Wi n ter 2 0 1 7 - 1 8

Local Futures
The Newsletter of the International Society for Ecology and Culture

In this issue:

Director’s note:On the Cutting Edge of Hope

• Economics of Happiness events across the world

Helena Norberg-Hodge

D• Helena wins award for community advocacy

espite the tremendous amount ofpolitical, economic and ecologicalupheaval over the past year, we remain
hopeful. That is because we are also seeing the
growth of a powerful counter movement –towards both resistance and renewal – aroundthe world. In more than 40 years of working topromote a global-to-local vision, I’m finding thatpeople are more interested and engaged thanever before in solutions that go beyond treating
symptoms — solutions that are broad and deep
and get to the root causes of our manycrises.
At Local Futures, we are fortunate to
be on the cutting edge of hope. Every day,• Education for Action webinars and workshops

we collaborate with many of the inspiring people,
organizations, and initiatives that are forging apath towards a better world. Many of thesecollaborations are described in the following pages— our Economics of Happiness conferences, ourongoing projects in Ladakh, our grassroots
International Alliance for Localization (IAL), andour multiple outreach projects, including
webinars,
podcasts,
animated
films,
interviews, and lectures.
We also continue to engage with politicalmovements that go beyond left and right andwork at a structural level to promote

Local Futures p. 1

decentralization, or localization. In Japan, we havehelped forge a broad-based Economics ofHappiness/localization movement. In South
Korea, we collaborate with a group of 37 mayors
who have formed a Social Economy Forum. In
Italy, we consult with the Five Star movement(M5S), an environmentally-minded people’s party
that is channelling half of their MPs’ (member ofparliament) salaries into a microcredit bank thatprovides funding for small businesses. They haveraised more than €10 million so far. In the UK, thesmall Somerset town of Frome, where our film The
Economics of Happiness was screened in 2011, hasrevolutionized rural politics. Over the last few
years, representatives of Independents for Frome
have gradually won all the seats on the local
council. Their platform is about sustainability,
inclusivity and rebuilding the local economy fromthe ground up.
In this age of deep political divides, policy
gridlock, and the erosion of democracy, examples
like these are especially heartening. They
underline a position that Local Futures has long
held: that change needs to happen at both thepolicy and grassroots levels. I hope you will enjoy
reading about the ways we have contributed tothis positive change around the world. I also hope
you will visit our website and social media pages
where we showcase many of the grassroots
projects that are happening, globally, in food andfarming, finance, community building, health, andmuch more. Together, they show that a new
economy is possible, both in theory and in action.
Over the next year, our “education foraction” programs will continue to help build andshape the global movement for genuine
democracy, ecological health and strong local
economies. But, nothing is possible without thehelp of our supporters. I hope you will be
encouraged by the progress we help to catalyze,
and will support our work.

Community Solutions salutes
Helena Norberg-HodgeW

e are deeply honored that this year’s
Arthur Morgan Award was given to
Local Futures’ Director Helena
Norberg-Hodge, “in recognition of her tirelessadvocacy for communities across the planet”. The
award is bestowed annually by The Arthur
Morgan Institute for Community Solutions tohonor those who are passionate about – andcommitted to – community and democracy.
Community Solutions is perhaps best known for
their inspiring 2006 film The Power of Community:
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, which described howorganic farming, urban agriculture – and of course
community – enabled Cuba to survive the collapseof the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss ofalmost all its oil and food imports.
Community Solutions is among the manyorganizations worldwide that are helping forge agrassroots path to a new economy, and we arethrilled that they chose to honor our work. We arealso very happy to have collaborated with them on
our Economics of Happiness conference in Ohio,
and we look forward to working with them onother projects in the future.

Local Futures p. 2

help from the growing number of organizations
that have been inspired by our big picture
perspective.
Here are some highlights from each of theevents:
New Mexico
Santa Fe is a city with a strong sense of local
character and personality — fertile ground for the
localization movement. Approximately 300 people
attended over the course of the 3-day program,which brought new-economy luminaries such as
Judy Wicks, Native American activist Winona
LaDuke, former Bristol, UK, mayor George
Ferguson, and author Charles Eisenstein together
with local leaders in agriculture, academia,
indigenous rights, business, banking, and public
policy.

