How can conservation be improved so that it holistically meets the needs of people and the environment? In my view, an implementation of global reparations and decolonization is needed. In this blog post, I will first review two problems posed by modern conservation. Second, I will characterize potential solutions to these problems.
The first problem: the dehumanization of global South communities
Global North led conservation efforts dehumanize communities living in the global South because the economic influence of the global North enables well resourced global North organizations and individuals to promote their self-interests abroad at the cost of the livelihoods of local people.
One example is the creation of protected areas by foreign NGOs. In this process, foreign NGOs buy land in Costa Rica or other countries with the intent of protecting it. With complete private ownership of the land, these organizations are able to dictate how the land is used, who has access to the land, who benefits materially from the land, and other important rights. The typical set of rights is called “fortress conservation” which reflects the belief that biodiversity protection is best achieved when protected areas are guarded from any unauthorized human disturbance (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). In this view, local communities should be completely barred from the land (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). This directly threatens the livelihood of local and indigenous communities because they have less land to support their own food systems, culture, and way of life (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). In fact, 50% of the protected areas created by the global conservation establishment in the 20th century were located on lands either occupied or regularly used by indigenous communities (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). As a result, millions of indigenous people have been evicted from their ancestral lands and exposed to poverty, inequality, and conflict (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). Furthermore, due to the economic insecurity resulting from colonialism, imperialism, and debt traps, few communities have the economic or legal resources to challenge wealthy foreign NGOs funded by governments or private grants (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020). While local and indigenous communities suffer, foreign organizations are benefited with exclusive access to pristine lands and revenue from visitors and scientific research (Dominguez & Luoma, 2020).
I’ve seen elements of “fortress conservation” in play at all of the research stations I’ve visited. One example is the first research station I visited which was heavily surveilled. The site had many security cameras set up inside and outside buildings. A few local residents were present as staff, but no local residents were present simply to experience the research site. Before I left the research station, I learned something that offered context to the situation: a local resident had poached a monkey for food a few years ago, and the degree of surveillance and inaccessibility were justified to prevent future incidents. After hearing this, I wondered what material conditions would incentivize a local to go into the protected area to poach for food. It made me wonder whether any communities were displaced or nudged into less than ideal living conditions to establish that biological research site or any of the others I had visited.
The second problem: the failure to address the destructive nature of capitalism, imperialism, and the legacy of colonialism
Any mode of environmentalism or conservation that does not critique capitalism, imperialism, and the legacy of colonialism also does not adequately address the magnitude of the environmental crises that societies face. In the case of climate change, a relatively small portion of society that is well resourced may be able to counter climate change by reducing their energy consumption and fossil fuel use and choosing locally sourced food. However, these choices are mostly inaccessible to people in poverty or economic insecurity, or the vast majority of people globally. In addition, the individual actions of a few do not change the profit motive enabling the accelerating destruction of the environment: 100 companies produce 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions (CDP, 2017). Without challenging the global economic system that extracts resources for profit, society won’t be able to decarbonize at a fast enough rate.
This issue is further compounded by the fact that the people who did the least to cause the climate crisis, and other ecological crises, are disproportionately impacted. Global North countries have historically contributed 92% of global emissions in excess of the Earth’s capacity (Hickel, 2020). However, the global South is set to be disproportionately impacted by climate change. This is partly because of heightened vulnerability to food insecurity and severe weather, and partly because of a lack of resources to adapt to climate change (Hartnett, 2021). Centuries of colonialism and ongoing imperialism have resulted in the global North taking $2.2 trillion dollars in value from the global South every year (Hickel et al., 2021). This mass transfer of wealth leaves the global South with few resources to prepare for the turmoil that the climate crisis will bring.
My experiences in Costa Rica revealed how the logic of individual actions dominates in modern conservation. At a lecture on sea turtle conservation, we were told to reduce our plastic use and overall consumption. Everybody in the class has the means to make these choices, but plenty of people globally, who will be affected more by climate change than many in the US, do not.
The solution: global reparations and decolonization
I argue that global reparations and decolonization are both needed to restore self-determination to communities of the global South and to adequately address the systems that create and exacerbate ecological crises.
Global reparations would call for a massive transfer of wealth from the global North to the global South. In contrast to the current status quo where the global North uses their resources to lead conservation efforts in global South countries, global South communities should be given the resources to lead their own conservation efforts and build their own resiliency against ecological crises including climate change and habitat destruction. This would mean that the world has to abandon a profit centered economy so that the global South has the right to social and economic sovereignty.
Decolonization would call for prioritizing the sociocultural needs of indigenous people, restoring settled land to indigenous community ownership, and centering indigenous people’s leadership and knowledge in the environmental movement. Given the centuries of economic, social, and political oppression faced by indigenous people throughout the globe, there is first and foremost a moral imperative for decolonization. However, indigenous communities, more than anyone else, are able to lead the globe in environmental conservation. Although indigenous territories make up 22% of Earth’s total surface, they contain 80% of Earth’s biodiversity (Dominiguez and Luoma, 2020). Furthermore, research shows that when indigenous people have complete sovereignty over their ancestral lands, they are able to protect biodiversity and reduce deforestation as well or better than government owned parks at a small fraction of the cost (Dominguez and Luoma, 2020).
There’s many signs that the world is starting to connect the ecological crises to global economic and social systems. First, in recent years, there’s been a slew of democratically elected left wing presidents in Latin America that have vowed to counter a global North led world economy. Most notably, newly elected president of Columbia, Gustavo Petro, has vowed to eliminate Columbia’s dependence on fossil fuels while building economic self-sufficiency (Lo, 2022). Furthermore, courts around the world are hearing liability cases against global North governments and fossil fuel companies (Sengupta, 2021). Finally, climate reparations has become a part of climate change discourse. At COP26, Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, voiced her support for climate reparations (Sengupta, 2021). As mass movements critiquing capitalism and imperialism grow larger, we may see a fundamental shift in world economy and politics enabling humanity to adequately counter the ecological crises we face today.
Works cited
CDP (2017). The Carbon Majors Database: CDP Carbon Majors Report 2017. https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/002/327/original/Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf?1501833772
Dominguez, L. & Luoma, C. (2020). Decolonising Conservation Policy: How Colonial Land and Conservation Ideologies Persist and Perpetuate Indigenous Injustices at the Expense of the Environment. Land, 9(65) https://doi.org/10.3390/land9030065
Hartnett, R. (2021). Climate Imperialism: Ecocriticism, Postcolonialism, and Global Climate Change. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 20(2), 138–155. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.20.2.2021.3809
Hickel, J. (2020). Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary. The Lancet Planetary Health, 4(9), e399 – e404. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30196-0
Hickel, J., Sullivan, D., and Zoomkawala, H. (2021, May 6). Rich countries drained $152tn from the global South since 1960. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/6/rich-countries-drained-152tn-from-the-global-south-since-1960
Lo, J. (2022, June 20). Colombia’s new president Gustavo Petro pledges to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Climate Home News. https://www.climatechangenews.com/2022/06/20/colombias-new-president-gustavo-petro-pledges-to-keep-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground/
Sengupta, S. (2021, November 11). Calls for Climate Reparations Reach Boiling Point in Glasgow Talks. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/11/climate/climate-glasgow-cop26-loss-damage.html
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