Helping the First World Reduce its Ecological Footprint

While Vandana Shiva was in Berlin recently promoting her book ‘Soil Not Oil’, Andreas Teuchert and Thomas Finger of Transition Berlin, who were filming the event, spontaneously asked her for her thoughts on what the Transition Towns movement could do that is of real use for people in the global south.

She said that “the most important pressure the people in the south face is the grabbing of their resources to feed a consumer machinery in the north.” She points out that while there are a number of products that the north can’t provide such as spices, coffee and cotton, fresh vegetables are the reason that poor peasants are losing their land.

“A Transition Town in the north needs to reduce this pressure by shrinking it’s ecological footprint on areas where it is shrinkable” she said. So growing vegetables locally rather than having them flown around the world and buying from them the products they are best able to provide is the best way to help.

Hear her full response here: