Lineup
Charles Eisenstein
Charles Eisenstein - USA
An independent writer and speaker on topics traversing the economy, society, spirituality and the environment, Charles’s work is renowned for its boldness and poetics. The author of six books – including Sacred Economics, Climate: A New Story and The Coronation, he is an indispensable guide towards “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible”.
Pat McCabe
Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining - USA
An artist, activist, and grandmother, Pat is a bridge between indigenous wisdom and the modern world. Her openness of heart and clarity of vision have touched people all across the globe. Through her speaking, writings, art and ceremony, Pat reframes questions about sustainability, balance, power and gender. Pat devotes her work to supporting the next generations in being functional members of the “Hoop of Life” and upholding the honour of being human.
John Perkins
John Perkins - USA
Author of the bestselling Confessions of an Economic Hitman and 10 other books, John is an invaluable whistle-blower about the clandestine agendas of powerful economic and intelligence institutions. John also writes on indigenous cultures and what they can teach the Western world about sustainability and transformation. He is founder and board member of Dream Change and co-founder of The Pachamama Alliance.
Bayo Akomolafe
Bayo Akomolafe - Nigeria, India
A one-of-a-kind thinker, Bayo blurs the lines between the personal and the political. His playful and poetic voice calls us to unlearn, rethink and radically imagine the world and our role within it. Bayo is the author of the books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home, and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak. He is also the founder and chief curator of the Emergence Network.
Poppy Okotcha
Poppy Okotcha - UK
Poppy is an ecological food grower, garden writer and speaker, inspiring reconnection to land through engaging with food and herbs, from growing to processing and cooking, soil to table. To her, understanding where our food comes from offers a powerful route into a relationship with nature rooted in reciprocity, a necessary shift in our time.
Iain McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist - UK
Iain is an Oxford literary scholar, and doctor in psychiatry and neuroscience. A champion of genuinely holistic thinking, Iain’s acclaimed book The Master and His Emissary and his more recent The Matter with Things have transformed academic and popular understanding not only of the human brain, but also of the importance of a fundamental worldview shift in dealing with the destructive trajectory of Western civilisation. His works sustain an in-depth critique of reductive materialism, and invite a thorough rethink of humanity’s place in the world.
Jeremy Lent
Jeremy Lent - UK, USA
Described as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” Jeremy is an impassioned researcher and speaker who investigates the underlying causes of our civilizational metacrisis, and explores pathways toward an ecological civilisation. He is the author of The Patterning Instinct and The Web of Meaning, and the founder of the Deep Transformation Network – an online global community where people can engage in facilitating a deep transformation toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.
Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva - India
Never flinching at speaking truth to power, Vandana has dedicated her life to protecting seeds, biodiversity and farmers. Trained as a quantum physicist, she began her activism in the 1970s as a key spokesperson for the Chipko (tree-hugging) movement of the Himalayas, and has since inspired and educated activists and thought-leaders all over the world. Vandana is an advocate for food sovereignty and localisation, and has written more than 20 books, including The Violence of the Green Revolution, Stolen Harvest, Oneness vs the 1%, and Who Really Feeds the World. She is the founder of the NGOs Navdanya and Seed Freedom.
Lyla June Johnston
Lyla June Johnston - UK
Dr. Lyla June Johnston (aka Lyla June) is an Indigenous musician, author, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. Her doctoral research focused on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-humans.
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Helena Norberg-Hodge - Sweden, Australia
Helena Norberg-Hodge is a pioneer of the new economy movement and the recipient of both the Right Livelihood Award and the Goi Peace Prize. Through books, articles, interviews, films and public lectures on five continents, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than 40 years. She is the author of the inspirational classic ‘Ancient Futures’, the producer and co-director of the award-winning film ‘The Economics of Happiness’, and the founder and director of Local Futures.
Jack Harries
Jack Harries - UK
Jack Harries is a documentary filmmaker, presenter and co-founder of Earthrise Studio. His work focuses on topics such as mental health, forced migration, and climate justice. Ultimately Jack's passion is telling human-centred stories that create impactful meaning.
Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar - India
Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist, and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 60 years. In 1962 he undertook a pilgrimage for peace, walking for two years without money from India to America for the cause of nuclear disarmament. Now in his 80s, Satish has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration and social justice. He is a world-renowned author and international speaker, founder of The Resurgence Trust and Editor Emeritus of Resurgence & Ecologist – a change-making magazine he edited for over 40 years.
