It is almost a given that the industrialized countries, the North, are the epitome of progress and wisdom. The South, the Third World, is a place of backwardness and ignorance, but it does have lots of resources. The North wants to use those resources to continue to enrich itself. Today parts of the South are redefining and challenging conventional notions of growth and development. There is resistance to the destructive effects of transnational corporations and global capitalism and a new awareness of the value of indigenous knowledge and centuries-old diverse agriculture.

Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned voice for sustainable development and social justice. A physicist, scholar, political activist and feminist, she is Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi . She's the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize. Author of many books, her latest are "Earth Democracy" and "Soil Not Oil."