Helena Norberg-Hodge

Norberg-Hodge's most recent book, Local is Our Future (2019) describes how a systemic shift from a globalized economy towards a network of decentralized, localized economies could address a number of problems simultaneously, ranging from economic inequality to the climate crisis to mental illness epidemics. The book has received praise from a number of public figures including Bill McKibben, Douglas Rushkoff, David Suzuki, Charles Eisenstein, Alice Waters, and others.

On 25 November 2012, she received the 2012 Goi Peace Award from the Goi Peace Foundation in Japan, "in recognition of her pioneering work in the new economy movement to help create a more sustainable and equitable world.

Norberg-Hodge produced and co-directed the award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness (2011), which lays out her arguments against economic globalization and for localization. Recently she initiated World Localization Day (WLD), which broadcasts globally online. In 1986, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "preserving the traditional culture and values of Ladakh against the onslaught of tourism and development." In 2012, she received the Goi Peace Award for "her pioneering work in the localization movement".

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.

Norberg-Hodge is also co-author of Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness (Kumarian, 2002) and From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture (Zed Books, 1992).

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.

Norberg-Hodge is the author of the international best-selling book Ancient Futures (1991), about tradition and change in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, available in multiple languages, as an ecobook and audiobook versions. She is also the author of Local is Our Future (2019), in which she advocates for localized alternatives to the global economy, particularly involving the creation of robust local food systems and democratic structures that can effectively resist authoritarianism. An outspoken critic of economic globalization, she co-founded – along with Jerry Mander, Doug Tompkins, Vandana Shiva, Martin Khor and others – the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) in 1994. 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.

Her previous book, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (Sierra Club, 1991), was based on Norberg-Hodge's first-hand experience of Ladakh's traditional culture and the impacts of conventional development on it. The book was very well received, and has remained in print ever since. (A second edition, with a different subtitle, "Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World", was published in 2009; a third edition, with no subtitle, is to be published in April 2016). Ancient Futures has been described as an "inspirational classic" by The London Times and "one of the most important books of our time" by author Susan Griffin. Together with the film version of the book, Ancient Futures has been translated into more than 40 languages.

Over the years, Norberg-Hodge has received support from many world leaders, including Prince Charles, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the Dalai Lama, and Indian Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. In 1986, she received the Right Livelihood Award as recognition for her work with LEDeG.

In 1978 Norberg-Hodge founded The Ladakh Project, for which Local Futures is now the parent organization, in order to counter the overly rosy impressions of life in the urban consumer culture, and to re-instill respect for the traditional culture. She also helped establish several indigenous NGOs in Ladakh including the Women's Alliance of Ladakh (WAL), the Ladakh Environment and Health Organisation (LEHO), and the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG). LEDeG has designed, built and installed a wide range of small-scale appropriate technologies, including solar water heaters, cookers, passive space heaters, and greenhouses. In 1986, Norberg-Hodge and LEDeG were awarded the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') in recognition of these efforts.

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. Because it borders both China and Pakistan, countries with which India has had tense relations and frequent border disputes, the Indian government kept Ladakh largely isolated from the outside world. It was not until 1962 that the first road was built over the high mountain passes that separate the region from the rest of India, and even then the region was off-limits to all but the India military. 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.