Environmental Politics: Perspectives from the South

1. Environmental Politics:
Perspectives from the South
Pham Van Dung
12 April 2011

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Question 1
• How do you evaluate the environmental
movement in developing countries?

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. Question 2
• How do you comment on the unequal
trade relation between North and South
(especially relating to toxic pesticides)

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. Question 3
• How can citizens (subaltern/
nonconsumers and consumers) address
and contribute to improve social
responsibility of businesses?

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. Question 4 & 5
• What is the strongest influence to
international environmental negotiations?
• What are essential factors to improve
North-South environmental cooperation?

28. Thank you!