6 Southern Challenge There is a w- • Pecul«r to thPr,ead bdief that • Vird Postmat! "r nations of thpnKT"'C"]mCntalism 15 3 Phenomenon a"d *C ,St'Va,u«am0t U°rth' 3 produ« °f ^e move to-the ,a» twenttWOpe- a series JrP,0Pu,at'°nsof North America 8Ued ^at envi yearS> the Politic, °b and essays published over PrTny '0 phv°nTenta,i»n i n!C?tJSt Ronald Inglehart has ar-1" beio"gins! ,? su«enance andV° thls shift 'from giving top th'S ^"s d,(:tXpt^'on and L tOWard heavier emphasis ^"""n, U a'm th" poor cothe qU*l"y of life.' A corollary of y tnree senwT^nts of their"1"" Cann°t Possibly generate If vo, i , ' Us schoJars. Consider these statements XOU'OoJtatrL ,r^r^per ^iddiP „, tei» to whirl. a; cmai,sm Whin each country, e" ' '"'eresj Poor "Woi">«„taliS!n is an interest of C i5 no accide„ ' 'erThurow A'e7and poor indtviduals simply Athene t" ic is a SI8n that these societies have Protests Ve 3t th reshold of modernity and affluence. When British agllrStP°^Ut,"0n brokeout near Seoul in 1991> the respected last V Scientist, announced that South Korea had at an en ' ^ C° tne env'ronrnent-' Likewise, the steady growth of conse °nrnenta^ constituency in Taiwan has been interpreted as a demit^UenCe °^ **!e C^ear triumPn> within that island nation, of mo-to-— °Ver tracnti°n- The Taiwanese, writes Stevan HarrelJ, had come is rnoreatUre kecause tne cny ls P°^mQd and noisy, and because nature beca 6 ^ essi^e cnan lt was- They go on [excursions onj weekends block 6 ^ time' as industrial citizens, is structured in regular is the S " ^ere 1S notbingparticularly Chinese about any of this, nor PeculilrT7 gparticu,ar,v Western or Westernized. There is something aIU„ ar^ m°dern, the self-critique of the social formation that has aJi^ed all this leisure and luxury ^m^o^111^ enVironmenta''isrn exclusively with affluence, scholars Prospercf evo^utlonary sequence—of poor societies becoming asS^^ ke^ore tneY can ^nd green movements in their midst. wisdom tGVfn ^recnjn and Willett Kempton note, 'the conventional Care ab 1 c'tl2ens °^ developing countries do not or cannot Publ" °U^.tne environment—has been broadly accepted by Western die n S 3n ne ^ornadc community, with theoretical backing from co^°*r™ater,anst thesis but with little data from those developing Th tal mo 6 C°nsensus trJat Silent Spring begat the modern environmen-s°ciet]Vernrnt m,&nt De allowed to stand; but the consensus that the undis °j Tnird WorJd are too poor to be green shall not go tfiis ch ' By bnnSing in 'data from those developing countries,' ' aPter suggests that there does in fact exist a vibrant and grow- lrig envirQn bbv"31,3 tIjai tnere aoes in ian caui a — ^nailand nmenta^ constituency in societies such as Brazil, India and United n ' 0!Jntries far-flung and richly varied among themselves but netheless by the poverty of the masses of their peoples. THE S^ONMENTAUSM OF ^rorn ftve^Gr examP^es 0^Poor peoples' environmentalism, taken recognizably less-than-wealthy societies of the globe. Th ^,Ve in th e/>enan are a tjny community of hunters and farmers who e forests of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. They number 100 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave less than 7000 individuals, and do not generally seek the limelight. In the late '80s, however, they became major players in a major controversy. For their forest home had been steadily encroached upon by commercial loggers, whose felling activities had fouled their rivers, exposed their soils and destroyed plants and animals which they harvested for food. Beyond this material loss was a deeper loss of meaning, for the Penan have a strong cultural bond with their river and forest landscape. Helped by Bruno Manser, a Swiss artist who then lived with them, the tribe organized blockades and demonstrations to force the chainsaws and their operators back to where they came from. The Penan struggle was taken up and publicized by the respected Penang-based group, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, and by transnational forums such as Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. 2. The Sardar Sarovar dam, being built on the Narmada river in central India, shall stand as a showpiece of Indian economic development. Four hundred and sixty feet high when completed, the dam will provide much-needed irrigation and electricity, but it shall also submerge historic old temples, rich deciduous forests, and at least 250 villages. These potential oustees' have come together under the banner of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) which is led by a forty-year-old woman, Medha Patkar. In their bid to stop dam construction, Patkar and her colleagues have tasted outside provincial legislatures, camped outside the Indian prime minister s house in New Delhi, and walked through the Narmada valley to raise awareness of the predicament of the to-be-displaced villagers. f tu ^ j ed IO T f°reign exch»ge. the state forest department of Thailand m.t.ated, ,„ the late '70s, the conversion of acres and acres of natural forests tnto monocultural plantations of eucalyptus, rhe department hopes [0 thus p|an, kilometres by owned by Japanese company While bureaucrats in Bangkok con- iZ tn 1 "J'"8 yT' P"Sants in began oppo- smion to the plantations. They believed rV^r -1 ■ ■ r u „{{ * j u u • • / ieved that their nee lie ds woud be affected by the proximity of rbp n^r^ i- , 7 , • A„«rr.1J*«*, fu i water-guzzling and soil-depleting Australian tree; they also mournprl tk» u c i ■ ,r t — i • i i , y, ^mourned the loss of the mixed forests from which they harvested fodder fuel fnm,«J j- ■ 7 .... ■ i_ I,crVue1'truit and medicines. Peasant protesters are mobilized by Budd'm<:r nrl.». i i i ■ , • « ut£' ' I j i "^amst priests, who lead delegations to public otticials and also conduct'nrrlinn^;^ > • uuuuci ordination ceremonies to prevent natural forests being turned into artificial ones 4. On November 10, 1995 miU, _r •■ r^r- . ,. , ' yo> tne military dictatorship of Nigeria hune nine dissenters, the most Drnmin^ni-. f l i j 1 Prominent of whom was the poet and Medha Patkar, leader of the NfrnadaB^ m j992. Movement), addressing a public meeu * SOURCE Frontline