Environmental Politics: Perspectives from the South

Environmental Politics:

Perspectives from the South

Pham Van Dung

12 April 2011

The Southern Environmentalism (Guha, 2000)

• Poor countries can generate environmental movements

• Five examples of third world environmentalism: 1. The Penan community in Sarawak, Malaysia fight against

commercial loggers with forums and network action.

2. The Sardar Sarovar dam on Narmada river in Central India, and movement of Medha Patkar to raise awareness of effected people.

3. Peasant protest against eucalyptus and monoculture in Thailand with Buddhist priests mobilization and practice of „ordination‟ ceremonies for keeping natural forest.

4. Ogoni in Nigeria lost from Royal Shell oil exploration and beneficial government.

5. Environmental reconstruction by Green Belt Movement in Kenya.

Nature of Southern Env’t struggles (Guha, 2000)

• Causes/ oppression:

– Commercial logging

– Industrial monocultures

– Oil drilling

– Destructive „mega-projects‟

– Large dams, displaced people

• Consequences:

– Environmental degradation

– Intensifies economic deprivation

– Moral urgency

• People‟s rights:

– Traditional community rights

– Natural forest

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol21no4/2

14-saving-africas-forests.html

India/ Brazil comparison (Guha, 2000)

• Similarities: – Large, cultural diversity

– Poverty

– Aggressive gov industrialized programs

– Free use of nature and natural resources

– Env‟l movement contributed to democracy, openness, accountabililty

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/maps.htm http://www.istanbul-city-

guide.com/map/images/country/Brazil-map.jpg

India/ Brazil comparison (Guha, 2000)

• Differences:

– India: • take more account of the human costs involved

• long settled rural communities – farmer

– Brazil • shorter history and vast Amazon resources

• urban squatters and indigenous people

• higher levels of literacy and education

• environmentalism has higher inter‟l visibility and influence

Renewing the land and the people (Guha, 2000)

• People‟s

involvement for

good nature

management

• Equitable and

ecologically

sound way

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/09/16/rinjani-

community-push-forest-regulations.html

Chipko/ Chico comparison (Guha, 2000)

• Chipko: – remote Himalayan

peasant stopped loggers from felling hornbeam trees in 1973

– Represent for many conflicts:

• access to forests, fish and grazing resources

• effects of industrial pollution and mining

• the sitting of large dams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chipko.jpg

Chipko/ Chico comparison (Guha, 2000)

• Chico: – deforestation during 1960-80s & road expansion

– indigenous people do not have land titles

– rubber tappers + indigenous inhabitants form a Forest Peoples‟ Alliance

http://www.chicomendes.com/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/14/endangere

dhabitats.forests

Chipko/ Chico comparison (Guha, 2000)

• Outcomes:

– Formulation of people-sensitive forest policies

in India

– Rubber Tappers Council of Brazil

– Policies for Development for Forest People

– Eco-feminism

– Active environmental debate

Question 1

• How do you evaluate the environmental

movement in developing countries?

Pesticides Poison the South & Environmental Justice

(Pellow, 2007)

• Toxic waste dumping – Transnational environmental inequality

– Reflects North/South divisions

– Theorized in the context of race, class, nation, and environment

• Impacts of pesticides – Problematic: greater efficiencies by producing larger crop yields

– Devastating public health and ecological harm

– Violence to the ecosystem is similar to social domination

– Thousands of suicides by pesticide

– Pesticides banned in US are exported, dumped, or used in South –> global environmental inequality and racism

Social Inequality, Labor, and the Ecology of Pesticides

(Pellow, 2007)

• Women – Lack access to meetings,

training, information

– Excluded from decision making

– Gender-specific jobs & more exposed to pesticide poisoning

– Risks to physical and reproductive

– Difficulties to access medical care

– Cultural sensitivities, language barrier

• Labour, marginalized, indigenous people, migrants

http://www.hoahocngaynay.com/fr/hoa-hoc-va-doi-

song/hoa-hoc-nong-nghiep/881-22022011.html

Environmental Injustice, and the Violence of Toxic

Markets (Pellow, 2007)

• Migrant and agricultural workers are squeezed

• Developing countries increasingly import pesticide

• Consumption increase: 22% (in 1985) to 30% (in 1991).

