Economic globalisation is unsustainable and inequitable; it needs to be challenged and replaced with alternative framework of Radical Ecological Democracy. Such a framework emerges from thousands of onground and policy initiatives already being practiced. These point to the need for localisation of economies and governance (direct democracy), embedded landscape level governance and planning, internalisation of ecological limits and resilience into all decision-making, promotion of dignified livelihoods and human rights, meaningful rights and access to basic needs, learning and health opportunities, and the qualitative pursuit of well-being.

1. Radical Ecological Democracy
Escaping the
Globalised ‘Development’ Trap

2. ‘Development’
• Development = opening up of
opportunities:
intellectual, cultural, material, s
ocial
vs
• ‘Development’ = material
growth (through industrial and
financial expansion)
– measured in % economic
growth, per capita
income, etc
• ‘Development’ model currently
dominant only 50-60 years old

3. Today’s vision
of
‘development’
Violence against nature, people, and
cultures

4. Destruction of India’s environment
– 50% forest disappeared in last 200 years
– 70% waterbodies polluted or drained out
– 40% mangroves destroyed
– Some of the world’s most polluted cities and
coasts
– Nearly 10% wildlife threatened withextinction
Smitu Kothari

5. The social context
• Ecosystem-dependent people (60-70% of
India’s population):
food, medicine, livelihoods, fuel, shelter, clot
hing, culture
• Environmental destruction =
livelihood, cultural, and physical displacement…for
tens of millions of people

6. ‘Globalisation’
• Global flow of ideas, cultures, materials is
millennia old
• Globalisation in latest avatar is dominated
by:
–unrestricted financial and economic flows
–imposition of one model of ‘development’
across the world

7. Economic ‘reforms’?
1991-onwards…
• Trade (export-import) liberalisation
• Foreign direct investment
• Delicensing / single window clearances
• Privatisation

8. ‘Liberalisation’: relaxing standards
and procedures for industry
• 30 dilutions in Env. Protection Act
notifications (Coastal
Regulation, Env. Impact
Assessment), at behest of
industry, and agencies like World
Bank
• Special Economic Zones
(SEZ)...or Special Exploitation
Zones?!

9. Results….
• Increasing diversion of natural ecosystems like
forests (mining, dams), coasts (aquaculture,
ports) … 2 lakh ha. forests in last 5 years
• Over-exploitation of resources for export
(commercial fisheries, minerals…quantum
jump) … Indian Ocean signs of depletion

10. Impacts: India’s ecological
deficit (mirroring world trend)
• World’s third largest ecological
footprint
• Using twice what can be sustained by
our natural resources
• Decline in capacity of nature to
sustain us, by almost half
(Global Ecological Footprint and CII, 2008)

12. Impacts: India’s ‘development’
refugees
• Over 60 million displaced in last 50 years
• 40% of displaced are adivasis, resettlement
abysmal (Planning Commission)
• Many millions more dispossessed of
land, water, natural resources, livelihoods
• Displacement of traditional livelihoods (e.g.
handlooms)
• Pauperisation of marginal/small farmers:
200,000 suicides (many in Punjab!)

13. Impacts: growing
inequality, leaving half our
population behind
• Myth of growing employment:
‘jobless growth’ in organised
sector:
– 26.7 million in 1991
– 27 million in 2006!
• Wealth inequities:
– top 10% own 53% wealth
– bottom 10% own 0.2%
• % below poverty line: 38 to 55%
• World’s largest number of
malnourished and undernourished
women/children

15. Water…the contested resource
•Several hundred million people without safe
drinking water
•Globally, 3 times more expenditure on bottled
water ($100 billion), than needed to provide clean
drinking water and sanitation to every person on
earth
•Indian bottled water market growing 20-40%
Smitu Kothari annually (global: 4.5%): from 2 mill. (1990) to 150
mill. cases (2010)!
•Coca Cola mines groundwater away from villages
that were using it (“if you can’t get water, drink
Coke”!)
•Enormous waste problem

16. India the new Coloniser
(joining China, Japan…)
Karaturi Global: 350,000 ha. in Ethiopia for
floriculture, sugarcane, palm oil, etc
Eurovistaa: 10,000 ha. in Tanzania for cotton,
55,200 ha in Indonesia for palm oil
More coming up in L. America and Africa
Direct/indirect support by government

17. India (& China, etc) on the path
of ‘globalised development’?
Gandhi:
‘if India is to take Britain’s path of
‘development’, it will strip the
world bare like locusts’

19. Something fundamentally wrong with
development model?

20. Towards alternatives

21. Two imperatives….
• Ecological
security(ecosystems, species, po
pulations, ecological functions…)
• Livelihood security(esp. of those
most directly dependent on
ecosystems and natural
resources)