magazine. ^ Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa. Their crime had been to draw attention to the impact on their Ogoni tribe of oil drilling by the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate, Royal Shell. Shell had been drawing some 25,000 barrels a day from the Ogoni territories. The federal government benefited from oil exploration in the form of rising revenues, but the Ogoni lost a great deal. They remained without schools, or hospitals; thirty-five years of drilling had instead led to death and devastation: 'a blighted countryside, an atmosphere full of . . . carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon; a land in which wildlife is unknown; a land of polluted streams and creeks, a land which is, in every sense of the term, an ecological disaster.' The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni leople, founded by Saro-Wiwa in 1991, had intensified the public opposition to Shell and its military backers. The generals in Lagos responded with threats, intimidation, arrest, and finally by judicially murdering Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues. 5. My fmal illustration is one of environmental reconstruction rather than protest. This is Kenya's Green Belt Movement, founded by Waangan Matthai, an anatomist schooled at the University of Kansas who became her country's first woman professor. In 1977 Matthai threw up her university position to motivate other, less-privileged women to protect and improve their environment. Starting with a mere seven saplings planted on June 5, 1977 (World Environment ed ayndtrTdTTnt ^ l"2 dlSlM 7>000>000 dis nets of K 7irPS °f Villa§e WOmen ^ over twenty-two Fred Pearl Theu,Green Bel< Movement, writes the journalist and the A ar§Uarbly done more to stall the expansion of deserts S^t^T^01 S°llS m AfnCa than its big brother interna-ZSu r°ad'the United N«i°™ Environmental Pro-access u anlCf m Nair°bi] ltS grand but Iargdy The T £eSert,hcatlon programs.' the environment Ch°Sen are a!1 m°derately well known among prestirio^Gold™ immunity. Medha Patkar was honored with the thePe8ZwehTdfS German television- Saro W ' a pHght broadcast on BrJtish and of the staid New York TimT T ^ " t0 the fr°nt P^ known examples of the * C°^d certaimY have chosen better such, possibly the most t^Vlr0niJlentalism of the poor: indeed two ter. But I could also have ch^ i examined later in the chap- ber in the hundreds in th lesser"known examples, which num- movements that 0nDo^LOUntries of the South. These include other cultures while defendinVtrT"^1 log8ln§ and industrial mono- 8 tradm0nal co—unity rights and natural Green Seh Movement. *m*m Matthat, founder of,he Kenyan ure ^ ^ ^ GrK„ SOURCE Photo by R»n*r Malkenes, here taken? Warriors (The Bodley Head). 04 Part II: Environmentalist, 's Second Wave °f ^"displaced people who do nor wish to of mm Jr. v P 6 and dest™ctive 'mega-projects;' movements stowCr°PS Md have been destroyed by lime- directed, °r,gran1ltt:,<5ua''"es; movements of artisanal fisherfolk ever«t"J* , " h'g,h-tech traw1*" that destroy their livelihood or es L rl P 6 ^ St°cks; and movements against paper fact-CntYZTTT liYing do~*ni, for whom chemical ef-dtink nleZZ Te brty °f the river » ™» « 'heir sole source of tion oJZL if these,st™gg'es against environmental degrada-ous and J acld »ruggles for environmental renewal, the numer-better mfnalIT T hy rU'al —ities in Asia and Africa to their or f0reStS' COnserve th<^ soil, sustainably harvest biogas plants. enerSy-savl"g devices like improved stoves and that 'The environmentalism of the poor' is a convenient umbrella term t I shall use for these varied forms of social action. The Peruvian activist Hugo Blanco has evocatively distinguished this kind of environmentalism from its better known and more closely studied Northern counterpart. At first sight, writes Blanco, environmentalists or conservationists are nice, slightly crazy guys whose main purpose in life is to prevent the disappearance of blue whales or pandas. The common people have more important things to think about, tor instance how to get their daily bread. Sometimes they are taken to be not so crazy but rather smart guys who, in the guise of protecting endangered species, have formed so-called NGOs to get juicy amounts ot dollars from abroad . . . Such views are sometimes true. However, there are m Peru a very large number of people who are environmentalists. Ul course, it 1 tell such people, you are ecologists, they might reply, ecologistyour mother,' or words to that effect. Let us see, however. Isn t the village ot Bambamarca truly environmentalist, which has time and again fought valiantly against the pollution of its water from mining? nX^k ST The surro^cJing villageS which are being po lured by the Southern Peru Copper Corporation truly environment- wb n rVn0tlíe V1 geJ?1 Tamb° Grande in Pi»ra environmentalist wnen it nses like a closed fist and is ready to die in order to prevent strip- Tirirr / K S°' PCOple °f the M— Valley who saw m t Ifdl ' 1 ° Sm°ke and ™e f">mLa Oroya Ztl^ndA m^onoi Amazonia) who are toull enViron. Z p oole of g Thelr f°reStS ^ depredation. Also the the pollution of water in the beaches. [translated from the Spanish by Juan Martinez Alter] Chapter 6: The Southern Challenge °ne can identify some half-a-dozen distinguishing featuresto- t e environmentalism of the poor. First and foremost, it combines a c c«n for the environment with an often more visible concern to f «1 Justice. Through much of the Third World, writes D^.J reality is a seamless web of social and environmental constrai > " makes little sense to atom.se into mutually en_ Commercial forestry, oil drilling, and large dams all damage ^ v"onrnent, but they also, and to their victims more painm * od tu^ a threat to rural livelihoods: by depriving tribal o and small game, by destroying the crops of farmers, or y f_ lng wholesale the lands and homes of villagers who h^'nUons tune to be placed in their path. The opposition to tnesei 15 thus as much a defense of livelihood as an environ" of socia\ *ent in the narrow sense of the term. This 'nseparabil. y ^ ^ environmental concerns is beautifully c^?;Co by a commun-December 1990, addressed to the President of Mexic y ed «y of Nahuatl Indians who were asked to make way tor F San Juan dam on the Balsa river: 105 Mr President., we publicly and collectively ^°?