Economics of Happiness ConferencesT

his autumn, Local Futures helped organizeand participated in six major Economics ofHappiness conferences. Four were held in
the United States — in Santa Fe, New Mexico;
Yellow Springs, Ohio; South Royalton, Vermont;and Port Townsend, Washington. We also held thethird in our series of annual conferences in Jeonju,
South Korea, and a huge Economics of Happiness
World Forum in Tokyo, Japan. In a remarkabledemonstration of stamina, Helena Norberg-Hodge
actively participated in all but the South Korean
event. We are also grateful to our friends andcolleagues Judy Wicks, George Ferguson, andCharles
Eisenstein,
who took time from“Thrilled by the tidal events
you're generating!”
their busy schedules~ Joanna Macyto join us at two
events this year.
All the conferences were well-attended —some of them filled to capacity. Organizing andhosting this many events in such a compressed
time frame would have been impossible without

Helena Norberg-Hodge speaking in Santa Fe

Our local partner in organizing theconference was an emerging NGO called
Reconnect Today, which aspires to engage writers,
educators, artists, activists, and healers with theworldwide localization movement through classes,
workshops, and conferences.
By interweaving plenaries and panel
discussions with art, music, and dance
performances, the conference allowed attendees toeasily connect with our message that communitybuilding goes hand in hand with celebration.
Many attendees reported feeling inspired — and“I am grateful to have been a part of an event thatcombined such depth and substance and stimulation.
Absolutely awesome.”~ Panel member, Santa Fe conference

Local Futures p. 3

sometimes surprised — at how much was alreadybeing done across northern New Mexico tosupport local resilience. Several attendees called ita “life-changing” experience, and left moredetermined than ever to catalyze the nascentlocalization movement in their communities.

Tree identification workshop at conference in Ohio

Washington

Performance by the Kallestewa Dancers of Zuni Pueblo in
Sante Fe

Ohio

This conference, co-organized and hosted by
Community Solutions, featured our long-termallies in the localization movement, Charles
Eisenstein and Michael Shuman. Other speakers
included Anthony Flaccavento, author of Building
a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up, and Jim
Merkel, author of Radical Simplicity: Small
Footprints on a Finite Earth. Among the participants
was a woman who has organized more than 50
screenings of The Economics of Happiness in Ohio,
and a professor who told Helena that he has seen
the film about 25 times, but learns something newwith each viewing.
During the conference Helena was honoredwith the Arthur Morgan Award for her
localization work (see page 2). It was especiallygratifying to see the influence of Local Futures’
vision in the work of Community Solutions.
Besides their outreach around energy democracy
and community economies, they recently started
the Agraria project, a 28-acre demonstration site
for regenerative agriculture in Yellow Springs.

Another Economics of Happiness conference in the
US was held in Port Townsend, Washington, on
the grounds of Fort Worden on Puget Sound. The
fort — once emblematic of US militarism — is now
a thriving community hub and retreat center,hosting music, arts, and activities that connect
people with others and nature.
The crowd that filled the beautiful venue
was treated to a heady mix of plenary talks,
panels, music, film screenings, nature walks, and alocal food tour, as well as workshops ranging frombiomimicry and the power of song topermaculture, from affordable housing and thedangers of artificial intelligence to an introduction
to the theatre of the oppressed.
Plenary speakers and panelists included
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of the Post
Carbon Institute; David Korten and Sarah Van
Gelder, co-founders of Yes! magazine; Judy Wicks,
co-founder of BALLE; John De Graaf, co-founderof the Happiness Alliance; Michael Ableman,organic farmer and author; and Vicki Robin,
author of Your Money or Your Life.
The conference was co-organized by Karen
Wyeth, an active supporter of Local Futures. She
had participated in our conference in Portland,
Oregon in 2015 and felt inspired to bring the same
experience to her own community. It was her firsttime working on an event of such a size, but she

Local Futures p. 4

reports that it was “incredibly inspiring and has
got my community all fired up.” There are now
plans to form a local Economics of Happinessgroup to meet regularly and keep the momentum
going.

and the New England Resilience and Transition
Network. We expect that the connections madewith these organizations will lead to additional
collaborations in the future.
South Korea

Vermont
The state of Vermont is a prime location for an
Economics of Happiness conference: not only is
Vermont the home of Local Futures’ US office, but
it has topped the Locavore Index — a measure ofcommitment to local food — six years in a row.
Vermonters are also deeply involved in otheraspects of the global-to-local shift, fromdecentralized renewable energy and ‘buy-local’campaigns to place-based education, healthcare,and housing.
While all of these efforts add up to a thriving
localization movement, most Vermonters aren’taware of the big picture connection among all ofthese separate efforts. Making those connections
more visible was a main goal of the conference.
Titled “Localize It: What Resilience Looks
Like”, the event included plenary talks by Helena
Norberg-Hodge as well as a number of thinkers
and activists from the New England region andbeyond: Frances Moore Lappé, founder of the
Small Planet Institute and author of Diet for a Small
Planet; Chuck Collins, senior policy analyst for theInstitute for Policy Studies, and author of 99 to 1:
How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World; Sherri
Mitchell, Native American lawyer, activist, andDirector of the Land Peace Foundation; Jonathan
Rosenthal, Director of the New Economy
Coalition; and Christine Hanna, Executive Directorof Yes! magazine.
Given the abundance of localization
initiatives in Vermont, it’s not surprising that thecall for workshop presenters led to nearly 50
offerings — on local energy, community radio, tiny
houses, regenerative agriculture, worker-owned
coops, race, class and gender, and much more.
Our local partners in the conference included
BALE (Building a Local Economy), Vermonters fora New Economy, the New Economy Law Center,