Nathalie Kelley
Nathalie Kelley
Nathalie Kelley is an actress of Quechua descent, most recently starring in the #1 Netflix series The Baker and the Beauty. She is on the board of Kiss The Ground and the Fungí Foundation, and uses her storytelling talents to elevate Indigenous wisdom as the key to coming back into harmony with our ecosystems. She advocates for justice for the human and more than human world, with particular focus on the soil, fungi and forests. At the core of her mission is the preservation of Biodiversity, including cultural and myco-diversity on the planet.
Manish Jain
Manish Jain - India
A unique educator, radical “unlearner”, and ambassador for both human and more-than-human creativity, Manish is adept at turning conventional approaches to education, economics and incarceration on their heads. He is the co-founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, Swaraj University (India’s first self-designed learning university), and the Ecoversities Alliance, a global network of alternative universities.
Ele Saltmarsh
Ele Saltmarsh - UK, USA
Ele is an agroecosystems researcher working in the United Kingdom and United States. She uses model-based methods to produce data-driven policy suggestions and reports for The Landworkers' Alliance, and is currently working on a report that shows how agroecological methods can feed the UK. She also works with the FLAME organisation to promote a sustainable future for youth in farming.
George Ferguson
George Ferguson - UK
Past president of the Royal Institute of British Architects and first elected mayor of Bristol , George is a powerhouse of initiative, especially in local culture, local food and local business. His concern for people and nature has translated into real successes for Bristol, including securing the city as European Green Capital (2015) by freeing streets of cars, encouraging children’s play and local markets and advancing Bristol’s own currency, the Bristol Pound. George prevented the demolition of Bristol’s iconic Tobacco Factory in South Bristol, transforming it into the cultural hub it is today. His consultancy People & Cities continues to advocate the strengthening of local communities.
Mika Tsutsumi
Mika Tsutsumi - Japan
Investigative journalist and bestselling author, Mika is a leading political commentator and voice for economic change in Japan. Her investigations into multinational corporations’ shaping of American media and economy led her to publish USA – Poverty Superpower, bringing a powerful critique of the American model of “growth” to a Japanese audience. She is also fiercely committed to protecting local seeds, farmers, communities and public health through opposing the globalisation of food systems, and to growing the localisation movement through systemic change.
Salim Dara
Salim Dara - Benin
Salim is revolutionizing agricultural education in Benin through a hands-on agricultural entrepreneurship program and his holistic farming model—shifting agricultural education from theoretical teaching to practical skills development that instills in students an appreciation for the natural environment. Through his organization, Solidarité Rurale (Rural Solidarity), Salim works to replace a broken agricultural education system by providing students with the practical experience, confidence, and resources they need to generate food and income from the natural resources around them.
Daniel Christian Wahl
Daniel Christian Wahl - UK
Daniel is the author of Designing Regenerative Cultures – so far translated into seven languages. With degrees in biology and holistic science and a PhD in Design for Human and Planetary Health, his work has influenced the emerging fields of regenerative and salutogenic design. His blog and video series Voices of the ReGeneration are part of Daniel's extensive advocacy work. He was awarded the 2021 RSA Bicentenary Medal for his "outstanding and demonstrable contribution… towards an equitable and regenerative world.".
Camila Moreno
Camila Moreno - Brazil
Civil society’s foremost expert on climate policy, Camila’s critical analysis of the nexus of carbon metrics, digitalisation and corporate power is unparalleled. Camila has followed the international climate negotiations closely since 2008, and from that experience has written Carbon Metrics and the New Colonial Equations. She is also a researcher at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro.
Andrew Simms
Andrew Simms - UK
An extraordinary combination of renegade political economist, environmentalist and active optimist, Andrew thinks outside the box to explore better approaches to economic development. His books include Cancel the Apocalypse; Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why it Matters and his most recent co-authored text, Economics: A Crash Course. He co-founded the New Weather Institute, coordinates the Rapid Transition Alliance and Badvertising – a campaign to stop the adverts fuelling the climate emergency. Andrew is also a research associate at the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex.
Jyoti Fernandes
Jyoti Fernandes - UK
A small farmer and Campaigns Coordinator for The Landworkers Alliance, Jyoti both embodies and powerfully communicates the possibility for a more just, sustainable and healthier future through local food sovereignty. On her 20-acre farm in Dorset, UK, Jyoti raises cows, sheep, and fruits, and processes apple juice, wool, jam and more. She is also a spokesperson for the international peasants’ movement, La Via Campesina.