*'£aio destroy San Juan TelecingoDambecausewecannotallo the n„u» the economy, the historical and cultural ™fl^dingourv.lUg«» resources on which [we] depend . .. Th.s ?<°>e%J t0 us in every way and our lands, would cause great losses irrigation system we would lose our houses, churches, town halls. ^ gre»t sacrdrce and other collective works that we have unto we live from we over many years. We would lose the best " Un ^ ^ , „ would lose the pastures that support^ our 1 vest d «h„ orchards and our fruit trees; wr"°^JloK our raw materials we use for our crafts, we w ;ngs andother our dead are buried, our churches,anUhe«v«. (P ^ among others ed places where we make our oftng&A, of great h-***^ Teopantecuanitlan, a unique ^now and use for-- we would lose all the natural resources , s0 „ any ^ tenance as taught to us by our « WOU'd that we cannot express them all here acumen, j( , Spanish by Catherine Goo [translated from the bp economic The fact that env.ronnaental *"^j£*.<»^ZJS* deprivation explains the mor » 8 has seen »*• but sim, test. The anthropologist Peter_d . ness 0f one^s on their an 'unambiguous statement of the rg rnigh larly convinced that right—«>° 6 !nS <=onc "5- 6d VProfit" ' Water> for««- "*» unf 3,5 ^vc beco ^ For 4ePe""'"down .fc^or t rWeis l it,ngsu^ lr; w to ^ • ■ ° See the e Vever at f P and d'^g3rdful of their *« ,ntTfe «t"rn to n*T°: h >'» theseple^ SUc" as wj, So»'h ref' *up " ""'il me<& and direct rn.de« »'<*f^ tZr^*KoreT"!,tbe Ch3nn^ of community Z^Kopkt ^e*»dc7s'yAn '^"^ networks env'ront Kd >erto Ve ttth^ te\°n« a sufficient number ZT;°f CO"ectne ^ ^ther, there unfo/dsa ed M or 4*«. ^ ^ genera] strfe (fo^ng °r move" °A'Ce °r off cfj^ W°vement) 7 ^'"^ u«;nst ent 'o fin ,•for day, nn which is tosvr- Mn S ^ coil? end; and andokn considered ^ * eucat^^1 culC' ^ °f COU"^ they have f*# Wsca. , yptUs in rnraJ T,S- .^arr)" Lohmann, writing of the °^era7tl0nt^aTij,! and LkC COnremPr of bureaucrats afl* a'd^4-;^oidj^4-f;\raref^ee^ Son govern S'SPf^ng out at semmm, blocking nt °tfices> singing songs composed id to Chapter 6: The Southern Challenge fo<- occas.on. Where other means fail and they are well ™°*f^ n*ed. they are ripping out eucalyptus seedlings either suntpW / °r openly in large mobs, chopping down ^^^dJ^ell ^Udozers and burning nurseries and equipment. At tne n a^e of the need to seize the environmentalist high grou , ^ v^gers are planting-fruit, rubber, and native foresttree. tap^^ repUce eucalyptus and are explaining to sympathetic , ationS_ methods they have used to preserve local forest patches ro g These protests, singly and collectively, are ten by a powerful indigenous ideology of social justic ^ ^ stance, has given Indian environmentalists their mo ^ niques of protest as well as a moral vocabulary to opp ^ [ruction of the village economy by indust' ^nd their ^ewise, take recourse to the Buddha and Buddhism to rulers —t. ers wh ■— j- a c^ear ' ? Pubhcly profess the same religion, that their policies are andfiarm° atI°n °^ tne creectal commitment to justice, moderation gle h,. l Wltn nartire. It is notable that the anti-eucalyptus strug-5JCnas been UA k..t^.., n ■ • ■ ■ V ; ---------/x - o- aas been led by Buddhist priests, known appositely zspbra nakanu raksa, or 'ecology monks.' In Latin America, the ideology most confidently at hand is popular Catholicism and its contemporary van-a™> 'liberation theology,' which makes clear the mandate of the clergy, a*d of the church as a whole, to redirect its energies towards the P°or. Thus the resisters to the San Juan dam asked parish priests to h°ld nightly prayer meetings, walked with images of village patron saints to the site of the dam, and also marched to the cathedral in Mexico City in honor of the hallowed Virgin of Guadalupe. One striking feature of the environmentalism of the poor has been the significant and sometimes determining part played Dy Women. Women have effortlessly assumed leadership roles—as w.tn Medha Patkar or Waangari Matthai, for example-and also contributed more than their fair share to making up the numbers in marches a"d demonstrations, strikes and fasts. They have been unafraid, in an often brutal political culture, of being harrassed, beaten or /ailed. When a Venezuelan feminist writes that in her country today^all wo men's groups are environmentalist regardless of whether^the £now what the environment means,' she could be speaking for women India or Malaysia, Brazil, Kenya and Mexico. Among women in the countryside, certainly, the" » dc £ awareness of the dependence of human society on ful environment. A? tribal woman in the Bastar district ofjemral Indta, herself active in a forest protection campaign, puts it this way. 108 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave 'What will happen if there are no forests? Bbagwan Mahaprabhu [God] and Dharti Maata [Mother Earth] will leave our side, they will leave us and we will die. It is because the earth exists that we are sitting here and talking.' Inspired by such remarks, some feminist scholars posit a near-mystical bond between women and nature, an intrinsic and proto-biological rapport which in their view is denied to men. Other feminists have argued, in my view more plausibly, that the participation of women in environmental movements stems from their closer day-to-day involvement in the use of nature, and additionally from their greater awareness and respect for community cohesion and solidarity. In the divison of labor typical of most peasant, tribal and pastorahst households, it falls on women (and children) to gather Iuelwood, collect water, and harvest edible plants. They are thus more easily able to perceive, and more quickly respond to, the drying up of springs or the disappearance of forests. But it is also the case that women, more than men, are inclined to the long view, to sense, for example, that eucalyptus planted for industry might bring in some quick cash today but will undermine their economic security for torn-morow and the day after (see box). A GRASSROOTS 'ECO-FEMINISM' The response