For the third year in a row, an Economics ofHappiness Conference was held in Jeonju, South
Korea. Like the others in our series of international
conferences, the Jeonju event aimed at helping
catalyze a global movement for localization.
Our first conference here resulted in the“Jeonju Declaration on the Economics ofHappiness” — which committed the local
government to localization as an integral strategy
for positive change. This year’s conference, coorganized by Jeonju’s City Council and Local
Futures, focused on governance for localization.
Simon Richardson, Mayor of Byron Bay,
Australia, delivered the keynote speech.
Gwendolyn Hallsmith, an expert on local banking
alternatives, spoke on localizing the financial
system. Local Futures Associate Program Director
Anja Lyngbaek spoke about local food strategies,
and Professor Sakata Yusuke talked about
localization initiatives in Japan.
Since our first Jeonju conference, many
concrete steps towards localization have takenplace here, including the creation of a ten-year
local food plan that ensures the right to healthy
food, and establishes an independent foundation
to help 3,000 small local family farms.

Anja Lyngbaek at press conference in Jeonju

Local Futures p. 5

The impact of Jeonju’s ongoing commitment
to localization was demonstrated through a numberof site visits: to a cooperative shop with products
from 300 local producers, an affordable local foodrestaurant, and a food innovation center that makes
food processing and packaging equipment available
to small farmers free of charge.
We look forward to seeing what further steps
Jeonju takes in the years to come.

UK, and more. We were also glad to see a sixperson delegation sent by the government of
Jeonju, South Korea. Overall it was a wonderfulcelebration – with music, art, and a moving tributeto Fukushima.

Participants in Tokyo

We have been working to build up the
localization movement in Japan for several years
now. In 2010, Keibo Oiwa published a book basedon an interview with Helena called Going Local is
the Answer, and this year a new book, Local Futures:
Building an Economics of Happiness, was launchedduring the conference.
Japan
Our Economics of Happiness World Forum inTokyo was organized in collaboration with a large
group of partners, including the Goi Peace
Foundation, Slow Food Japan, Global Ecovillage
Network Japan, Transition Town Japan, the Muji
company (committed to products that are simple,
non-consumerist, and zero-waste), the Pal system (aprogressive food co-op serving 1 million
households), Johnan Shinkin Bank (one of thebiggest co-op banks in the Tokyo area), andKamakura Investment Management (which invests
in small domestic firms that focus on theenvironment.)
Though we had high hopes for this event, it
still far exceeded our expectations. Over 800 people— many of them in their 30s or younger — camefrom across Japan and beyond, representing dozens
of environmental, spiritual and social activist
organizations. There were workshops on renewableenergy, local food, local finance, ecologicaleducation, nature-based design, and much more.
The plenary presenters came from an
impressive mix of countries, including Mexico,
China, Thailand, India (including Ladakh), Bhutan,

Keibo Oiwa speaking in Japan

Local Futures p. 6

Feedback from conference participants: Economics of Happiness provides hopeW

e received wonderfully positive feedback on our Economics of Happiness conferences.
Perhaps the most common refrain is that these events provide hope – not only because of thebroad, unified paradigm that brings diverse groups together for systemic change, but
because people learn about how much is already happening around the world. Below are a few of themany positive comments we received this year in the US:In the face of the horrid things that are happening around us, I am heartened by the amazing things
people are doing... Thank God for this group of folks walking the walk!

This conference was truly inspiring – I nearly teared up walking back to my car at the end of it.
Overall, I thought it was a wonderful antidote to ‘Trumpism’ and a much-needed gathering inthese dangerous and dark times.

It shook up my thinking, and increased my sensitivity to the negative role of large corporations in
our society.

It gave me some hope. We are at a fork in the path and we can make it if enough choose the correctway.



We are definitely in systems collapse BUT we are a powerful movement working together to create
the new systems needed.

I’m so excited there’s a well-developed movement that supports ideas I’ve been independently
exploring, and that there's an opportunity for me to contribute.

I was very impressed with the breadth of the topics, the depth of thought and the experience of thepresenters.

