Recovering from COVID-19 – Re-Imagining our Relationship to Nature

Nnimmo Bassey (Health of Mother Earth Foundation) & Ashish Kothari (Kalpavriksh)

The Law, Environment and Development Centre (LEDC), Global Tapestry of Alternatives & Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) invite you to Recovering from COVID-19 – Re-Imagining our Relationship to Nature:

The COVID-19 pandemic is not a standalone crisis. It is intrinsically linked to the broader crisis of development. In this context, this conversation will start by discussing the kind of recoveries from COVID that are needed, and the kind of post-COVID societies that we want, challenging today’s dominant system. Nnimmo Bassey and Ashish Kothari will focus on elements already available from which we can learn, to which we can point as practices and worldviews that are grounded in current reality as also telling us what futures we can imagine and create. The conversation will move well beyond what is wrong into what the alternative, pluriversal visions and practices are/can be, instead of the attempts to go back to 'business as usual', and how we can re-imagine our relationship with the earth and the rest of nature.

Speakers:

Nnimmo Bassey is an architect, poet and author. He is director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) with head office in Benin City, Nigeria. He is member steering committee of Oilwatch International – and  was chair of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) (2008-2012). His books include To Cook a Continent - Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (2012) and Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War (2016).

Ashish Kothari is a founder-member, Kalpavriksh and member of many people’s movements. He taught at Indian Institute of Public Administration, coordinated India’s National Biodiversity Strategy & Action Plan, served on boards of Greenpeace International & India, and ICCA Consortium. He helps coordinate Vikalp Sangam (www.vikalpsangam.org), Global Tapestry of Alternatives  (https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org), & Radical Ecological Democracy  (https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org) processes. Co-author/co-editor, Churning the Earth, Alternative Futures, and Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary.

Chair: Philippe Cullet, SOAS

Contact email: ledc@soas.ac.uk

Event Recording

Loading the player...