of women in an Andean village to a proposal by male officials to plant eucalyptus: in the community of Tapuc . . . women vehemently said in Quechuathat the transplanted eucalyptus in the parcels of manay must be immediately removed. Manay is an agricultural zone dedicated to the cultivation of root crops, in turns dictated by the system of sectoral flows, with years ot rest in between. The community and individuals of the community exercise control together over the ma«^. Thus, the women, speaking for the community, insisted that these parcels had been inherited from their grandparents to supply root crops, they were not going to feed their children with the eucalyptus leaves. Moreover, where the eucalyptus grows, the soil is impoverished and it does not even grow onions. Source: Enrique Mayer and Cesar Fonseca, Comunidady Produaon el Peru (Lima 1988), p, 187 (translated by juan Martinez Alier). AN INDIA/BRAZIL COMPARISON I move on now to a comparison of the environmental movement as it has unfolded in two large, complex and vitally important Third World countries. Brazil and India have much in common: their sheer size in 109 geographical and demographic terms; the c the history o societies; the deep disparities between C^ Jsored ^ustn ^ ambitious and aggresstve ?"&*™^Joi these P^h have tion; the appalling ecological and social ltuenCies ^Cft last, the emergence of active cnvironmem^co^.^ proper de challenged the prevailing consensus o lopment. After Wo ]d ClC Vanguard°of h^ar Pontlcians ,n b°cn Brazil and India were Jn at sought 1 6 rnovernent among the poorer nations of the globe .Cnt ^est centu aCCOmPiisn in a generation what had taken the afflu-iogists> civil UneS t0 acn,eve- The intelligentsia—scientists, techno-Se^-irnporta SerVants' /eg'slators—manifested an enormous sense of pe°ple out of d' rewin§ triemselves as a chosen elite, leading their Pr°sperity. PrirJ neSS *nto ^&nt' or ^rom disease-ridden poverty to ^ects-—steej n||e ?^P^ace Was given to mammoth and pharaonic pro-U ^as hoped11 S' £^arns' nuclearpower plants and the like—which, Self-Worth ' W°U^ Senerate wealth and instil a sense of pride and C^0usands a?0r,gchePub'ic at large. These projects had their costs— and do2ens° ^eoPie displaced, millions of hectares of forests felled Crit,cism h °u riVers f°uled—but they were at first insulated from aboVe aJj l ! Prestige they enjoyed, the promise they held, and en;oyed a fa-t 6 Were ,njtiatec^ a government which the idea]31/- ^egree °^ P°Pular support. Projects were legitimated ^°rest to national 'sacrifice:' when tribals had to hand over their the ris ■ Paper mi,i> ^r example, or when peasants had to flee from Were off Waters °^ a reservoir designed to inundate their lands, they livejjnOo0>re t^le so^ace that this often unwilling sacrifice of their PreciSei f ^emS made for the greater good of the nation, or more jn i °r tne happy augmentation of its Gross National Product. lie sector1 ^ ^raz^,an a°d Indian models of development, the pub-econ0rn mandated to control the 'commanding heights' of the ro]e lr, Wlt^. private capitalists assigned an important subsidiary ever> aj|generanng wealth. Both public and private firms were, how-the It OWed the virtually free use of nature and natural resources: WeJJ Dejte Prov,ding them timber, water, minerals, electricity, etc. at the ri U°W mar^et Pnces, and also granting them what was, in effect, " In R t0/ree'y P°Mute tne air and the waters. J0Us , az^ the process of industrialization was perhaps more calculi n in India. For one thing, the youthfulness of the national Am ^ anC' t^le existence of an 'untapped frontier' in the form of the an aZ°n ^asin prompted a greater optimism about development and acceleration of the pace at which it was to be carried out. For 110 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave another, the country lacked a tradition of dissent such as Gandhism, which in India provided a cautionary voice to temper the impatience of the planners and developers, forcing them to make haste slowly and to take more account of the human costs involved. A vibrant multi-party system and multi-lingual press also gave freer play JD India to a variety of voices. In Brazil, by contrast, an already fragile polity was captured in 1964 by a military dictatorship that simply wouldn't tolerate opposition to the highways it built or the licenses it gave on generous terms to industrial firms. By the late sixties, however, the failures of state-sponsored industrialization lay exposed in both countries. Poverty refused to go away, the fruits of development, such as they were, being garnered by a minority of affluent urbanites and rural landlords. The latter drove cars, watched television, and used refrigerators like their Northern counterparts, while the majority of their countrymen and women continued to live in huts and shanty towns, cooking their meals with fuelwood or kerosene and relying on their own two feet for locomotion. At the same time, nature lay embattled and scarred, subject to levels of environmental degradation that were, in a word, horrific The social and ecological costs are summed up in the following quotes, both pertaining to Brazil, but both equally true of India. First, some remarks of the sociologist Peter Berger, from his 1974 book Pyramids of Sacrifice: The overall picture that emerges is that of two nations, one relatively affluent, the other in various degrees of misery. Such a state of affairs, of course exists in many countries of the Third World. The sheer size of Brazil, however, with its enormous territory and its population of about one hundred million, makes for a particular situation. Using reasonable criteria of differentiation, one may divide this population into about fifteen million in the sector of affluence and eighty-five million m the sector of misery. To see the economic import of these figures, one must focus on the fact that fifteen million is a very large number of people-indeed, it is the population of quite a few important countries with advanced industrial economies. As one commentator put it, Brazil is a Sweden superimposed upon an Indonesia .. . In this way, the very size of Brazil contributes an additional