Juan del Río
Juan del Río - Spain
Juan is the Co-Director of ECOLISE, the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability. He is a facilitator, catalyst, consultant and network weaver, with over 15 years experience in ecosocial transition and community development. Juan is co-founder of Transition Spain and the Municipalities in Transition project. He is also the author of “Guía del movimiento de Transición”, and co-director of the new film ALTERNATIVES.
Ashish Kothari
Asish Kothari - India
An environmentalist since high school in Delhi, Ashish’s focus is on the environment-development interface, nature/biodiversity conservation, and radical alternatives to development. In 1979 while still at high school, Ashish helped found Kalpavriksh, a non-profit organisation that deals with environmental and development issues. From that time he has been associated with peoples’ movements such as Narmada Bachao Andolan and Beej Bachao Andolan. He is currently helping to coordinate national and global networks like Vikalp Sangam and Global Tapestry of Alternatives. He is the co-editor of 'Alternative Futures: India Unshackled' and 'Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary.
Ella Noah Bancroft
Ella Noah Bancroft - Australia
Indigenous born artist, published author, mentor, consultant and founder of The Returning Indigenous Corporation. Ella is an experienced speaker and facilitator advocating for the environment, social justice and system change. Ella is a descendant of the Bundjalung peoples of Northern NSW, Australia, and also has blood lines to Scotland and England. She is a Connection Therapist, Mentor, activist and creative, carbon neutral event co-ordinator and is passionate about re-wilding the world and the feminine force.
Michael Shuman
Michael Shuman - USA
A Stanford-trained lawyer and economist, Michael is the world’s pre-eminent expert on local finance. He shares practical tactics to reclaim community wealth from Wall Street. Michael is the author of ten books including Local Dollars, Local Sense, The Local Economy Solution, The Small Mart Revolution and his most recent title Put Your Money Where Your Life Is.
Alice Waters
Alice Waters, USA
Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. She has been a champion of local organic agriculture for over four decades. In 1995, with a background in Montessori education, she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. The Edible Schoolyard Project model has been replicated in over 6,000 schools around the world. In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act. Alice is the author of sixteen books including her most recent We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto.
Keibo Oiwa
Keibo Oiwa - Japan
Combining traditional wisdom, philosophy and a deep ecological sensibility with a flare for community organising, Keibo inspires both far-reaching vision and hands-on action for a healthier society through his films, public speaking and books. He is the founder of The Sloth Club, an NGO that promotes slow and sustainable living, and the author of the book Slow is Beautiful: Culture as Slowness. He has also been the catalyst for several gatherings in Japan focused on localisation.
Alnoor Ladha
Alnoor Ladha - Costa Rica
Resisting categorisation, Alnoor works towards the integral healing of culture, people and the living world, affirming the interbeing of spirituality, politics and connection to place. He co-founded The Rules - a global activist collective and thinktank for economic alternatives. He also co-founded the post-capitalist community Tierra Valiente in Costa Rica, where he lives. He is a board member of Culture Hack Labs and The Emergence Network, co-director of the Transition Resource Circle and co-author of Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse.
Nelson Mudzingwa
Nelson Mudzingwa - Zimbabwe
Nelson is a smallholder farmer and core founder of the Shashe Agroecology School, a farmer led initiative in Zimbabwe that has become one of the country’s most successful producers of diverse local foods. He is the National Coordinator for the Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF), a member of the Seed and Knowledge Initiative, and La Via Campesina – for which ZIMSOFF hosted the International Operative Secretariat (IOS) until June 2021.
Chris Smaje
Chris Smaje - UK
Smallholder farmer, social scientist, writer, and bold proponent of agrarian localism, Chris is the author of A Small Farm Future. His work is an uncompromising look at the state of the world today, and a powerful testament to the real possibility of a future in which humanity and the rest of nature thrive through diverse, small-scale food systems adapted to local ecosystems, cultures and markets.
Lucy Jones
Lucy Jones - UK
Lucy is an author and journalist living in Hampshire. Her first book, Foxes Unearthed, was celebrated for its ‘brave, bold and honest’ (Chris Packham) account of our relationship with the fox. Her second book, Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild, was a Times bestseller. Her writing has been published by Emergence Magazine, the Guardian and the New Statesman.
Photo by Gemma Brunton.
