional development in Ladakh. Ancient Futures has been described as an "inspirational classic" by the London Times and together with a film of the same title, it has been translated into 42 languages. A new edition will be published in 2009 by Random House. She is also co-author of Bringing the Food Economy Home and From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture.
Ms. Norberg-Hodge has written many articles and book chapters. Recent articles include:
"The North-South Divide" The Ecologist magazine, 22 June 2008.
"Encouraging Diversity and Sustainability through Localisation" World Women's Forum 2008.
"The Economics of Happiness" Resurgence magazine, November/December, 2007.
"Thinking Globally, Eating Locally" Totnes Transition Town Guide, 2007.
"Going Local" Kindred magazine, December 2007
"Poverty and the Buddhist Way of Life" Ecology and Buddhism in the Knowledge-based Society, May 2006
Helena narrates and is featured in Ancient Futures, a film by the International Society for Ecology and Culture based on Helena's book.
Local Futures, the film sequel to Ancient Futures, by the International Society for Ecology and Culture.
Helena is featured in Paradise with Side Effects, a German/French documentary on ISEC's Reality Tours program by Claus Schenk.
Helena is featured in The Economics of Happiness, a feature length film by ISEC on environmental, social and economic impacts of globalisation, as well as the multiple benefits of localisation.
In South Korea, Helena has been interviewed for television by Jungbo Park of the Korea Educational Broadcasting System and Kyung-Joo Suh of the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation.
Several interviews with Helena are featured on BigPicture.tv, a website devoted to streaming video clips of leading thinkers and activists in environmental and social sustainability.
Helena lectures extensively in English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Ladakhi. Over the years, lecture tours have brought Ms. Norberg-Hodge to major universities, government agencies and private institutions. She has made presentations to parliamentarians in Germany, Sweden, and England; at the White House and the US Congress; to UNESCO, the World Bank and the IMF; and at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell and numerous other universities. She also teaches regularly at Schumacher College in England. She frequently lectures and gives workshops for community groups around the world working on localisation issues.
Recent presentations include:
September 2007..."Ingredients of Systemic Change." International Forum on Globalisation (IFG) teach-in, Washington D.C.
June 2008...IFOAM Organic World Conference, Modena Italy
October 2008..."Change, Diversity and Sustainability." World Women's Forum, Seoul, South Korea.
November 2008..."The Economics of Happiness." World Fellowship of Buddhists International Conference, Tokyo, Japan.
Over the years, she has received support from many world leaders, including H.R.H. Prince Charles, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, H.H. the Dalai Lama, and Indian Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. In 1986, she received the Right Livelihood Award, or the "Alternative Nobel Prize" as recognition for her work in Ladakh.
In 1993, she was named one of the world's 'Ten Most Interesting Environmentalists' by the Earth Journal. Her work has been the subject of more than 250 articles in over a dozen countries.
In Carl McDaniel's book Wisdom for a Liveable Planet (Trinity University Press, 2005), she was profiled as one of eight visionaries changing the world today.
Ms. Norberg-Hodge is on the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, launched with the support of the government of Tuscany. She is also a member of the editorial board of The Ecologist magazine and a co-founder of the International Forum on Globalisation and the Global Ecovillage Network.