dimension to the process of polarization. It also contributes a seeming plausibility to the rhetoric of the regime. With a little luck, a visitor mav travel all over the country and see nothing but 'Sweden,1 with some bits of 'Indonesia' either being absorbed into the former or serving as a colorful backdrop for it. This is the dry stuff of economics. Behind it lies a world of human pain. For a very large segment of the population, life continues to be a flitn Struggle 6' The anthem Challenge j ^^T^^^^dL WUrVlVal • ■ • Ml'iiions of P™Pje <" Bra2''J «* ^a!nu?P 'n B«2iJ are fr,S°me/re,itera%st^'"g to death. Millions reai- . rnt]on and lacL f 1Cted wnn diseases directly related to CHlDJn that 0<^ musr / e,ememary P«Wic hygiene ... It is on these are r T^' ^Cw l* W re,ation to the econom'c da« on un-eai,t,es that kill U Stnb,uci°n. and so on. The crucial fact is: These / S?er^e atari ' its^ °f the tiscipUn WlfGn envil'onmemal awareness was not a hail-Of tL terrns, should h S°Clolo8y; thus his diagnosis, accurate on e ecolo£isr fj , suPP^emented by these /ater observations S,5t £duardo Vioia; a7c°ntrolJed , . yransformin °'tat,on or~ the forests and irrationai monoculture ^^azonic lmi3°rtant areas of the south, southeast, centre-west Jr°duction5 tj,e rre^!°n fnto deserts ... The debns of industnal umpecf cffrecti resic*ues of toxics used in agriculture and the sewage g e ^Uah'ty of ]?t.°nvers'nave seriously endangered water resources. Tizd is dreadf J Water suPPnes consumed in the greater part of Staridards. lna< . w^en measured against internationally accepted !?dustria] citi UStna^ases • • • have turned the atmosphere of Brazilian rs Produ jS.'nt0 muhipkers and generators of respiratory diseases. arenotinstal/ a10 Braz^' w*'t^ tne exception of those made for export, a^senCe of antlP°Hution devices ... On top of this, thegeneral ^ ,rrespone^rS Inadecluate treatment of refuse (aided and abetted *nyTvhere a Seccors or" tne population who throw their rubbish formeari ' and a'so by pub/ic departments who rarely make provision 'minefieJd °/r°Per disposal and processing) transform cities into true enV]ronm S I0mtnePoint°fpubh'cheaJth... . Finally, to crown socio-Part of th degradation> the production of arms takes up a significant maicing pC Industn'a^ and scientific-technological effort of the country, 6 vrazjt the fifth exporter of arms in the world league. tills Iita g3J 7 terrn> socioenvironmental degradation, emphasizes how Indian ^ nat"ral abuse, which could have come straight out of an d^aste en^!ronmentalist tract, is as much a human as an 'ecological' also th fellinS °f forests destroys soils and biodiversity, but radjCanr°7S Satherers and collectors out of work. Toxics kill fish and rriUn- • yaiter thep.h. count of rivers, but simultaneously expose com-drinL-lGS to health hazards by contaminating their sole source of **onLW*ter- Car ei^^ons help make Sao Paulo and New Delhi deb,Tg tCn most Poiiuted cities in the world, but also further cess Uate the ^-nourished among urban dwellers. However, this pro-ter ■ °P^rates differentially among social classes, for the rich are bet-nsulated from the environmental degradation they cause, enjoy 112 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave easier access to clean air and water, and can more easily move away from or withstand pollution. At the first major United Nations environmental conference held in Stockholm in 1972, the governments of India and Brazil were vocal in their defense of development over environment. The Indian prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, delivered a stirring speech to the effect that if pollution was the price of progress, her people wanted more of it; the Brazilian representatives hinted, in the same vein, at the conference being a sinister conspiracy to prevent the developing wor d from developing further. Whether these official voices accurately represented the views of citizens was already a moot question. A year before Stockholm, a group of professionals led by the respected agronomist Jose Lutzemberger had founded the Gaucho Association for the Protection of the Natural Environment, or agapan. This is generally held to be the first important environmental initiative m Brazil, the direct analogue of India's Chipko or LUrgencee"tree m°Vemem'which be§an a Ycar after that first U.N. con-In the decades since the founding of agapan and Chipko, environmental^ in both nations has emerged as a genuinely popular move-mem, country-wide in its reach, and taking up a range of ecological nd[social concerns Environmental struggles in Brazil and India have revolved d a shared set of ^ ^ biodi. ersity. i his ls no elitist' environmentalism but a movement that has taken into its fold communities at the bottom of the heap. In Brazil he environmentalism of the poor emanates from urban squatters and indigenous people responding to swift and dramatic degradation (such as pollution and the burning of forests), whereas in India it has been the preserve of long-settled rural communities-farmers, fisher- tolk, pastoralists, and swidden cultivators-responding to the takeover by th Qr b prmte compan.es of ^ ^ resources tney depend on (see box). In both countries protesters have tended to take the militant route, preferring methods of direct action to the patient petitioning of government officials and the judiciary. Brazilian and Indian greens have both been supported by sympathetic coverage in the media. The movements are also united in what they neglect: most strikingly, the role of population growth in fuelling environmental degradation. Catholics in Brazil are temperamentally disinclined to talk of birth control; Gandhians in India dismiss talk of over-population' as 'Neo-Malthusianism;' both group' train their guns on social inequities, in their view more centrally res ponsible for the deterioration of the environment s Chapter 6: The Southern Challenge DEWING THE LAND, AND THE lnl985nxt PEOPLE TOO 'State*^ °^ars> journalists and social workers issued a merit of Shared Concern on the State of India's •j^ environment,' Excerpts: tne British rul tfans^0rmjn& India into a wasteland, which began under ^e most brut'] COntJnue<^ under