22. Towards tribal self-rule, with conservation:
Mendha-Lekha (Maharashtra)
All decisions in gram
sabha (village assembly);
no activity even by
Informed decisions
government officials
through monitoring, and
without sabha consent
regular study circles
(abhyas gat)

23. Conservation of 1800 ha forests, now with full rights
under Forest Rights Act
Earnings from sustainable NTPF use (over Rs. 1
crore in 2011-12), and use of govt schemes
towards:
•Full employment
•Biogas for 80% households
•Computer training centre
•Training as barefoot engineers
Vivek Gour-Broome

24. www.kalpavriksh.org

25. Community forests in Orissa
180 villages have joined in a Federation
of forest protection committees
Dangejheri…all
women’s forest
protection
committee

26. Nagaland: indiscriminate hunting to strong
conservation
About 600 villages have declared forest and wildlife reserves
Khonoma Village
Tragopan Sanctuary
Luzaphuhu WL
reserve
Forest reserve of
Chizami and 5
Sendenyu WL reserve, villages
with its own “Wild Life
Protection Act”

27. Van Panchayats and self-initiated
community forests, Uttarakhand
12,000 VPs (12-13% of state
forests), other community
forests (e.g. Chipko)

28. Baiga chak (Madhya Pradesh):
‘modern’ conservation by ‘primitive’ tribe
Stopping commercial logging,
claiming community forest
rights

29. Community Forest Rights (FRA)
Several hundred claims accepted in
Maharashtra (>7 lakh acres), Odisha
(>70,000 acres) & Andhra
126,998 acres in Baiga &
other areas, MP
Assertion of CFRs against industrial projects (e.g.
POSCO), mining (e.g. Vedanta), logging (e.g.
Baigachak), plantations (Odisha)

30. Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Sanctuary
& (illegal) Tiger Reserve, Karnataka
Community Forest Resource titles to
Soliga, over half of sanctuary; community-
based wildlife/tiger conservation plan
process initiated

31. Food security:
sustainable agriculture

32. Deccan Development Society (AP):
integrating conservation, equity, &
livelihoods through sustainable agriculture
•Reviving traditional diversity, promoting cultivated and wild foods
•Creating community grain banks
•Empowering women/dalit farmers, securing land rights
•Creating consumer-producer links (Zaheerabad org. food restaurant)
•Linking to Public Distribution System

33. Beej Bachao Andolan, Garhwal,
Uttarakhand
Vijay Jardhari

34. An individual revolutionary…
Natwar Sarangi
Narishu vill, Cuttack dist, Odisha
Growing 360 varieties of rice
Seed albums and banks GenX: Jubraj Swain

35. Water security: decentralised
harvesting & distribution

36. Arvari Sansad (Parliament),
Rajasthan: water and food
security through
landscape governance

37. Livelihoods and jobs

38. Economic democracy…
Livelihood security through community-led
cooperatives, self-help groups, producer companies:
Dharani, Andhra Pradesh; Kachchh Mahila Vikas Sanghatan /
Kasab, Gujarat; Nowgong APCL, Madhya Pradesh; Nyoli, Uttarakhand;
Swach, Pune; Aharam Traditional Crop Producer Co.,Tamil Nadu)

39. Jharcraft
Employment for 2.5 lakh families…
(Jharkhand)
reviving crafts, reducing outmigration

40. Economic democracy…
Markets and trade: Predominantly local, at least for
basic needs (village free trade zone, Kuthambakkam, Tamil Nadu;
proposed Green Economic Zone, Tejgadh, Gujarat; Amar Bazar
eliminating middlemen, Assam)
Indicators of human well-being replacing GDP
Local currencies and
barter, to reduce
stranglehold of money in
our lives!

41. The Village and the City …

42. Gram swaraj:
outmigration is not inevitable
Ralegan Siddhi and Hivare Bazaar
(Maharashtra), Kuthambakkam (TN)

43. Towards sustainable cities
Bhuj (Kachchh):
•reviving watersheds, decentralized water storage and management
•solid waste management and sanitation
•livelihoods for poor women
•dignified housing for poor
•Information-based empowerment under 74th Amendment
(Hunnarshala, Sahjeevan, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, ACT, Setu)

44. Dignified livelihoods for urban poor
Kagaj Kach Patra Kashtakari
Panchayat
&
Swach
(Pune)

45. Other alternatives
Education: traditional and modern, oral and written, local
and global
•Pachashala, AP
•Jeevanshala, Narmada
•Adivasi Academy, Guj
•Beeja Vidyapeeth, Uttarakhand
•Bhoomi College, Karnataka

