Environmental Governance in Latin America

Societal change in Latin America is intimately related to nature and natural resources. In this resource-rich region, nature–society relations provide both opportunities and challenges in achieving more fair, equitable and sustainable development. Nearly half of the world’s tropical forests are found in the region, next to several other natural biomes, which together carry a wealth of biodiversity. It holds one-third of the world’s freshwater reserves and one-quarter of the potential arable land. And despite five centuries of extractive activities to serve global markets, the region still holds large volumes of important mineral reserves, including oil, gas, iron, copper and gold (Bovarnick, Alpizar and Schnell, 2010). On the other hand, this “biodiversity superpower” has seen a fast rate of biodiversity loss, increasing ecosystem degradation and one-third of the world’s carbon emissions, mostly a result of the expansion of extractive activities and land-use change (UNEP, 2012). Together, these economic and ecological developments affect a large number of different social groups in all Latin American countries, primarily in rural areas but also in cities. Next to mobilizations and conflicts that attract national and international attention, there are numerous local socioenvironmental tensions that lead to longstanding economic problems and social injustice.

The debate on the socioenvironmental challenges faced by Latin America has a long history. This history is crucial to understanding Latin American perspectives on environmental governance and, above all, to understanding the specific characteristics which determine these perspectives. Traditional debates on environmental governance tend to see the Western debates on nature and environment as determining views and perspectives on a global scale. The suggestion is that Latin American environmental debates were directed by the changing views in the industrialized world. This chapter, however, suggests that Latin America has developed its own strands and perspectives on environmental issues which were emerging from its peculiar historical position. A focus on the specific, and to a large extent autonomous, knowledge development on nature and environment allow us to understand the determining roots of Latin American ideas on environmental governance.

The natural resource conflict dimension of environmental governance is usually centred on the social and political aspects of production systems and has hardly addressed the biophysical features of the natural resources themselves. Here we aim to address renewable and non-renewable resource-extraction conflicts in Latin America in the context of a changing global social metabolism and increasing demands for environmental justice (M’Gonigle, 1999; Sneddon, Howarth and Norgaard, 2006; Gerber, Veuthey and Martínez-Alier, 2009; Martinez-Alier et al., 2010). “Social metabolism” refers to the manner in which human societies organize their growing exchanges of energy and materials with the environment (Fischer-Kowalski, 1997; Martinez-Alier, 2009). In this chapter we use a sociometabolic approach to examine the material flows (extraction, exports, imports) of Latin American economies and furthermore look into the socioenvironmental pressures and conflicts that they cause. Sociometabolic trends can be appraised using different and complementary indicators. For instance, the Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP) measures to what extent human activities appropriate the biomass available each year for ecosystems (Haberl et al., 2007). Other examples are indicators that study virtual water flows, the energy return on investment (EROI) or a product life cycle.

Since the 1990s, several international agreements (Article 8J of the Biological Diversity Convention, 1992) and international protocols (Nagoya Protocol, 2010) have begun to assess the capacity of indigenous knowledge to contribute to socioeconomic progress as well as to environmental protection. In the course of this process, the knowledge and practices of peasants and natives have been called to the rescue to resolve a number of new problems. These include the loss of biodiversity, threats from carbon dioxide emissions and environmental conservation, with consequent debates about the property rights of local and autochthonous populations — such as that on “biopiracy” versus “bioprospection”. However, the farming methods favoured by the indigenous populations often conflict with national development projects oriented towards the market economy. This discrepancy gives rise to tensions and to local, national and international conflicts that can be observed throughout Latin America. They are typified in a country such as Mexico, which will serve here as an example. Mexico has been the subject of a number of studies¹ and is often seen as a laboratory of both ideas and long-term development projects related to these issues. It has 12% of the biodiversity of the planet; natural vegetation occupies more than 71% of its territory, and its forest resources occupy 64.8 million Ha,² 70% of which belong to autochthonous and peasant communities (OCDE, 2013).

In 2005 and 2006, anti-neoliberal coalitions won the elections in Bolivia and Ecuador, respectively. In both countries, this development put an end to the rules that had regulated the use of natural resources in hydrocarbon extraction during the latter part of the twentieth century (Hogenboom, 2014). The post-neoliberal governments constructed new institutions for the governance of extractive-industry activities. The new rules of the game have changed the way in which the Andean countries govern extractive industries. It has not put an end to their dependence on income generated from natural resources, but it has changed the way in which that income is distributed.

