Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • COMMENT

The global south is rich in sustainability lessons that students deserve to hear

A Western bias limits progress, so educators must share how communities in the developing world manage environmental change, argues Harini Nagendra.
  1. Harini Nagendra

    1. Harini Nagendra is professor of sustainability at Azim Premji University, Electronic City, Bangalore, India.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Women walk through a field in front of the Vedanta Alumina plant in Lanjigarh.

Women in Odisha, India, where in 2014 the Dongria Kondh forest tribe won a lawsuit to stop a bauxite mine from opening. Credit: Sanjit Das/Panos Pictures

In a Bangalore slum, Dhanalakshmi tends six plant pots balanced on a wall. They contain shoots of holy basil (or tulasi, Ocimum tenuiflorum). I asked her why she does this, in a cramped space with an unreliable water supply. She told me that the plants replace her tiny roadside kitchen garden, which she lost when the street was widened. The wind blew the basil seeds into the pots. “How can one turn away a guest, even if they come uninvited?” she said.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 557, 485-488 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05210-0

References

  1. Nagendra, H. Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Guha, R. How Much Should a Person Consume? Environmentalism in India and the United States (Univ. California Press, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Connelly, M. Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (Harvard Univ. Press, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gudynas, E. Development 54, 441–447 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Lewis, M. Conserv. Soc. 1, 1–21 (2003).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Madegowda, C. Econ. Polit. Wkly 44, 65–69 (2009).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Tatpati, M., Kothari, A. & Mishra, R. The Niyamgiri Story: Challenging the Idea of Growth without Limits? (Kalpavriksh, 2016); available at https://go.nature.com/2k9ju8z

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links