post-independence governments. resources 0n ■ 3 assau'c has been on the country's common property ar>d increa'S]n 'iS ^razinS tands, forests, rivers, ponds, lakes, coastal zones resourCes has b ^ atrnosphere. The use of these common property at has ied S i^" orSan'sed and encouraged by the stave in a manner Nature ° ^ re^ent^ess degradation and destruction. . . . lUvo]ye(j ■ ■Can never be managed well unless the people closest to it are reguJatecJ h^ mana£ement- ■ ■ ■ Common natural resources were earlier But ZQ thr°U^ averse, decentralized, community control systems. j,c state'<; pin/' £ • governmen PollcY or converting common property resources into centraJj"2e(j l ProPerty resources has put them under the control of ni°re pow rUreaucraaes' wno ln turn had put them at the service of the rhe man Wei" ^ ^°^a^' w,[h no participation of the common people in Iriargina/^wment °^ ^oca^ resources' even [he poor have become so ^Iscoun l .an aiienated from their environment that they are ready to Prance C ^ ^UtUre an^ se^ away the remaining natural resources for a Ind entitie Ses have traditionaJJy been integrated agrosyivopastorai water S' Wit^ gazing lands, agricultural fields, forests and groves, and pro SOurces like ponds, wells and tanks. The state's development ^arnmes have torn asunder this integrated character ofthe villages. . .. tne e Pr°cess of state control over natural resources that started with con^e7°^ °^ co^onjah'5m must be rolled back. The earlier community thecr\° s^stems • ■ • were often unjust and needed restructuring. Given res anSed socio-economic circumstances and greater pressure on natural are UrCes' new community control systems have to be established that rnore highly integrated, scientifically sophisticated, equitable and ^stainable. This is the biggest challenge before India's political system— ot /ust the politicians and their parties, but also citizens and social activists. . . . rnc^a can jjeat ^ proDJem Df poverty, unemployment, rudgeryand oppression only if the country learns to manage its natural resource base in an equitable and ecologically sound way. . . . Source: India; the State of the Environment 1984-85: the Second Citizens' Report (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1985),pp. 394_7i 114 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave Brazil differs from India in at least three major ways, all of which are reflected in the manner in which its environmental movement has at times followed a somewhat divergent path. First, a much higher proportion of its population is based in the cities, where the living conditions—that is, the quality of housing, water, air, and sanitation-vary enormously from locality to locality. The struggle for a better environment in the shanty-towns of Sao Paulo, Rio and the like has been an important feature of the Brazilian green movement. But India is in demographic and cultural terms a more rural-oriented culture. It was Mahatma Gandhi who famously remarked that 'India lives in its villages.' Since most of his followers have followed him in turning their backs to the city, the problems of urban pollution and housing remain low on the environmental agenda. Indian greens have been more comfortable in the forest and countryside, working with peasants plagued by waterlogged soils or with tribals thrown out of their ancestral forest. A second difference stems from the higher levels of literacy and education in Brazil. In the early seventies, while the military was still m power, the educated middle-class-scientists, lawyers, journalists, etc. cautiously began advancing an environmental agenda, at first taking up relatively uncontentious issues such as pollution and the protection of green areas. The organization AGAPAN was in the forest here; it was only with the withdrawal of the military in the late 80s that greens began to more directly challenge the 'system.' In India, on the other hand, environmentalist!! drew abudantly on traditions oi peasant protest; in fact, it was these protests which first alertedthe^intelligentsia to the problems of forest loss, soil erosion and water depletion. One might say that in India the professional middle-class has been reactive, responding slowly and at times unwillingly to the environmentalist* of peasants and tribals; whereas in Brazil it has rU"plaCed t0 colla^rate with and publicize movements of the urban poor as well as of forest-dwellers and dam-dis-placed people. Finally it seems that Brazilian environmemalism has been more deeply influenced by Northern debates. While Silent Spring was translated into Portuguese the year it was first printed in English, trans-national bodies such as the Inte, national Union for the Conser-vation of Nature arid Natural Resources have also had active and influential Brazilian chapters. American environmentalists, and to some extent the American public as well, have closely followed Brazilian developments and at times tried to influence them. Ecologically speaking, the destruction of the great Amazonian rainforest by settler agriculture and industrial mining has direct implications for life in the Chapter 6: The Southern Challenge err>issio t^r°U?n r^e ^oss of biodiversity and a sink to absorb carbon ^as plav"^^1^' °n SOCia^ SJC*e' tneP%nt of indigenous peopJe ages aej POWerfuiJy on the conscience of those whose forefathers .1. ° _amated the native inhabitants of North America. Brazil- ^'-mc thus have a high international visibility; ~^irical and geo- ňe World Bank have naa a «^ the ele. evelopment through destmction. ^ reckoning i might These distinctions matter, but in ironmentalism has ments common to Brazil and India .onrnental m° ward matter more. In both countries tne worK*hUy centrally contributed to a decPenin£ne and a g^-iU 'The citi- a greater openness ^"J^V ^ ^ because if not for decision-makers. As Jose ^e d in polity0 j ht *en is realizing that he needs "P^dcU*] and he the bureaucrats [and, I would add, ť what lS hapP envir0n-over him. He needs to participate t ► ^ ^ countrie- y q{ ufe needs to shout, even if it is m v* ■ a concern witn 4 cQnSt mental movement has moved beyo official version ° ^ ^ .sues' to more directly C^ffi^s Still « ^* these tutes