"[1] Norberg-Hodge is the author of the international best-selling book Ancient Futures (1991), about tradition and change in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, available in multiple languages, as an ecobook and audiobook versions.

She specialized in linguistics, including studies at the doctoral level at the University of London and at MIT, with Noam Chomsky.

In 1975, the India government decided to open Ladakh to tourism and 'development', and Norberg-Hodge was one of the first westerners to visit the region, accompanying a German film crew as a translator.

[6] As she described in an interview with the Indian website Infochange,[7] the culture she observed in those early years was a near-paradise of social and ecological well-being, but quickly broke down under the impact of outside economic forces: "When I first arrived in Leh, the capital of 5,000 inhabitants, cows were the most likely cause of congestion and the air was crystal clear.

Within five minutes' walk in any direction from the town centre were barley fields, dotted with large farmhouses.

Many of the changes that 'development' brought were psychological, as she described in the film version of Ancient Futures: "In one of my first years in Ladakh, I was in this incredibly beautiful village.

[2] The book has received praise from a number of public figures including Bill McKibben, Douglas Rushkoff, David Suzuki, Charles Eisenstein, Alice Waters, and others.

Norberg-Hodge lectures extensively in several languages – most often in English, Swedish, German, and Ladakhi, and occasionally in French, Spanish, and Italian.

Over the years, lecture tours have brought her to universities, government agencies and private institutions.

She has made presentations to parliamentarians in Germany, Sweden, and England; at the White House and the US Congress; to UNESCO, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the IMF; and at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell and numerous other universities.

She was a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, launched with the support of the government of Tuscany, and was previously on the editorial board of The Ecologist magazine.