The topic of elites has always been controversial in Latin American social sciences. Elites have been studied indirectly as landowners, capitalists, business-leaders or politicians, and have also been approached directly using concepts and theory from elite studies. Although there is a significant amount of literature on the role of elites in democratic transformations (see e.g. Higley and Gunther, 1992), elites have often been considered to be an obstacle to the formation of more democratic, prosperous and egalitarian societies (e.g. Paige, 1997; Cimoli and Rovira, 2008). This is also the case in the literature on environmental governance, in which elite groups are often considered to be an obstacle to sustainable development and an obstacle to establishing more equitable influence over the use and benefits of natural resources. Therefore, although an elitist conservation movement has long existed in Latin America, struggles to protect the environment from overexploitation and contamination have commonly been related to struggles against local, national and transnational elites by subaltern groups (Martínez-Alier, 2002; Carruthers, 2008; chapters 1 and 2 in this volume).

Mining activity has undeniable environmental impacts due to the nature of its operations, processing plants and foundries. Mining companies proclaim their environmental responsibility by implementing policies that limit environmental risk and impact, while also applying new technologies and production processes that are more respectful of the environment. The degree of efficacy of these sustainability measures and the degree to which companies voluntarily ensure environmental care cannot belie the fact that – no matter what – mining activity has and will always have environmental impacts. There are two major points of view about the subject, according to Whitmore (2006). On the one hand, there are the views of companies – that is to say, the actors who control the mining bulldozers and claim to ensure that everything goes well and that mining is, or can be, sustainable. On the other hand, there are the views of those who are affected by mining activity, such as the communities, peasants and indigenous peoples who are displaced without proper consultation, who suffer illnesses, and whose lifestyles, health and environment are impacted.

Latin America is home to alarming poverty rates and the greatest inequality gap in the world (ECLAC, 2010). The concentration of wealth has disadvantaged local populations and their needs, while simultaneously driving the degradation and destruction of natural resources. This process has rendered serious implications for climate change (IPCC, 2007; Sandberg and Sandberg, 2010). While economic constraints are perhaps the most important aspect of poverty, they are only one of many that impede the personal development of the population (Cimadamore and Cattani, 2008; Cimadamore and Sejenovich 2010).

Global interest in and attention to forests have grown as concerns about global warming and climate change have taken a heightened position in international policy debates. Forests have been repositioned in international arenas as repositories of global value for their contribution to carbon sequestration and climate mitigation (Fairhead and Leach, 2003; Peet, Robbins and Watts, 2011). In this context, Latin American forests are seen as globally important in fighting climate change.

In the context of the prevailing abundance of diversity (biological, ethnic), the profound social inequalities, and the trends and attitudes of hegemonic forces in Latin America, a coherent process of environmental governance is proving difficult and environmental injustice is aggravated. In virtually every country in the region, increasing subordination to the global market has led to dramatic transformations in productive structures and processes along with the often violent opening of new territories to domestic and foreign investment in renewable energy projects, primary production for international markets, and natural resources exploitation. These changes are provoking direct confrontations between, on the one hand, domestic policy-makers, well-financed investors positioned to operate in international markets, purveyors of technologies, investors with concessions in regions and sectors recently opened to foreign investment, and, on the other hand, organized groups from many parts of society who see these penetrations as a menace to their productive systems, to their livelihoods and their health, while also being destructive of their communities, their cultures and the ecosystems on which they and we all depend. Regardless of where one turns in the region, there is an increase in the number and intensity of conflicts between groups committed to promoting economic development (i.e. growth), and those claiming to speak for the planet and/or the welfare of the large majority of the population or particular minorities, who feel excluded from these processes and are bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of these activities.

This collection represents a milestone in the political ecology of environmental governance in Latin America. Given the enduring tension between the environment and development, its overarching purpose in my reading of the text is to elucidate the headway, obstacles and potential of our times to achieving the aspirations and goals of sustainable development, particularly in some of its early versions. Because this is a highly contested concept, and one that some of the contributors to this volume would most likely reject, I use it heuristically. It offers a platform from which to discuss the necessity of environmental governance that genuinely addresses environmental protection, social equity and broad-based political participation in the context of (largely) capitalist development; and this, in my view, is the central subject of the book.