welfare and prosperity ThcPO ^ grce stence or the necessary sacrifices for U'. ^M^nrlps and his associates. Both drew on a and the struggle of Chico Mendes anu iua - 118 Part II. Environmentalism's Second Wave long history of peasant resistance to the state and outsiders: in the Himalayan case, stretching back a hundred years and more. Both thought up novel and nonviolent forms of protest to step tree-felling; protest forms in which women constituted the front-line of defense, a tactical move that worked well in inhibiting loggers. In each case the leadership was provided not by city-bred or educated activists but by 'organic' intellectuals from within the community. Neither struggle was merely content with asking the loggers to go home: the Forest Peoples Alliance proposed sustainable reserves, whereas Chipko workers have successfully mobilized peasant women in protecting and replenishing their village forests. Both movements have AMAZONIAN VOICES In its second national meeting, held in 1989, the Rubber Tappers Council of Brazil offered its 'homage to all those in the struggle who gave their lives for the principles affirming our regional cultures. Especially we remember our most illustrious comrade Chico Mendes.' The Council then resolved to struggle for the following program: POLICIES FOR DEVELOPMENT FOR FOREST PEOPLES 1. Models of development that respect the way of life, cultures and traditions of forest peoples without destroying nature, and that improve the quality of life. 2. The right to participate in the process of public discussion of all the government projects f or f orests inhabited by Indians and rubber tappers as well as other extractive populations, through the associations and entities that represent these workers. \. Public guarantees to scrutinize and curb the disastrous impacts of projects already destined for Amazonia, and the immediate halt of projects that damage the environment and Amazonian peoples. 4. Information on policies and projects for Amazonia and any large projects to be subject to discussion in Congress, with the participation of the organizations that represent those people affected by these projects. Based on these principles, the Council also outlined specific programs for agrarian reform, education and health, credit and marketing, and the protection of human rights. Source: Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn, The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon (London: Penguin, 1990), Appendix E. rai Chapter 6; The Southern Challenge 119 take" recourse societ- ies. The tw T t0 T ldeo^W tnal carries wide appeal in tneir SunderU} Bafi n CiliPko ieaders> Chandiprasad Bhatt and Prjests have UgUna' are hYelong Gandhians. Likewise, Catholic Ca,^d, xvfien SUpP°rted tne ™bber-tappers; and as Chico Mendes reroute rn an"esteo after an empateprotesters would sing hymns en cornparabl \^° rnovement and Chico Mendes's struggle are broadly an°n has fi d W-t °^course' identical. While Himalayan deforest-SOi'J erosi a bing ecological effects—in the shape of increased Zon reD ^ jrjcidence of floods—the clearing of the Ama- extirictio ^ 3 01 Uc^ more serious loss of"biodiversity, through the ^als fTV ° ^undreck of" species of insects, plants, birds and ani-§reater * °ne reason wnY Brazilian movement has attracted On the' contJnuing, international attention than did Chipko). teri2ed h° S1<^e' ^orest conflicts m tne Amazon have been charac-cracy are ^ * mucn higher level of violence. The traditions of demo-°^ Prote rat^Cr ^CS5 r°bust in Brazil than in India, and the expression sigQj'f and ^Jssent more likely there to be met with force. It is n°nviolm W^de we tend to honor the Chipko movement forks rern technique of protest, the Amazon struggle is more often ered, at least outside Brazil, for the violent death of its leader, move nC mUSt note> finally, the prolific misrepresentations of both ten ?ems ^ the international media. The Amazon struggle is of-died 6 UCC^ C° ^C Jmage °^ Chico Mendes as a 'green martyr' who trios t0 SaVe ^e Amazon' trom lts destroyers. Likewise, the Hi P0Puhr image of Chipko is of unlettered women 'saving the QU 3 3^a' ^ tnreatening to hug the trees. There has arisen a mysri-e around Chipko and Chico that unfortunately obscures their real a*d deeper meaning, as struggles in which environmental protection has been inseparable from social justice. ^DEFINING DEVELOPMENT ceding on indigenous ideologies of f Catholicism-and emboldened by a more general assemon of co feminism,' the environmentalism of the poor has P-found rethinking of the idea of ^^^ff^t sympathetic to these movements have ash on^ a cm q dustriaJ and urban bias of government pohaesugge^ -ay to a decentralized, socially aware, en.ronm ntally ^ ^ ^together more^form of development- Ift cntaJists ^rnes drawn explicitly on the ideas of the y Poster of Chico Mendes, leader of the Brazilian rubber-tappers, issued after the assassination of Mendes in December 1988. SOURCE Susanna Heck and Alexander Cockburn, The Fate of the Forest (Verso Books) Estes säo os n^£os da UDR no Acre Dark Ah** 3 r •«äs' DE j , Jlesed filers-alnst^ndeS frhe Forest SOURCE Susanna ti (Verso Books) 122 Part II: Environmentalism's Second Wave discussed in Chapter II. But they have also been enriched by more contemporary thinking in ecology and the social sciences. Deve op^ ment as conventionally understood and practised has been attac e on a philosophical plane, but critics have been forthcoming with no^e-to-the ground, sector-specific solutions as well. In the realm of water management, they have offered to large dams the alternative of sma dams and/or the revival of traditional methods of irrigation such as tanks and wells. In the realm of forestry, they have asked whether community control of natural forests is not a more just and sustain able option when compared to the handing over of public land on a platter to industrial plantations. In the realm of fisheries, they have deplored the favors shown to trawlers at the expense of countryboats, suggesting that a careful demarcation of ocean waters, restricting t area in which trawlers can operate, might allow freer play to in genous methods as well as facilitate the