I really appreciated the sense that there is a unified paradigm of where we need to go – a broad
direction with room to welcome many different particulars.

I was impressed by the breadth of the expertise, from the spiritual to the practical, all working tochange the system for the better.

I think the main positive effect is that I know I am not alone in this grief, this resolve and this hope.
I am energized to keep on keeping on.

This has been hugely impactful for me, leading me to more research, writing, ways of thinking,considering my lifestyle with intention, and fueling my ongoing projects.



It has made me think about shaping my work so that I will have more time to get involved inlocalization related activities. It re-affirmed the urgency with which we have to work together on
this.



I am especially grateful for the strong presence of race, class, and decolonization perspectives. I
could see the effort made by organizers to lift up the marginalized voices that did come out, andplace their perspectives at the center so that they could influence the whole conversation.



The greatest impact on me is learning the extent to which there are real and broad networks ofpeople engaged in these ideas. It has given me organizing inspiration. Truly a great event!

Local Futures p. 7

The Ladakh Project

Anja Lyngbaek, Associate Programs Director

Continuing our more than four decades of work in
Ladakh, or ‘Little Tibet’, we undertook a numberof exciting new and ongoing collaborative efforts
this year.
Food and farming
Local Futures has been supporting a project aimed
at converting farms in the higher part of Phyang
village to organic methods. Organized by the
Women’s Alliance (one of several Ladakhi NGOs
we started), the project acquires surplus manurefrom nomadic livestock-based communities, andbrings it to farming families to use as a substitutefor chemical fertilizers. The manure is intended as
stop-gap, while the farms regain their ability to
produce sufficient compost and animal manures
on their own. The first year was a success, withparticipating farmers reporting strong plants andgood yields — and a keen desire to continue.
As in previous years, our Help With Harvest
initiative enabled tourists to assist Ladakhi farm
families during the harvest. Visitors from many
countries came to help with the barley harvest —cutting, stacking and carrying the crop. At thesame time, the visitors demonstrated to the
Ladakhis that there is a keen interest in farming
among the most “modern” people in the world.

Gangles village near Leh

Mindful Futures workshop
One of our most inspiring activities this summer
was a four-day Mindful Futures Workshop for

Ladakhi youth, held in collaboration with two
local organizations: Juley Ladakh and the youthled Flowering Dharma. The workshop was held at
Raku House, a traditional dwelling in Leh withadjoining woodland and open greens, beautifully
restored by Flowering Dharma. Participants
included 18 young Ladakhis — Buddhists,
Muslims, and two young Nepalese immigrants.
In addition to Local Futures staff,
presenters and panelists included Geshe Konchok
Wangdu, head of the Central Institute for Buddhist
Studies; Stanzin Gya, director of the awardwinning film Shepherdess of the Glacier; Tashi
Morup from Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation;
Dolma Tsering from the Ladakh Buddhist
Association; and historian and writer Abdul Ghani
Sheik.
The response from workshop participants
was very encouraging, and we plan to organize
similar workshops with Ladakhi youth in the
future.
Mindful Travel

The number of tourists in Ladakh continues to rise,and so do the associated negative impacts:
mountains of garbage (an entire valley is full ofdisposable plastic bottles); excessive water use
from tourist demands for flush toilets andshowers; degradation of natural areas; and theerosion of Ladakhi culture and values. In response,
we continue to reach out to visitors withinformation and activities that can help them toengage in culturally and ecologically sensitive
behavior, and to reflect on the role of tourism anddevelopment in undermining Ladakh’s traditions
and environment.
Key tools in this effort are the Mindful
Travel materials that we distribute to tourists. This
year we also made a concerted effort to share ourshort Mindful Travel film with other groups and torun regular screenings of the film at the Women’s
Alliance Centre. The message of the film was very
well received, and we are now approaching
Ladakh travel-oriented websites with an invitation
to include a link to the film.

Local Futures p. 8

We have also reached out to a number of
Ladakhi NGOs with a proposal for a joint Mindful
Travel campaign. A collaboration among thesegroups would not only have far greater impact, it
could potentially secure the support of the Ladakh
Hill Council – leading to concrete policy changes.
Tourist Education
For westerners in particular, a visit to Ladakh canspark a rethinking of conventional notions ofwealth, progress, and development. This is why
we organize daily screenings of our films Ancient
Futures and The Economics of Happiness at the
Women ́s Alliance Centre. The films provide alarger context for tourists’ experiences in Ladakh –and make those experiences relevant to events andtrends in their own countries and communities.
Over the 2017 tourist season, an estimated 2,000
people attended the screenings and participated inlively post-film discussions, led by Local Futures’facilitators.