Rob Hopkins
Rob Hopkins - UK
Rob is a pioneer of the Transition movement, through which communities have withdrawn fossil fuel dependence by building local communities and economies, thus helpig countless people effect tangible positive change. He’s a renowned speaker, an Ashoka fellow and the author of several books including The Transition Handbook and, most recently, From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want.
Anja Lyngbaek
Anja Lyngbaek - Denmark, Mexico
Anja is the Associate Programmes Director of Local Futures. Over the years, she has coordinated a variety of projects under this umbrella, including the Economics of Happiness International Conference Series, the International Alliance for Localization and World Localization Day. Fluent in Spanish, English and Danish, she has been a spokesperson for localization on several continents. Anja divides her time between a Mexican ecovillage and a small island in the Danish Archipelago. She is a passionate community builder and food grower, and is happiest with her hands in the soil.
Jon Jandai
Jon Jandai - Thailand
Jon is a farmer, earthen builder, seed saver, teacher, philosopher, father, and community activist. He continuously strives to find more ways communities can be self-reliant and people can reconnect with the land and each other. He is the founder of Punpun Center for Self-Reliance, an educational organic farm and earth-building school in Thailand where skills of self-reliance are demonstrated and shared.
Jay Tompt
Jay Tompt - UK
Jay is a co-founder of the Totnes REconomy Project and Local Spark Torbay, and teaches economics at Plymouth University and Schumacher College. He’s been at the heart of citizen-led and regenerative economic innovation for the last eleven years, for example co-developing the REconomy Centre, the Local Entrepreneur Forum model, and the international REconomy Community of Practice.
Szocs B. Miklós Attila
Szocs Boruss Miklós Attila - Romania
Szocs is a passionate advocate for agroecology and improved legislation in support of peasants’ rights and access to land. As a leading campaigner for raising awareness of land grabbing in Romania, he has served as President of the Eco Ruralis Association since 2015 and is responsible for coordinating their working groups for the Right to Land, Public Policies, Agroecology, Rural Migration. Between 2020-2022, Attila was elected to the Via Campesina Europa Coordinating Committee, coordinating European-level advocacy activities for the right to land and land reforms.
Diego Isabel La Moneda
Diego Isabel La Moneda - Spain
Diego is co-founder and Director of the Foundation NESI Forum of New Economy and Social Innovation, which promotes a new system with people and planet at the core. As a social entrepreneur, Diego has started up several sustainable businesses, social movements, and local political initiatives in his hometown, Palencia (Spain). Diego studied Forestry and Environmental Engineering as well as Global Governance and Ethics.
Seetha Ananthasivan
Seetha Ananthasivan - India
Seetha is the highly respected leader and founder-trustee of several alternative education and localisation projects in South India, including Bhoomi College, the Prakriya Green Wisdom School and a Bhoomi Farmers' Centre. Together, these projects have helped thousands of young people from across India and the world engage with deeply fulfilling and genuinely sustainable livelihoods. Seetha’s holistic work redefines “education” to encompass deep "inner work", community-building, new economics, culture-building in institutions, agriculture and traditional wisdom.
Jesus Iglesias Saugar
Jesus Iglesias Saugar - Spain
Jesus is a social entrepreneur, catalyzing social innovation for climate resilience and equity. He speaks at UN Climate Change Conferences, is a EU Climate Pact Ambassador, and a regular contributor to prominent Spanish media. He has a BsC in Telecommunications Engineering, and MsC in Space & Earth Sciences and Sustainable Development. He actively participates in multiple networks such as the Nature-Based Solutions Cluster, International Localization Alliance, Climate Reality or 350.org.
Benjamin Christie
Benjamin Christie - UK
With a deeply held belief in the possibility of a more equitable, and harmonious world, Benjamin Christie works to support NGOs and ethical businesses develop and achieve their goals. With a career spanning the events, media and renewable energy sectors, he has been fortunate enough to gain experience of many different countries, environments and partnerships at first hand. He is co-founder of Frocal, an initiative that seeks to convene, connect and catalyse all aspects of localisation in Forest Row where he lives in Sussex.
Patricia Moguel
Patricia Moguel - Mexico
Patricia is an outspoken activist in environmental, human rights and feminist struggles in Mexico, where she has convened broad alliances for localisation. She has a PhD in Agroecology and expertise in biocultural diversity, community resilience and ecopedagogy, in which art is the main pillar.
