Economic Development

The grasslands are changing. Across the Tibetan Plateau, desertification, biodiversity loss, and ecological relocations are dramatically altering the landscape and reshaping Tibetan society. What’s happening on the grasslands today poses unprecedented challenges to Tibetan communities and will have a profound impact on them far into the future.

Join us on Friday and Saturday, May 20 and 21, for the first event in our second lecture series, Visions of Development, as we explore the state of the plateau’s grasslands, and it’s bearing upon the future of Tibetan communities.

Friday: A special screening of the rough-cut of Helena Norberg-Hodge’s new documentary, The Economics of Happiness. In 1975 she was one of the first Westerners to visit Ladakh, or Little Tibet, where she witnessed the psychological, as well as ecological impacts of the global consumer culture on once thriving and sustainable communities. The film highlights the psychological, social, and ecological benefits of economic localization, and the steps—at the community, national, and international levels—that can bring us there.

A special side-event to the conference Meltdown: The Impact of Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau at Asia Society on January 16, hosted by the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, chinadialogue; Council on Foreign Relations; and the Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University.