renewal of fish stocks. As in the North then, in the South too there is an active environmental debate as well as environmental movement. To be sure, there are some salient differences to be noted. Where Northern environ-mentalism has highlighted the significance of value change (the shi 1 to 'postmaterialism'), Southern movements seem to be more strong y rooted in material conflicts, with the claims of economic justice that is, the rights to natural resources of poorer communities-being an integral part of green movements. This is why these movements work not only for culture change but also, and sometimes more directly, for a change in the production system (see bo*)' And where Southern groups have tended to be more adversarial wit regard to their government—opposing laws and policies deemed to be destructive or unjust—Northern groups have more often had a constructive side to their programs, working with their governments in promoting environmentally benign laws and policies. In both contexts there has now accumulated a rich body ot re~ flective work to complement direct action: although in the poorer countries the line of causation seems to run the other way, with inte lectual reflection, for the most part, being prompted by or following popular protest (in contrast to the North, where books like SUen Spring might even be said to have sparked off the environmental niove ment). Finally, while Northern greens have been deeply attentiv the rights of victimized or endangered animal and plant species, ^oU^sS em greens have generally been more alert to the rights of the e fortunate members of their own species. One thing that brings together environmentalists in both con^ texts, however, is the anti-environmental lobby they have to conten Chapter 6: The Southern Challenge ENVTRONMENTALISM AND THE DEEPENING OF DEMOCRACY Henry David Thoreau once remarked that Tn Wtldness is the reservation of the World.' The experience of modern Brazil seems to cal for a postscript, that 'In Democracy is the Preservation of the Environment,' as these passages from a recent hook explain: e srrugg]e against environmental degradation has increasingly come to e understood as a part of the democratic struggle to build and consolidate new model for citizenship. Efforts to promote environmental rights ave brought together numerous segments of the social movement, who ave sought to ensure access to essential public goods such as water and air in adequate amounts and with sufficient quality to guarantee decent iving standards; the use of collective goods needed for the social ^production of specific socio-cultural groups such as rubber tappers, nut gatherers, fishermen, and indigenous people; a guarantee for the public use of natural resources such as green areas, waterways, headwaters and ecosystems, which have often been degraded by private interests that are incompatible with society's collective concerns. . . . ■ ■ It [is J clear that in the Brazilian socio-environmental crisis, ecological degradation and social inequality are two branches stemming from the same root, namely, the specific ways in which capitalism has developed in Brazil by throwing peasants off their land, expanding the frontiers of agri-business, encouraging land speculation and deforestation, ^earing out land and drying up rivers, making traditional fishing and forest extractivism unfeasible, adopting an environmentally harmful industrial standard, overloading urban structures, concentrating wealth, and marginalizing population groups. . . . ■ ■ ■ It is necessary to seek a kind of development that is not limited to preserving the supply and prices of natural resources as productive 'nputs. The majority of the Brazilian population is not interested in a kind of development thatpretends to be 'sustainable' simply by technically reconvertingproductive systems and adopting a capitalist rationale in the use of natural resources. We should seek to change the determinant logic of development and make the environmental variable be incorporated as a component of the people's living and working conditions. This kind of change only depends secondarily on possibilities for technical progress. In fact, it depends primarily on the democratization of political processes. ... To democratize control over natural resources, to deprivatize an environment that is common to society and nations, to introduce democracy into environmental administration, and to ensure thepublic character of common natural patrimony constitute the agenda of issues [for the environmental movementj .. . Wee: Henri Acselrad, editor, Environment and Democracy (Botafogo: IBASE, 1992), Preface. 124 Pan II: Environmental!sm's Second Wave with. In countries such as the United States, businessmen and industrialists have been the most hostile critics of the greens. In India and Malaysia they are joined by state officials and technocrats, with both private and public promoters of development attacking environmentalists as motivated by foreigners, as creating law-and-order problems, or as wishing only to keep tribals and rural people 'backward,' placed in a museum for themselves and their fellow romantics to gawk at. I he most famous and powerful of these anti-environmentalists has been the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohammed. In 1990, he announced that he and his government did not intend to turn the Penan into human zoological specimens to be gawked 11ITST StUdi£d b>' anthroPologIsts while the rest of the world \nrZl 7 " ' ' It,SOUrpolicytoeventuallybringa]l jungle dwellers half tirTTr ' • •Thereis^hingromanticaLttheSehelpless, halt-starved and disease-ridden people Llt° mT ll -' m " d°Cument specially prepared for the Earth Summit, Mahathir s government insisted that laXnorl10" fT Te f°reSt dwellin§ t0 viHage and urban living romrim J 1 h?S^arkedthetransformat10nofhumansocieties tnTriTu1 enviro^ental activists have no right to niopmentWay * tHlS Pr0Cess of chanSe and human th^nd rtgard l° the Penan' not >™ * Malaysia, it has been pow"?t 'aT? r°nS °f e~-ental activists to speak truth to tion Dpv 1 P°lltlCiai?S and rulers the uncomfortable questions. Development at what cost? Progress at whose expense?