A political ecology of industrial tree plantations with special reference to cameroon and ecuador
- Autores: Gerber Julien François
- Directores de la Tesis: Joan Martínez Alier (dir. tes.), Giorgos Kallis (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2010
- Idioma: inglés
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Víctor Toledo (presid.), Cristóbal Kay (secret.), Joachim Spangenberg (voc.)
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: TESEO
- Resumen
For many Southern economies, commercial plantations are as central as factories for Northern industrialized countries. They provide an ideal setting for investigating the effects of capitalist expansion into the rural sphere. I focus on conflicts over industrial tree plantations (mainly eucalypts, oil palms and rubber trees) because they are rapidly expanding and causing a growing number of protests. Through carbon sinks and agrofuels, they are also at the core of current global warming debates. My broad research question tackles the nature of these resistance movements. Methodologically, I carried out one year of anthropology-oriented field research, cross-checking my interview data with the widest possible variety of other sources. Theoretically, I combined a political ecology questioning with concepts taken from institutional economics, agrarian studies and ecological economics. In Southern Cameroon, I study the resistance of Bulu communities against a large-scale rubber plantation. The establishment of the latter has been preceded by the expropriation of customary land and by deforestation. Mostly "hidden" resistance has occurred, whose roots reflect the struggle between two distinct institutional logics with different impacts on the environment, i.e. the logic of property versus the one of possession. Conflict between these two logics is at the heart of many cases of "environmentalisms of the poor". In Ecuador, I analyse the resistance campaign of a local NGO against an industrial eucalypt monoculture. I situate it within the evolution of local land conflicts opposing the penetration of capitalist landowners. While former conflicts were operating in the context of the agrarian reform, current NGO campaigns are active in the context of extended globalization and have specialized in the struggle against the expansion of industrial export monocultures. This shift from agrarian reform struggles to ecology-oriented conflicts corresponds to "the greening of the agrarian question". I then use evidence from both case studies to show how elements of political ecology and ecological economics can be combined for understanding the nature of such conflicts. Both are expressed as valuation contests. Furthermore, the metabolism of such monocultures offers an analytical framework to understand the material basis of these contests. At the input stage, there are access conflicts over land and water resources. At the output stage, impacts take the form of externalities. Such metabolism is sustained by a given politico-institutional configuration embodied in property rights and state laws. I then provide an overview of conflicts over commercial tree plantations worldwide. I find that the prominent immediate cause of resistance is related to corporate control over land resulting in displacements and the end of local uses of ecosystems. Although authorities have often responded by repression, popular struggles have been successful in some places. Smallholders form the mass base of such movements and are particularly inclined to link with "environmental justice" ideas. Finally, I conclude that while policies promoting large-scale tree plantations should be stopped, another policy focus should be on a consumption reduction of plantation products and fossil fuels, particularly in industrialized countries.