Learning from Ladakh
This year, we ran a Learning from Ladakh
program for Operation Groundswell – a Canadianorganization that seeks “to spark a movement ofsocially
consciousandglobally
activebackpacktivists”.
Youth from the US, Canada and Mexico
took part in the program, which involved a fiveday intensive workshop, fieldtrips and encounterswith Ladakhi NGOs and innovators. Among thehighlights were a heritage walk to learn about
Ladakh’s history and multicultural roots; a field
trip to the Leh dump to see the growing wastemountains
resultingfromtourismandconsumerism; a hike to a melting glacier to witness
the impacts of climate change; and encounterswith youth groups, including Flowering Dharma.
Our 2017 Ladakh team included: Richard
Hendin, Henry Coleman, Sean Keller, Alex Jensen
and Anja Lyngbaek. We would like to give special
thanks to the many volunteers that dedicated theirtime and skills to the Ladakh Project this year.

DIY Economics of Happiness
WorkshopsH

undreds of people from more than forty
countries have requested our Economicsof Happiness Workshop toolkit since it
was made available a year ago. The toolkit wasdeveloped to make it easier for people to organize
workshops in their own “backyard” to stimulatebroad discussion about the global economy and its
alternatives. To facilitate this process further, weoffered live-streamed online tutorials with detailed
instructions, tips, Q&A and fruitful exchange
between participants.
The DIY workshop program is being used inmany different ways: in Colorado, it was part of aconference focused on the empowerment of young
women; in South Africa it was integrated into a
Wellbeing Economy Festival; and in Brisbane,
Australia, it was used at a new economy
conference. It has also been embraced in academia:
workshops were held at universities, including St.
Petersburg State University in Russia; the toolkit
was used in a PhD dissertation in Croatia, in ateaching program aimed at 14-18 year-olds in
Piacenza, Italy, and by a Professor of Conflict
Studies in the United States.

Local Futures p. 9

a discussion with Helena and The Rules member
Jason Hickel – an anthropologist at the London
School of Economics, and author of The Divide: A
Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
Several of Jason’s essays have also been posted on
the Local Futures blog.

Events, courses and collaborations
Kristen Steele, Associate Programs Director

Catalyzing change in Mullumbimby,
New South Wales, Australia
The town of Mullumbimby hosted several Local
Futures events this year. The first was an evening
discussion — “Hope in a Time of Crisis” — for a
full house at the Civic Hall. A lively exchange took
place among Helena Norberg-Hodge, Damon
Gameau (creator of That Sugar Film), and Phillip
Frazer (founder of Rolling Stone Australia) on
moving beyond left-right politics and single-issue
campaigning towards activism for systemicchange. The discussion was moderated byAustralian journalist and comedian Mandy Nolan,
resulting in a provocative and entertaining
discussion, with lively input from the floor.
Later, we hosted a two-day Big Picture
Activism Workshop, led by Local Futures’ staff
Anja Lyngbaek, Henry Coleman and Helena
Norberg-Hodge. Around 30 students, activists andcommunity organizers participated in this highly
productive and fun workshop, which focused on
effective strategies for change.
The Local Futures team also contributed to
the regional Renew Fest — a collaborative effort bya number of local NGOs and community
businesses — with a series of talks on local
economy, local food strategies and the need forcommunity-based decentralized renewable energy.

Schumacher College course:
Earth, Culture, Economy – The Power of Local
In July, carrying on from more than three decadesof collaboration, Helena, Satish Kumar andStephan Harding co-led a course at Schumacher
College in England. The course provided an indepth exploration of the steps involved in moving
towardintegrated,
human-scaleeconomic
structures. It covered a range of topics from theperspective of both North and South, including

The Rules : webinar and film screening

In recent years, we have enjoyed collaboratingwith the NGO The Rules, “a global collective ofactivists, writers, artists, researchers, coders andothers who work to expose the root causes of ourcurrent crisis.” In addition to numerous
brainstorming sessions by Helena Norberg-Hodge
and The Rules’ Director Alnoor Ladha, weorganized a webinar in which the two discussed“Spiritual Activism” (see page 13). We also coorganized an event in London that featured ascreening of The Economics of Happiness followed by•

Measuring real progress•

Reducing energy use while creating
meaningful jobs•

Localization as a climate change
strategy•

Balancing urban and rural•

The spiritual and psychologicalbenefits of connecting to nature andcommunity•

Healthcare in a life-based economy•

The roots of racial, ethnic and religious
conflict•

Restoring democracy

The course attracted a diverse group ofparticipants, including several who had worked in
the corporate sector. Since our approach is to avoid
demonizing individuals and to focus instead on“[The course] was so powerful, so insightful, that I believe
I’m still downloading and absorbing all that it meant tome... I feel now even more inspired not only to see theworld from a big picture perspective but also to act towards
a more inclusive (and local!) world.”~ Schumacher course participant