46. Other alternatives…
Technologies to reduce ecological impact, reach
the poor (malkha cotton weaving, AP; Hunnarshala
housing, Kachchh)
Energy: decentralised, renewable
(Ladakh solar; Bihar integrated)

47. Radical ecological democracy
(RED)
• achieving environmentally sustainable
human welfare, through governance
mechanisms that:
– empower all citizens to participate in
decision-making
– ensure equity in socio-economic status
– respect the limits of the earth and the rights
of nature

48. Radical Ecological Democracy:
A NEW POLITICS
Decentralised decision-making
Political/financial/administrative powers with gram sabhas and urban area
sabhas …. Extending 73/74th Amendments to Constitution
Localisation: clusters of settlements organised to be self-reliant in
meeting basic needs
Embedded within larger circles of exchange and decision-making

49. ecoregional
governance
participatory institutions at landscape (and
seascape) level (e.g. Chilika, Arvari Parliament …
proposed W. Ghats authority)
cutting across current political boundaries (e.g.
river basin authorities)…eventually aligning
political boundaries with ecological ones
(bioregionalism/ecoregionalism)?

50. state and national governance
Land/water use plans: identifyingareas permanently conserved
for biodiversity, food security, water, off-limits to damaging
industrial/mining/infrastructure activities
Reforming govt agencies: As facilitators, guarantors of rights of
poor; environment and livelihoods at core of all ministries/depts;
accountability and transparency through citizens’ charters,
public audits, etc
ProposedNational Environment & Development Commission,
constitutional body

51. Global governance
United Peoples (to replace United Nations)?
Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties
What else?

52. Radical Ecological Democracy:
A NEW ECONOMICS
Located within ecological limits
(freshwater, climate, biochemical cycles):
unending growth is impossible
Equity as core principle and outcome
Indicators of human well-being:
food/water/energy security, dignified
livelihoods, happiness/ satisfaction, social
relations, health and learning …
Facilitation of local currencies and non-
monetised exchanges

53. Fundamental values &
principles of RED
• Diversity and pluralism (of ideas, knowledge, ecologies,
economies, polities, cultures…)
• Self-reliance for basics
• Cooperation, collectivity, and ‘commons’
• Rights with responsibilities/duties
• Dignity of labour
• Respect to subsistence
• Qualitative pursuit of happiness
• Equity
• Simplicity
• Decision-making access to all
• Respect for all life forms
• Biophysical sustainability

54. How do we get to RED?

55. Creating space, buying time…
• People’s resistance (Vedanta/POSCO, Orissa;
anti-SEZ; farmers against landgrab; 000s of
others)
• NGO and community networking, joint actions

56. The government responds…
• New laws:
– Right to Information Act
– National Employment Guarantee
Act
– Scheduled Tribes and Other
Forest Dwellers (Recognition of
Forest Rights) Act 2006
• New programmes:
– Organic farming policies /
programmes in 16 states
(Sikkim, Kerala, Bihar…)
– Kerala decentralised planning /
Nagaland communitisation /
Jharkhand’s Jharcraft

57. But beware of false or
superficial solutions….
REDD/REDD+, CDM,
geoengineering, carbon
trade, etc

58. Another word of caution…
Not a call for blind revival of traditions
(often socially oppressive, fatalist)
Not fundamentalist environmentalism
(green-saffron alliance; tiger vs. tribal…)

59. Some issues to resolve….
Will big industry be needed? Under whose control?
Will profits remain an incentive, will private sector
have a role?
What is the role of the ‘middle classes’?
What ‘political’ forces will lead the way?

60. Consumerism:
how to bell the cat?
Personal actions: choices in use of
materials, energy, transportation,
etc
Social actions: policies providing
incentives for responsible
consumption, disincentives for
wasteful consumption

61. An end to globalisation?
• Global flow of ideas, cultures, materials will
continue, but on principles of Radical
Ecological Democracy
– Primacy to local self-reliance in basics
– Ecological sustainability
– Social, economic equity
– Citizens’ decision-making
NO IMPOSITION OF ONE MODEL ACROSS
WORLD!

62. Scenarios for 2060…
Business as usual: widespread ecological
collapse, worse social inequities, water/resource
wars, xenophobia, fortress mentality
Managerial responses (tech/market fixes, better
laws/policies): collapse is slowed down, not averted;
inequities persist
Radical ecological democracy: full-scale collapse
averted, seeds sown for dramatic paradigm
shifts, bioregionalism and localisation gain over
nationalism

63. ____ __ __ _ ______ ________ __
India is in a unique position to
evolve alternative models of human
______ ___________ ______ __
well-being____ _____ ____
_____ with environmental
_____________ ______________
sustainability

64. For more information….
• www.kalpavriksh.org
• ashishkothari@vsnl.com