• “development aid” - $250.8 million worth of pesticides (1988-95)

• Flow of pesticides as a system of dependent relations

• Pesticide firms enjoy profit / poverty / gap

• Illegal/ legal pesticide trade

• 70.000 Vietnamese citizens suffer from Agent Orange exposure

• Herbicides killed coca, cannabis, and opium poppy in Colombia

http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/2006/Agent-Orange-

Vietnam1aug06.htm

International Agreements on Pesticide

Production and Export (Pellow, 2007)

• No law in the US against exporting and dumping banned pesticides

• Some international law/ treaties: – The international Code of Conduct on the Distribution

and Use of Pesticides (1985)

– The Stockholm convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001)

– Rotterdam Convention (2003)

• Weak environmental regulations

• Efforts of grassroots transnational networks to develop & implement

Resistance against Pesticides

(Pellow, 2007)

• Two cases:

– Obsolete pesticides in the

Bahamas

– Mozambique‟s battle with

foreign pesticides

• Actions:

– Gather information

– Launch a global letter-

writing campaign

– Networking and pressure

– Campaign

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2005/2005-

05-02-01.html

Resistance & movement (Pellow, 2007)

• Advocated a return-to-sender approach

• Antipesticide activists are also deeply opposed to militarism and state violence

• Ban and remove pesticide

• Sustainable agriculture & IPM adoption

• Policy making of repelling and returning pesticides

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/greenscape

s/projects/pji.htm

http://www.speri.org/eng/index.php?act=newsdetail&pid=

112&nid=123&id=515

Question 2

• How do you comment on the unequal

trade relation between North and South

(especially relating to toxic pesticides)

Subaltern public: CSR omissions

(Munshi & Kurian, 2007)

• Ideal CSR – ethical governance

– sustainable development

– environmental sensitivities

– profit generation with a conscience

• Authentic CSR – elitist–self-serving

– simple-minded paternalism

• Subaltern publics – nonconsumer citizens together constitute the subaltern “Other

– power differentials

– large and heterogeneous group

Corporate proxies (Munshi & Kurian, 2007)

• Powerful corporations – states – financial institutions

– Big businesses invariably team up with the state to get profit

– State grant precious resources: land, water, and power

– First and Third world trade in toxic waste

– Powerful financial sector - capitalics system

– Dominant coalition undermines subaltern publics

Political realties (Munshi & Kurian, 2007)

• Undermined the welfare

of poor people

• Child labour

• Impacts of globalization &

ecological degradation on

women

• Impacts of profit-driven

businesses

• Business gain a good

environmental reputation

to offset human rights http://fairtradechocolate.wikidot.com/system:page-tags-list

Question 3

• How can citizens (subaltern/

nonconsumers and consumers) address

and contribute to improve social

responsibility of businesses?

North-South Non-cooperation

(Roberts & Parks, 2006)

• A right to social and economic development – Global inequality & socially

shared understandings of “fair” solutions

– Understandings of fairness and justice can

• reinforce zero-sum worldviews and causal belief

• erode conditions of mutual trust

• promote risk aversion

• foster retaliatory attitudes

– Ecologically unequal exchange is a social reality

http://graduateinstitute.ch/corporate/Internationalnegotiation.html

North-South Non-cooperation

(Roberts & Parks, 2006)

• A Hierarchy of

Explanations

– unequal structure

– environmental burdens

disadvantages poor

countries

– Worldviews and causal

beliefs influence issue

definition, expectations,

interests, principled

beliefs

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=270

15&Cr=climate&Cr1=change

North-South Non-cooperation

(Roberts & Parks, 2006)

• Global Inequality & Climate Treaty Deadlock – three types of beliefs that influence policies and

outcomes • Worldviews

• Principled of beliefs

• Causal beliefs

– Structuralist ideas about the origins and persistence of global inequality

– Perceptions obstruct North-South efforts to protect the climate

• Profligate North consumption

• Environmental reform depends upon South position of labour division

• North use environmental issues to undermine South growth

North-South Non-cooperation

(Roberts & Parks, 2006)

• A Climate of Mistrust

– climate of mistrust is obstacle to cooperation

– promote conditions of mutual trust

• reciprocity

• evaluating other actors‟ expectations, strategies

– Mistrust in reality

• North – South different point of view on compensation

• South conomic liberalization and trade deficit, lost control

• Financial event/ crisis

North-South Non-cooperation

(Roberts & Parks, 2006)

• How the Development Crisis Breeds Mistrust in Climate Negotiations – rich nations need to rebuild conditions of trust

– Trust, sincerity, and diffuse reciprocity are sustained by principled, consistent behaviour

– Poor countries face risk averse

• Post-2012: Participation in a Climate Treaty – principled belief affect environmental cooperation

– contract: no involved country stands to lose

– Definition of fairness are elastic, manipulated

– Negotiation is sometimes influenced by emotion rather than material self-interest

– Aid needs to be reoriented and combined with favorable trade, debt, investment, finance, and intellectual property rights policies

Question 4 & 5

• What is the strongest influence to

international environmental negotiations?

• What are essential factors to improve

North-South environmental cooperation?

Thank you!