Speakers Express Concern

Two speakers expressed concern about the harmful effects of modern development on the society and environment of the Third World to a full audience at the Kennedy School of Government last night.

Vandana Shiva, executive director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and National Resource Policy in India, and Helena L. Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the Labakh Project, gave the talk as part of an Earth Summit Awareness Tour.

The tour's aim is to promote awareness of issues which will be raised in the United Nations Conference on Environmental Development (UNCED) this June in Brazil.

In their talks, Shiva and Norberg-Hodge stressed the need for concern for the Third World environment, which they said has declined rapidly due to modernization by Western developers.

"The environmental movement has come up as a response to irresponsible corporate enterprise, which uses any means in its power to increase its profit margin," said Shiva.

According to Shiva, a dam is being built on the Ganges River in India at the expense of the people of the area. As a result, Shiva said, hundreds are now displaced from their homes.

Shiva called for "global environmental protection standards" in response to such events.

Norberg-Hodge talked about her 17-year experience of living with the Ladakh people of Tibet, supplementing her narrative with slides.

She described how the influence of Western development had led to increased fragmentation of the Ladakhi community and aggression in the youths.

"The difference was like black and white," she said.