Yves here. This post makes what may seem to be a basic point about the hidden hand of ideology and corporate backers, but it is interestingly often lost. Plus the “ecocide” frame is important.
By Juan Manuel Crespo, an Ecuadorian sociologist, political scientist and photographer. He is engaged in action-oriented social research at the Institute of Higher National Studies of Ecuador and has worked in the Amazon for many years. Originally published at openDemocracy
There’s a cause for alarm as the world witnesses how the Amazon forests in Brazil, the Bolivian Chiquitanía and the Paraguayan swamps are being ravaged by uncontrolled fires. Approximately one million hectares of high biodiversity forests have been damaged so far by these fires, which are impressive, recurring, and quite obviously intentional.
We are facing a catastrophe greater than anything previously seen, the consequences of which are unpredictable. The only apparent certainty that experts are willing to share is that regenerating these forests to their prior condition would take some 200 years. Noam Chomsky has defined what is happening as a “crime against humanity.”
The president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, appears today as the main culprit because, ever since his presidential campaign, he has been delivering hate speeches against indigenous peoples and their territories, calling them a “hindrance to development”. He has also attacked NGO-supported conservationist policies and current legislation limiting the expansion of agriculture and stockbreeding, as well as mining and oil drilling.
Bolsonaro, who has the support of big investors and entrepreneurs, is championing a systematic plan to exploit and plunder the Amazon and any other resource-rich territory, arguing that the “the Amazon belongs to Brazilians.”
Data confirming that the looting has already begun can be found in the latest National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reportswhich show that in the first seven months of this year, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 278%; and that the Amazonian territories ravaged by fire during this period are estimated at some 18.600 square kilometres (a 62% increase from last year) – to which should be added the fires that are still burning to this day.
What we are facing here is nothing more and nothing less than a planned, systematic ecocide that ought to be judged by the whole mankind, and those responsible for it held to account. But over and above Brazil’s president, it is crucial to consider the role of and the pressure by the Brazilian business sectors behind the progress of the industries which are deforesting the Amazon – and to claim their liability.
We should be acutely aware of the fact that the deforestation and the burning of the Amazon and other high biodiversity ecosystems which are critical for the eco-systemic balance and the reproduction of life on the planet is not something that has materialized with Bolsonaro, nor will it be solved simply by removing Bolsonaro.
This is a problem that transcends the “Left vs. Right” political ideologies, which are being presented to the voters as part of an illusory representative democracy which really only “represents” the factual powers of a world-system that is driving us to the extinction of life – including human life – on this planet.
In the case of Brazil, in the last months of 2014, during Dilma Rousseff’s mandate (a leftist government), deforestation in the Amazon increased by 467% compared to 2013. According to INPE data, between 2012 and 2014 approximately 8.000 square kilometres were deforested. And today, while the fires rage in the Brazilian Amazon, more than 500.000 hectares of the Bolivian Chiquitanía are also burning as a result of the institutionalized pressure of the agricultural industry (coca cultivation) and industrial stockbreeding, which are both benefiting from the expansion of intensive and large-scale crops promoted by Evo Morales’s “progressive” government.
Something similar is happening in the Ecuadorian Amazon. In 2013, under the government of the likewise “progressive” Rafael Correa, oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park – one of the highest biodiversity regions in the world and home of the Voluntary Isolation Villages – was given the green light. In addition to this, Correa promoted the expansion of oil blocks and large-scale mining in the southern parts of the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Currently, in Ecuador, new large-scale mining operations have started in the Amazon region. They are being promoted by the current Ecuadorian government, which is not in any way considered to be ultra-rightist. This is posing a very serious threat to well-preserved Amazonian territories, which are also indigenous territories and protected areas untouched so far by the oil industry. Reliable studies show that the rate of deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon is reaching approximately 0.7% annually, while in Brazil it is only around 0.2%. So, the idea that only Bolsonaro is destroying the Amazon is obviously a hasty and simplistic one.
Clearly, the problem with the depredation of the Amazon and, in general, of the last high biodiversity forests on the planet, is that there is not necessarily a certain government or political tendency responsible for it. It responds, rather, to a systemic ideology, a so far unquestioned and unquestionable paradigm – a paradigm called capitalism. Today we are witnessing how, rather than being a system of life, capitalism is in fact a system of death highly efficient at creating inequalities and exploiting nature to its final consequences.
Neoliberalism, progressivism, globalization and developmentalism turn out to be ultimately the very same formula for accelerating natural resource extraction in the speediest possible way, accumulating capital and, hence, accumulating power. They call it “Development” when in fact its negative results in ecological and social terms only come to show that it is “Bad Development“. This is, in José María Tortosa’s words, the kind of system we have: a “bad developer” system.
Tu put it more simply: further exploitation of resources until there is nothing to exploit. We can blame ideology or just natural outgrowth of human obsessions. Ecuador rainforest, much smaller that the Brazilian part will be finished first.
It is not easy to figth this and conservation of the Amazonas would require international colaboration and compensation to amazonian countries to help them in this effort. Burning ecosystems for agriculture and other reasons is an ancient practice well before capitalism existed as a word.
Anecdotically, during the last two summers I have witnessed 3 times a fire setting in the very same place in a pine urban forest in a mediterranean town indicating someone wants to build residential developments there. The same push everywhere and this is why if we want conservation of the Amazonas OECD countries have to help. I guess that Trump, for instance, will not feel up for it. In this sense the author is rigth: it is not all Bolsonaro’s or Correa’s fault.
We’ve adopted the most toxic, destructive version of Capitalism: so called ‘free market’ Capitalism. It’s a perversion of Capitalism, a radical version of Capitalism that is driven by unrestrained Greed. Anyone who destroys an ecosystem is a criminal. Strong, unrelenting regulation and government restraint are required to tame Capitalism from it’s Greed. Jail time works best, in my opinion.
