Helena is a pioneer of the new economy movement and recipient of the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” She is author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures, and Local is Our Future (2019), and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness. The impact of the global market on food and farming has been a focus of Helena’s work for almost 40 years, including two books (From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture and Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness, as well as a Local Food Toolkit, which won a prestigious UK award for investigative journalism.
Helena is the founder and director of Local Futures and The International Alliance for Localisation, and a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network.