Local Futures p. 10

the destructive corporate system, participants foundit liberating to move away from dichotomies of“good guys” and “bad guys”.
European Ecovillage Network Conference:
Solidarity, Resilience & HopeAs one of its founding members, we have beenworking with the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)for many years. In July, the European branch of
GEN hosted a summer conference that drew 600
people. Keynote speakers were Helena NorbergHodge and Charles Eisenstein. Helena also showed
The Economics of Happiness film and led a workshop
on Big Picture Activism.

Kristen Steele speaking at NESI

Our 2016 event in London, “The Economicsof Happiness: Towards a More Equitable World”,
featured a collaborative session on the visions toinclude in NESI. We also contributed to thedrafting of “The NESI Charter”, which outlines
goals, values and strategies to guide the cocreation of a new economy. The event itself was anunprecedented opportunity for groups working on
new economy issues around Europe to connect
with each other. Several future collaborations haveemerged, and a Local Futures podcast series
featuring speakers from the event will be releasedin the coming year.

Biogas digester at Ecovillage Network
conference

Global Forum on New Economy and Social
Innovation (NESI)
Co-creation at NESIIn April, Associate Programs Director Kristen Steele
represented Local Futures and the International
Alliance for Localization (IAL) at NESI. Held in
Malaga, Spain, the gathering was the culmination ofover a year of networking and preparation. Local
Futures was one of more than 20 organizations
engaged by the Global Hub for the Common Good
to plan the forum.
Local Futures p. 11

AnimationWe released our first-ever animated film
this year. Entitled Going Local: theSolution Multiplier, the animation
provides an overview of localization in 2½
minutes. It had an immediate enthusiastic
response, with more than 60,000 views online andmore than a thousand“Absolutely‘shares’,includingbywonderful!
organizations such as Post
What a gift.”
CarbonInstitute,New~ Vicki Robin
Economy Coalition andTransition groups.

Rock resistance movement in the United States.
The final webinar of the year was with Shaun
Chamberlin, author of The Transition Timeline andmanaging director of the Fleming Policy Centre. It
focused on the late David Fleming’s work, hisbook Surviving the Future, and his contribution to
the localization movement. Each webinar, in its
own way, also touched on the root causes ofrising authoritarianism around the globe – and on
effective responses.

Translations

Steve Gorelick, Managing/Programs Director

T
Webinars

Sean Keller, Media and Outreach CoordinatorLocal Futures rounded out our Global to
Local Webinar Series with four live
webinars in 2017, all of them hosted by
Helena Norberg-Hodge.
In January, she was joined by ChristianFelber, founder of Economy for the Common
Good, to discuss how to move the world towards
genuine participatory democracy. In February,
Helena and climate activist Bill McKibben
answered participants’ questions about climatechange. And in April, Helena and Alnoor Ladhafrom activist NGO The Rules talked about theimportance of spiritual reconnection for effective
political activism, in the context of the Standing“With its sacred fire, daily prayers and water ceremonies,
Standing Rock has helped to reanimate the sacred aspectof activism. We are seeing a shift from resistance toresistance and renewal simultaneously.”~ Alnoor Ladha

here is enormous demand for our materials
around the world, and many of them havebeen translated into a wide range oflanguages. We rely heavily on volunteers for thiswork – people who want to share our message intheir own local language. This year, our Going
Local animation was translated into 25 languages –ranging from Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Hindi,
to Persian, Tagalog, Arabic, Hebrew and Basque.
French volunteer Bertrand Racquet was heavily
involved in subtitling the film with thesetranslations, and we thank him wholeheartedly forhis efforts.
After two years of work, another volunteer,Argentinian Gabriela Muñoz, has finalized hertranslation of the Ancient Futures book into
Spanish, and we are in the process of finding asuitable publisher. In addition, we have madearrangements with publisher Terra Nuova to
publish an Italian translation of our booklet,
Localization: Essential Steps to an Economics ofHappiness. Publishers in Japan and South Korea
are planning translated editions in those countries
as well.
Two additional translations of The Economicsof Happiness were completed this past year: Arabic
and Simplified Chinese. Our previous Chineseversion was subtitled in Traditional Chinese, andthe new version will be accessible to far more
people on the Chinese mainland.

