Helena Norberg-Hodge

Local Futures – Sweden

Helena is a linguist, author, producer and filmmaker, and the founder and director of Local Futures. A pioneer of the “New Economy” movement, and the convenor of World Localization Day, this non-profit organization is determined to encourage us to recognize the benefits of economic localization. She is a leading proponent of localization as an antidote to the problems arising from globalization, and founded the International Alliance for Localization (IAL) in 2014. The Earth Journal counted Norberg-Hodge among the world’s “ten most interesting environmentalists,” and in Carl McDaniel’s book Wisdom for a Liveable Planet she was profiled as one of eight visionaries changing the world. Furthermore, Helena was a producer of the award-winning documentary, The Economics of Happiness, which highlights the socio-ecological and spiritual benefits of Living Local. The film features such eco-giants as Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, Samdhong Rinpoche, among several “household” names, and showcases current, successful, and international examples of their practices and teachings.

Norberg-Hodge was educated in Sweden, Germany, Austria, England and the United States. She specialized 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 industrialization. Norberg-Hodge is also a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalization, and the Global Ecovillage Network.

In 1975, the India government decided to open Ladakh to tourism and ‘development’, and Norberg-Hodge was one of the first westerners to visit the region, accompanying a German film crew as a translator. the culture she observed in those early years was a near-paradise of social and ecological well-being, but quickly broke down under the impact of outside economic forces:

“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.”

Over the years, lecture tours have brought her to 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, the European Commission, and the IMF; and at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell and numerous other universities. She also teaches regularly at Schumacher College in England (est. 1991) which is a Non-Profit University that offers ecology-centred masters programs to students all around the globe. She travels to and frequently lectures at workshops for community groups around the world, especially working on localization issues. In addition, Helena has appeared multiple times on television and radio programs.

“I have seen that community and a close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible.“

Website:  https://www.localfutures.org/

Books: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness, Resist Locally, Renew Globally, Great Transition Initiative (2019), Unlike a Globalized Food System, Local Food Won’t Destroy the Environment, Localisation: a Strategic Solution to Globalised Authoritarianism, A New Call for Resistance and Renewal, and The Economics of Climate Change 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HNHofficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helenanorberghodge/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HelenaNHodge

Video 1:  Ancient Futures (Full-length Free Film)
Video 2: Local is our Future