Rupert Read
Rupert Read - UK
Eco-philosopher, academic, author, campaigner, UK Green politician, and environmental activist, Rupert is an incisive and highly respected thought-leader. He has influenced public and academic opinion on issues including climate, genetic engineering, technological development and advertising to children. Rupert has (co-)authored books including A Film-Philosophy Of Ecology And Enlightenment and This Civilisation Is Finished. He was a key spokesperson for the Extinction Rebellion movement, and now co-directs the ‘Moderate Flank’ Incubator.
Molly Scott Cato
Molly Scott Cato - UK
Molly is a visionary British Green politician, economist and writer, with wide experience of community activism, local food networks, and cooperatives. Her special interests include land ownership and food production, sustainable finance, locally owned renewable energy, co-operatives and self-managed firms, pursuing peace and opposing nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Molly has campaigned for the Green Party since 1988, and currently speaks for the party on finance and economy. She was elected to the European Parliament representing South West England and Gibraltar from 2014-2020.
Alex Jensen
Alex Jensen - USA
Alex has worked with Local Futures in the USA and India, where he coordinates our Ladakh Project. He represents Local Futures in the Vikalp Sangam/Alternatives India initiative and is part of the core team of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives. He has worked with cultural affirmation and agro-biodiversity projects in campesino communities in a number of countries, and is active in environmental health/anti-toxics work.
William Powers
William (Bill) Powers - USA
William has worked for more than two decades in development aid and conservation in Latin America, Africa, and North America. His essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times and the Atlantic and on National Public Radio. Powers has also spent several decades exploring the American culture of speed and its alternatives in some fifty countries around the world. He is the author of five books that probe issues of sustainability and the need for a new, bio-centric paradigm.
Ruby Reed
Ruby Reed - UK
Ruby co-founded the transformative education platform advaya in 2015 bringing people together to explore ecological ways of being in the world. In 2019 she co-founded behavioural awareness campaign EcoResolution and in 2023 launched Earthed, a nature skills platform for people learning from and for nature. She brings people and programmes together at festivals, protests, and retreats, and previously worked in modern and contemporary art where she advised on collections and completed two MA degrees. She is a freediver, yoga therapist and swimmer and spends as much time as possible sleeping out in wild places.
Patrick Holden
Patrick Holden - UK
As the founder and chief executive of the UK’s Sustainable Food Trust, Patrick’s extensive advocacy work centres on the importance of transforming our food and farming systems to address climate change, reverse biodiversity loss, and improve public health. In 1973 Patrick established a mixed community farm in Wales, which is now the longest established mixed organic dairy holding in that country. Patrick founded the British Organic Farmers in 1982, is a Patron of the UK Biodynamic Association, has received a CBE for services to organic farming. In 2022 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales Trinity St David.
Alan Boldon
Alan Boldon - UK
Alan is a practising artist and CEO of the Dartington Trust and the Founder and Director of Weave (weaveglobal.org). He specialises in arts and ecology and systems thinking. He has taught widely in higher education and exhibited throughout Europe (Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway), Asia (Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Myanmar), US and Canada. He has given keynote addresses all over the world and advised towns, cities, NGOs and Universities in many countries. His main areas of interest are the arts, leadership, learning innovation and placemaking.
Pavel Cenkl
Dr Pavel Cenkl - UK
Pavel is Head of Schumacher College and Director of Learning & Land at Dartington Trust in Devon, England. Pavel has written and presented widely in the areas of curriculum design and pedagogy, global learning networks, environmental humanities and philosophy and has co-developed programmes in ecology, humanities, and sustainable and regenerative food and farming. Pavel’s books include Transformative Learning: Reflections on 30 Years of Head, Heart, and Hands at Schumacher College (with Satish Kumar, 2021); Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest: Region, Heritage, and Environment in the Rural Northeast (2010); and This Vast Book of Nature: Writing the Landscape of New Hampshire's White Mountains, 1784–1911 (2006).
Thais Mantovani
Thais Mantovani - UK
Passionate about nature, Thais co-founded EcoUniversidade, an educational platform that drives systemic change by facilitating dialogues between different worldviews and opening space for a more regenerative human presence on Earth. She holds a MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College, is a Youth Climate Leaders fellow, is part of the Global Regeneration CoLab network and works as a consultant on ecosystem catalyzation and organizational development.