Local Futures p. 12

Planet Local 2017

Blogs and articles

Isabel Marlens, Researcher/Social Media

Steve Gorelick, Managing/Programs DirectorPlanet Local is our web series showcasing
many of the grassroots localization projects
springing up all around the world.
Currently in its fourth year, Planet Local has
grown to include several new categories — Eco
Communities, Local Policies, and Sharing
Economies. Planet Local has also expanded
to Medium.com, where readers can choose to“follow” our account, and where we can feature
many more photographs in order to bring the
projects to life.
Recent examples of Planet Local initiatives
range from La Casa De Los Ningunos (The
Nobodies’ House), an experimental community in
La Paz, Bolivia, to Can Decreix, a “degrowthcenter” in the south of France; from Thimble Island
Ocean Farm, an underwater sustainable “farm” off
the coast of New York state, to the Torba Provinceof Vanuatu, where the local government has
placed a ban on imported junk foods; from BhoomiCollege, a radically alternative university on theoutskirts of Bangalore, India, to Ebanka, ademocratic, cooperatively-owned bank in Croatia.

In the often dark times since the US elections of
2016, people have been hungry for aperspective that leads to a sense of hope – onethat does not blame our many crises on
inescapable human nature, but on an inhumansystem that can and must be changed. In the past
year we spread this message through a variety ofprint and online platforms.
Helena was interviewed in The Guardian for aseries called Development 2030, and by the online
series Project Recourse, which profiles theinspiring initiatives of individuals worldwide.
Helena’s article in the Australian magazine
Womankind, “The Phantom Economy of Multinationals and Banks”, was described by one reader
as “one of [Womankind’s] finest”. Helena was alsoa contributor to Climate 2020, a major climatechange report produced by the United Nations
Association-UK. And her article, “Localization andthe Economics of Happiness”, was part of the
Buddhist peace organization Soka Gakkai
International’s series on creative responses to achanging world.
In addition, numerous essays from both
Local Futures staff and our extensive network ofcontacts appeared on the Local Futures blog. Hereare some excerpts:
Why are my Highly Educated Friends so Ignorant
About Trade?
by Isabel Marlens

Thimble Island Ocean FarmIn the year ahead, Planet Local will expand
further to include longer stories about projects likethese, which will appear on the Local Futures blog.
In addition, we have plans to begin producing
short videos about selected Planet Local
initiatives. We hope these will make the diverse
localization movement even more vivid andaccessible — inspiring people who wish toembark on new projects and connecting thosearound the world who are already hard at work intheir local communities.

“My friends didn’t vote for Donald Trump. Most
are from ‘liberal’ parts of the US. They went togood schools for 12 years, worked hard, got good
grades. Many went on to top colleges anduniversities, places like Stanford, Yale, NYU,
UCLA. And yet most of them know almost
nothing about one of the most important issues
facing the world today.”

Local Futures p. 13

Globalization’s Blowback
by Alex Jensen“Until now, it seems, corporations’ pollution
offshoring was easy enough for Northern
policymakers to comfortably ignore — it was
offshored, after all — so that the smoggy horrors ofindustrializing China or India were, for places like
North America, still at a ‘safe’ distance. No more.
Now, in addition to the products that magicallyappear on Western store shelves absolutely shornof history and provenance, much of the hitherto
distant pollution emitted in their production has
also arrived.”

about our addiction to growth. This is tricky,
because GDP growth is the main policy objectiveof virtually every government on the planet. It liesat the heart of everything we’ve been told tobelieve about how the economy should work: thatGDP growth is good, that it’s essential to progress,
and that if we want to improve human wellbeing
and eradicate poverty around the world, we needmore of it. It’s a powerful narrative. But is it true?”
Trump Trauma
by Helena Norberg-Hodge“When the scale and pace of economic activity are
reduced, anonymity gives way to face-to-facerelationships, and to a closer connection to Nature.
Bonds of local interdependence are strengthened,
and a secure sense of personal and cultural
identity begins to flourish. All of these efforts are
based on the principle of connection and thecelebration of diversity, presenting a genuine
systemic solution to our global crises as opposed to
the fear-mongering and divisiveness of thedominant discourse in the media.”Life in a ‘Degrowth’ Economy, and Why You
Might Actually Enjoy It
by Samuel Alexander

The Sharing Economy: It Takes More than a
Smartphone
by Steven Gorelick“What does genuine economic progress look like?
The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy isalways better, but this idea is increasingly strainedby the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the“Shoppers today can buy robotic vacuum cleaners,
forks that monitor their eating habits, and 2-story
inflatable cats; they can choose from 504 brands ofdesigner jeans and 2 million smartphone apps.
These are symptoms of a consumer culture gonemad.”
Averting the Apocalypse:
Rica
by Jason Hickel

Lessons from Costa“If we want to have any hope of averting
catastrophe, we’re going to have to do something

Traditional grinding of corn in Boruca, Costa Rica

Local Futures p. 14

economy can’t grow forever. But what is a steadystate economy? Why is it desirable or necessary?
And what would it be like to live in?”
The Problem with Techno-Optimism
by Nicholas Agar
“A tendency to overvalue technological progress
tends to make us reckless in its pursuit. In this eraof climate change and nuclear arsenals capable ofdestroying the world many times over, we are
acutely aware of some of the perils of technologicalprogress. When we overestimate the propensity of
progress to boost well-being, we are more likely tojudge the risks of progress to be worth taking.”

