Localise, Localise, Localise - alternative to globalisation - Brief Article

Ecologist, The, June, 2001 by Helena Norberg-Hodge

THE CASE FOR LOCALISATION, BELIEVES HELENA NORBERG-HODGE, CAN'T BE MADE TOO OFTEN OR TOO FORCEFULLY.

ACROSS THE WORLD, deregulation is leading to a breakdown of local enterprise and ever-greater dependence on long-distance trade and transport. This in turn, of course, means ever-increasing consumption of fossil fuels. So globalisation is directly and inextricably linked to climate change.

If we want to avoid the havoc and hardship that further climate change will inevitably bring, we must as a matter of the highest priority begin to make a u-turn: away from globalisation towards the strengthening of local and national economies. Since globalisation goes hand-in-hand with urbanisation, this means actively working to protect and strengthen rural life.

Localisation is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers. It is not about eliminating all trade, but rather about reducing to an absolute minimum the exorbitant waste now caused by having everything from butter to raw logs criss-crossing back and forth across the globe.

The process of localisation needs to happen simultaneously in both the North and the South. As things stand today, roughly 50 per cent of the world's population is still rurally based -- the majority of them are in the South. It is vital that everything is done to prevent this proportion from declining.

A common assumption, even among environmentalists, is that the nations of the South need a little more time to `catch up' with the North (in other words, more access to global markets) before they can be expected to reduce their fossil fuel consumption and begin to localise. But such thinking flies in the face of reality. Contrary to the propaganda, the global economy cannot possibly enable villagers in rural China or Bangladesh to live the life of middle-class Westerners. For the vast majority, it cannot even provide the most basic needs of housing, education, clothing, health care, nutrition and employment. As recent experience has shown, what it does do is increase the gap between rich and poor, pulling vast numbers of people away from the land into squalid urban slums.

If the South had colonies to exploit, as the North was able to do, the situation might be different. But they don't -- and simple arithmetic tells us that it's impossible for everyone to emulate a model that allows people to use vastly more than their fair share of the earth's resources.

In the rural villages of the South, life can undeniably be hard. But villagers can at least grow a few vegetables, maybe keep some chickens, or even a cow; and they can rely on friends and family for help with agricultural work. In the slums of the big cities, by contrast, they suddenly become dependent on hard cash for all their basic needs. What's more, every single thing they consume has to be brought in from outside, increasing [CO.sub.2] emissions and placing a further burden on the environment. The major beneficiaries are the large transnational employers, for whom the migrants represent a source of cheap and compliant labour.

Preventing further urbanisation in the South requires programmes to actively support the rural economy. In this regard, renewable energy technologies can play a vital role. Many parts of the South are blessed with abundant sunshine, which could be tapped for a range of both domestic and commercial uses. Other areas have wind, water or geothermal potential. Renewable energy technologies hold out the possibility of truly sustainable development. They are non-polluting, and can be adapted to different cultural and ecological environments. They are also inexpensive. In fact, they would cost a fraction of the sums of money currently being poured into huge dams, greenhouse gas-emitting coal-fired plants and nuclear power. (Despite the rhetoric of sustainability, these large-scale infrastructure projects continue to be funded by bilateral and multilateral aid programmes -- not to mention private direct investment. There's never a shortage of willing agencies. For example, when the World Bank decided not to support the gigantic Three Gorges Dam in China, due to pressure from environmentalists, the ECAs of several European countries jumped in to take the Bank's place.)

Changes such as those outlined above cannot come about without a major shift of emphasis in the economies of the North. For many decades, northern-based corporations have been using the South as both larder and dumping ground -- stripping whole countries of their natural resources, then taking advantage of relatively lax environmental and labour standards to undermine them still further. This process is now accelerating, as corporations comb the globe for ever-cheaper resources and labour.

Clearly, the North too needs to localise -- and among many other things that means producing vastly more of the goods it consumes closer to home, so that no more of the best farmland in Kenya is turned over to growing cut flowers for the Netherlands, no more Brazilian rainforest is cut down to produce grain to feed the animals that will furnish Americans with hamburgers.