Muhammed Foulds
Muhammed Foulds - UK
A revolutionary individual, Muhammad Foulds is a biologist, conservationist, falconer, and spiritual leader who currently serves as the Head Imam and Principal of Religious Affairs in the UK Prison Service. Mohammed is a proponent of incorporating earth-based spirituality into modern Islam, and has launched trailblazing projects that offer UK prisoners the chance to connect to nature and spirituality through growing food, having contact with animals, and more.
Diana Finch
Diana Finch - UK
Diana started her career in bookkeeping and designing accounting systems. When her children were small she got involved in various community development projects, after which she decided to work mainly for non-profits. She has held senior roles in both environmentally and socially focused organisations, and joined Bristol Pay CIC (then Bristol Pound) as MD in 2018. Since 2019, she has spent most of her time thinking about how to develop post-market economic systems.
Saad Dagher
Saad Dagher - Palestine
Agroecologist, agronomist and environmentalist, Saad Dagher has worked for 31 years in Palestine and in the Arab countries to promote land-based livelihoods and to educate and support farmers. He is an Ambassador of GEN (Global Ecovillage Network) as well as a yoga teacher and Reiki master. Saad has set up his own agroecological farm, The Humanistic Farm, and has also helped in building the first Palestinian eco-village in the West Bank.
Shankari Raj
Shankari Raj - Sri Lanka
Shankari is an architect, and director of Nudge Group, a practice she founded to challenge traditional approaches to architecture head-on. She is dedicated to community-led projects delivering social, environmental and financial benefits. She communicates this to the students she teaches as a lecturer at Cardiff University. She was born in Sri Lanka, and grew up in Nigeria, Oman, London and then Bristol. She is on the awards panel for riba and architects journal and is head of education for design west. As an advocate of good quality placemaking and design she is often called upon to speak about inclusive design for our built environment.
Alasdair Crosby
Alasdair Crosby - Jersey, British Channel Islands
Ten years ago, Alasdair set up RURAL, a quarterly magazine focusing on rural life, environment, community and Jersey’s traditional culture. Alasdair continues to serve as the magazine’s editor and publisher, author and journalist. He believes that questioning how localism and a local countryside, community, culture and heritage might possibly remain intact in today’s modern and globalised world is a vital duty, lest we let slip a precious inheritance through neglect.
Rema Kumar
Rema Kumar - India
With over 25 years experience of teaching in schools in India, Rema is currently a Trustee of Bhoomi College and Prakriya Green Wisdom School – two institutions which she has co-created, partnering in the vision of humanising education in tune with nature’s principles. Rema is also keenly involved in programmes on deep inner-work and institution-building. A keen storyteller, she is passionate about deep ecology and education for sustainable living.
Ross Jackson
Ross Jackson - Canada, Denmark
Born Canadian, Ross Jackson has lived in Denmark since 1964 and for many years has been an innovative leader in both the business and NGO worlds. Ross’ business career has been as an independent IT consultant and software designer, consulting in many business sectors, later specialising in international finance. He is chairman of Gaia Trust, a self-funded Danish-based charitable entity he co-founded in 1987 to promote a more sustainable and spiritual world. His current business interests include Nerve Smart Systems, specialising in leading-edge battery technologies.
Debra Efroymson
Debra Efroymson - Bangladesh
A committed advocate for localisation, car-free cities, and the empowerment of young women, Debra is the co-founder and Executive Director at Institute of Wellbeing, Bangladesh. She is the author of Beyond Apologies, Defining and Achieving an Economics of Wellbeing, has worked closely with hundreds of international interns from the Asian University for Women and other institutions, and advises on economics, urban and transport planning, reproductive and sexual health, and the prevention of non-communicable diseases.
Henry Coleman
Henry Coleman - Australia
Henry connected with the work of Local Futures at age 15, and has worked with the organization in Ladakh, India and Australia since 2015. Now almost fluent in Ladakhi, he helps to coordinate our projects there. He also represents Local Futures at public events in Australia, and works on various writing projects. In 2017, he co-founded the NGO Wildspace, where he has further developed his capacity as a community organizer and activist.
Darcia Narvaez
Darcia Narvaez, USA
Darcia is a Professor Emerita of Psychology (University of Notre Dame), employs a lifespan, interdisciplinary approach to studying evolved morality, child development and human flourishing, integrating anthropology, neuroscience, clinical, developmental, evolutionary and educational sciences. She founded EvolvedNest.org is president of KindredWorld.org. She has many publications including Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth (with Four Arrows) as well as the film.