Our Obsolescent Economy
by Steven Gorelick“It’s time to envision – and take steps to create – aneconomy that doesn’t depend on making children
psychologically insecure in order to turn them into
lifelong consumers – all to fatten the bottom line ofalready bloated corporations. As Helena NorbergHodge asks in The Economics of Happiness, ‘do wereally need the stuff that the consumer culture isfoisting on us?’ Absolutely not.”Local Futures: cultural advisor to theInternational UNESCO — Zapopan
Forum

L

ocal Futures was recently invited to
Guadalajara,
Mexico,tojoinaninternational advisory group at theInternational UNESCO — Zapopan Forum. The
event focused on developing “cultural policies forthe construction and sustainable development ofcommunity in metropolitan areas.”
Associate Programs Director Anja Lyngbaek,
along with 36 other experts from 16 countries andfive continents, was called upon to share her
recommendations for the development of a broad
set of socially-inclusive policies to improve
wellbeing and underpin municipal planning.
A wide range of people took part, including
heritageandculturaladvocates,
artists,
filmmakers and activists. Among them were
cultural policy expert Avril Louise Joffe (South
Africa); actor and UNESCO representative Carol
Lawes (Jamaica); filmmaker, screenwriter andGlobo d'Oro winner Alessandro Valenti (Italy);
photographer and human rights activist Shahidul
Alam(Bangladesh);advocatefortheempowerment of indigenous peoples throughstory-telling, Faumuina Felolini (Samoa); and Ritu
Sethi, head of Craft Revival Trust in India.
Anja´s contribution focused on the need tostrengthen cultural self-respect for communities towithstand the onslaught of the global consumer
culture. As tweeted by UNESCO-MEXICO, Anjaargued that “the greatest threat to cultural andbiological diversity is the corporate economic
growth model.” Local Futures´ recommendations
included: policy shifts to support local, placedbased businesses working within ecological limits;
the adoption of alternatives to GDP, such as Gross
National Happiness (GNH); the strengthening of
local food systems; local procurement policies forgovernment institutions, particularly for food;placed-based education for sustainable living; andshifting away from expensive flagship cultural
centers towards investment in numerous living
culture community centers.

Local Futures p. 15

International Alliance for Localization (IAL)
Anja Lyngbaek, Associate Programs Director

N

early 100 groups and hundreds more individuals from 58 countries have joined the IAL. Memberorganizations differ greatly: among them are Schumacher College (UK); Burburata, a consumerproducer cooperative (Colombia); Projecto Regeneración, which promotes new approaches tomigration (Spain); ZIMSOFF, a national farmers’ group that promotes agroecology (Zimbabwe); Green
Kashmir, a permaculture-based organization working in a conflict-zone (India); 5th Pillar, a citizens´
coalition for democracy (India); and the Post Growth Institute (USA). Members benefit from free resources,
like our webinar series and online economics of happiness workshop tutorials.
Several joint ventures took place between Local Futures and member-organizations this year. We cohosted two conferences in the US, collaborating with Building a Local Economy (BALE) for our conferencein Vermont, and with Reconnect Today for the conference in New Mexico (see page 3-4). We also worked
with the Global Hub for the Common Good on a new economy world forum in Malaga, Spain (see page 11).

Photos: Cover Sarah Sherif Saleh Ali; p3 Isabel Marlens;
p4 Community Solutions; p6 Naoko Baba;
p7 Alex Jensen; Anja Lyngbaek

p8 Mari Hasle Einang; p9 Henry Coleman, Rebecca Lander;
Tommaso Galli; p11 Ängsbacka, El Mundo, Kristen Steele;
p14 Kristy Mulcrone

Local Futures/International Society for Ecology and Culture
www.localfutures.org
USA: PO Box 36, East Hardwick, VT 05836, Tel: 802-472-3505
UK: PO Box 239, Totnes TQ9 9DP, Tel: 01392 581175
info@localfutures.org
Compiled and produced by Kristen Steele
Edited by Helena Norberg-Hodge and Steve Gorelick
Local Futures p. 16