There was no explicit coverage of the spat between Bolsonaro and Macron but I got the distinct feeling that Macron, who had previously been doing trade deals with Brazil, told Bolsonaro that there would be no more trade with France if he didn’t stop burning the Amazon. Bolsonaro pretended to be offended by how abrupt Macron had been, but Bonsonaro did make an effort to accept help stoping the burning. So that’s something. Bolsonaro is like one of the Proud Boys who, when he gets punched in the nose, starts to whine. If I’m right, it was an encouraging display of no-nonsense environmentalism. I even started to like Macron again.
For deliberately torching the rainforest, jail time isn’t enough. Time to make an example of somebody.
We should be starting a reasonable plan to drawdown from a system that perpetuates endless growth on a resource finite planet. So many have said this for decades yet all of us seem to be captive passengers on a driverless bus that went through the guardrail many years ago. By its very nature any form of capitalism is destructive to life because it sees all things in monetary terms, useful only if it can produce “capital” and its always at the expense of the environment and the have-nots, creating more and more inequality, do we still believe in BS trickle downs?. Trapped in the cocoon of paychecks and pensions truth is the first thing to go in order to protect the system currently [but not for much longer] giving sustenance, its doubtful we will be able to mitigate the damage this system has caused to our habitat. Our addictions insure it.
The most powerful fuel for our addiction is the Prisoner’s Dilemma which implies that the society which first stops growing will be overwhelmed by the one that continues to grow. Since the society with the greatest growth prevails in its dominance, the most destructive society rules.
I think Peter Jackson captured it well in The Two Towers in the Burning of the Westfold sequence.
It is the same here in progressive liberal Minnesota, corporations foreign and domestic allowed to pollute these 10,000+ lakes with near impunity. It is a bipartisan religious-like faith in progress, fossil fuel focused on one side, “renewable” on the other, with hardly a hint of eco-logic to be found.
I’ve often thought Trumpism and populism generally in this age is about an unconscious push for one last hurrah before ecological realities tip this megalith called high tech civilization into widespread collapse and even famine. Or maybe the Greenland ice sheet will sluff off into the ocean and displace about 2 billion people, then maybe there will be some incentive to treat the leadership of ecocide like the criminal masterminds they are.
Otherwise this thing called capitalism, having corrupted every measure of ethics, morality or sense, seems assured to lead hunmanity willingly to oblivion.
Turn your back on The System for one day–Sept 20 World Wide Strike for Climate Justice–
Just walk out, or don’t show up and join one of the thousands of protests being held( they are already organized) worldwide.
It may not change the world on the 21st but you may be changed.
See 350.org for details…
One thing “free market capitalism” has never had to deal with is declining world populations. Declining demand – in some places dramatic. So it is possible that in addition to world politics becoming environmentalist, modern capitalism is also facing dying markets. And the possibility that this will take on an energy of its own is what Gail Tverberg has been talking about. She warns us that the whole thing could collapse because if oil producers reduce production to raise falling prices and profits, then users must reduce their manufacturing which reduces consumption which becomes a spiral. I betcha the captains of capitalism have never thought the free market could turn on them like this. Ha. I’m starting to like the free market ;-).
Since most of the economy is not in food and the ecosystem, the illusion of progress continues even as we destroy the support system for human life. We will not receive a signal of economic decline due to environmental destruction in time to take action. It requires a level of trust in science not currently visible in world leaders. If food and commodity prices skyrocketed to reflect the value we are extracting from the earth, the economy as we know it which revolves around iPhones and designer handbags would be crushed. Solving these issues requires a level of trust and abstraction we aren’t seeing in leaders who were schooled in the 60s and 70s.
such a sad state of affairs. only some ten years ago, south america seemed like it was going to push human progress and lead the world in justice, even being touted by noam chomsky as a counter to american imperialism. fast forward to today and it is again perhaps the most backward, most regressive continent.
Thank you for the intro to the term “Ecocide”. Chomsky is absolutely right, the burning of the Amazon is “A Crime Against Humanity”. Although the perps might never be held to account in the Hague, it is probable that their descendants will experience the environmental and demographic effects of their decisions.
The only way they will feel it is if they are violently forced to remain in the continent they are turning into a desert.
They must be made to know in advance that they will not be permitted to escape the desert they are creating.
Don’t it always seem to go
You don’t know what you’ve lost ’til it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” seems even more relevant now than when it was written about 50 years ago.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommends revisiting the native peoples for learning how to preserve critical territories. According to a study conducted by the IPCC, the areas managed or co-managed by native peoples have much higher rates of presence of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles than any other areas (including protected areas), which indicates that this greater biodiversity is being achieved by the practices and land uses of native cultures.
You are quite right to say that we should look to the native or indigenous people for a solution to the problem, but it is not really that complicated or something that we need scholars and experts to study intensively (not that you said that exactly). We need to start living at the same standard of living that they do. The knowledge that we need to “borrow” from them is: don’t use more energy and “stuff” than your land base and the plants growing on it can produce using the sunlight that falls on it. Some of the indigenous people probably are doing that now, so they will have to eliminate the use of those technologies and materials, too.
Unfortunately, there is almost no chance that human beings in general will accept this and make the needed transition voluntarily.
I’d like to know how much of this latest ‘flare-up’ is the result of Trump’s Make America Great Again tariffs. A couple of weeks ago George Will reported the “good news” for John Deere of increased farm equipment sales to Brazil along with the collateral damage (the result of “friendly fire”) to American farmers – the loss of 500,000 million metric tons of soy bean exports to China.
So my question is how much of this latest round of deforestation is the result of China’s seeking more reliable, less politicized sources for its food imports?