Arnold Padilla
Arnold Padilla - Philippines
Arnold is an activist, writer, lecturer, and researcher whose articles on various socioeconomic, political, and development issues have been published by Manila-based think tank IBON Foundation, by online publication Bulatlat.com and other alternative media groups in the Philippines, and by international advocacy groups Reality of Aid, Asia Pacific Research Network, IBON International, and PAN Asia Pacific, among others. Currently, he is the Coordinator of the Food Sovereignty program and the anti-land grabbing and climate justice campaigns of Malaysia-based PAN Asia Pacific.
Dolma Tsering
Dolma Tsering, Ladakh
An elder, grandmother and outspoken community leader, Dolma has been a voice for women, traditional organic agriculture and cultural survival in Ladakh for many decades. She was a founding member of the Women’s Alliance of Ladakh, and her critique of the Western consumer culture was featured in the 2004 documentary ‘Paradise with Side Effects’.
Morag Gamble
Morag Gamble, Australia
Morag Gamble is a global permaculture, urban agriculture and ecovillage ambassador, speaker, educator, mentor, and trust-based philanthropist. Since volunteering with Helena Norberg-Hodge in Ladakh in 1992/95, she has championed local community and food programs in 22 countries. She is Founder of the Permaculture Education Institute, curates a blog and practical YouTube channel - Our Permaculture Life and hosts theSense-Making in a Changing World Podcast. Morag also leads the permaculture youth charityEthos Foundation.
Ben Rawlence
Ben Rawlence, Wales
Award winning writer, activist and co-founder of Black Mountains College, Wales, Ben has written two books about the human consequences of environmental catastrophe in Africa: Radio Congo and City of Thorns. After moving to Wales and beginning to research the coming impacts of climate change closer to home, his attention turned to the Arctic Circle and the boreal forest, leading to his third book: The Treeline. Ben’s work has led him to see that we need institutions like Black Mountains College that promote new ways of thinking and learning.
Miranda Wilson
Miranda Wilson, UK
Miranda Wilson is a writer, mother of teenagers and generally curious person who has for some time been observing the effects of technology on our children's lives. Finally spurred into action by the phenomenon of 'rape culture' in schools, Miranda set up Teched Off to share with parents information and tools about addiction, the effect on mental health, physical health, academic achievement, and exposure to pornography and predatory adults that unfettered access to online devices creates. In the absence of effective legislation, Miranda aims to start changing the culture around what's normal when it comes to our children and technology.
Matthew Brown
Matthew Brown - UK
Councillor Matthew Brown is Leader of Preston City Council in the north of England, where he has been widely credited as the driving force behind the ‘Preston model’, an economic strategy at the city and county level that presents a comprehensive, interlinked approach to community wealth building as a practical and transformative alternative to austerity and disinvestment. First elected to represent the Tulketh ward in 2002, Councillor Matthew Brown subsequently took on portfolios that included community engagement and inclusion, social justice and policy initiatives, leading to his election in 2018 as Council Leader, and to a position as an advisor to the Labour Party’s Community Wealth Building Unit.
Lynn Murphy
Lynn Murphy, US
Lynn Murphy is the co-director of Transition Resource Circle and co-author of Post Capitalist Philanthropy-Healing Wealth in the Time of Collapse. For the past 20 years, she has been an advisor for foundations and NGOs working primarily in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a”‘conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
Keri Hopeward
Keri Hopeward, Australia
Keri Hopeward is the Senior Research Fellow on 'Living Lightly Locally: Smarter and Stronger through Citizen Science' and the Course Coordinator for Sustainable Development: A Global Perspective at the University of South Australia (UniSA). Before re-joining UniSA she founded a regenerative research and education consultancy called Dream Awake: Research Education and Design (DARED). DARED was established in 2018, after Keri completed her work as Head of Program for the first full degree Permaculture Program at CQUniversity from 2015-2018. She holds a doctorate in Anthropology/Social Inquiry from the University of Adelaide (2008).
Liz Hosken
Liz Hosken, South Africa
Liz Hosken is Director and co-founder of The Gaia Foundation (Gaia), a small, feisty international organisation committed to systemic transformation. For nearly 40 years, Gaia has been upholding Indigenous wisdom and working with indigenous communities to restore their biocultural diversity. Liz co-developed and co-facilitates a three-year training in the philosophy and practice of Earth Jurisprudence, seeding the revival of Earth-centred consciousness, cultures and landscapes in her native soil of Africa, inspired by decades of work with Amazonian communities.