Indigenous

movements and environmental conflicts in Latin

America
Isabel Granados Hidalgo
013863195

ESSAY
Kehityskysymykset ja yhteiskunnallinen liikehdint Latinalaisessa Amerikassa
University of Helsinki
5.4.2014

ESSAY
Indigenous movements and environmental conflicts in Latin America

With the high demand for raw material, Latin American countries are struggling between
economic growth and human rights, environmental problems and respect for indigenous
peoples way of life. This tension is especially visible in the Amazonian region where
countries like Bolivia and Ecuador are trying to balance exploitation of gas and oil with
nature protection. They are coincidentally the countries with the biggest indigenous
populations. For example, in Peru, one of the most biodiverse countries, extraction
policies have been especially aggressive and extensive. (Schmall, 2011)

Indigenous rights have been a powerful driver for mobilization in the entire region as
indigenous communities face the forces that threaten to harm them, displace them, and
push them toward cultural disintegration. Indigenous leaders unite forces with
environmental activists to re-evaluate the traditional ecological knowledge of their
ancestors; it is often very difficult to separate environmental and resource claims from
indigenous recognition and autonomy. (Carruthers, 2008:10)

The challenges brought by competition for natural resources and the policies of
extractive exploitation, and extensive agriculture and cattle rising are also present in the
Andean region. Campesino peasant and farmworker identities have been the base for
political participation in rural areas of Latin America, which has often lead inevitably to
violence, clashes and struggles. (Carruthers, 2008:10)

According to Newell (2011: 63), Latin American activists have fewer resources, are more
constantly challenged and are more weakly empowered than their North American
counterparts. For example, in many cases in Latin America, the government has ignored
local opposition to extractive activities and private investments, which is eager to attract
new investors and facilitate their activities.

The trend of new regional trade politics and agreements in Latin America has created a
series of challenges and threats for different social movements, which have started to

gather under the claim of environmental justice. Trade agreements deal with control of
natural resources, such as gas, oil, minerals and water, agriculture and knowledge,
through intellectual property rights, which then become the reasons of conflict between
regional and global capital actors, and indigenous peoples and environmental groups
interested in social justice. (Newell, 2008: 52)

Nevertheless, it is important to overcome and surpass simplistic and erroneous
representations of indigenous peoples as native protectors of the environment, children
of the forest and novel savages, who lived in perfect harmony with the untouched
nature. Recent research suggests that Amazonians used to practice agriculture
intensively and regularly. Furthermore, it is possible that some Amazonian nations used
to depend heavily on agriculture and used to be far larger in population, but then were
forced to live in smaller groups on hunting and gathering because of sicknesses and
warfare. (Nygren, 2014)

In many nature preservation projects, the promoters have associated indigenous
peoples as passive children of forest with the aim of reinforcing the goals of biodiversity
protection. Many Latin American indigenous peoples have rejected these
representations; indigenous movements have denounced the asymmetry of the
relationships between the networks of local populations and environmental
organizations (Ibid). Undoubtedly, transnational environmental organizations have
better access to international networks and have far more material resources than
indigenous movements.

Above all indigenous representatives have criticized the way their traditional customs of
using natural resources and conceiving their habitat is utilized by European or North
American environmental organizations to achieve their own objectives. In this way, the
indigenous goals of recognition of land property, the improvement of rights to use
natural resources and autonomy reinforcement through international networks are
ignored. (Ibid)

Nevertheless, traditional outfits and body adornments are a big asset for indigenous
peoples since their leaders and representatives can use them as a way to attract media
attention and convey messages that would benefit their own agendas. Exoticism and
fascination with indigenous way of life help indigenous movements to obtain media
coverage and to raise awareness of their plights. Some indigenous nations have learned
to use this opportunity to participate in the international environmental debate and gain
access to international mass media, environmental initiatives and development projects,
by presenting themselves in their traditional outfits, performing rituals and shamanic
ceremonies and revitalizing old traditions and languages in order to reaffirm their
identity as Indigenous peoples (Graham, 2002).

On the other hand, according to Nygren (2014) the international networking of
indigenous peoples has acquired characteristics of ethnic nationalism. Notions of who
gets to talk in the name of indigenous and local populations and who has the right to
define the discourses of environment and development are extremely delicate. Mestizos
and other local populations as well as Andean indigenous peoples trying to participate in
the environmental debate do not receive the same attention as Amazonians. However, it
is true that lowland or Amazonian indigenous peoples are more vulnerable to sudden
changes and the intervention of outsiders in their territories since their communities are
usually smaller than highland or Andean indigenous communities, and they have less
experience in dealing with other ethnic and economic groups. Andean indigenous
peoples have a longer history of being assimilated and forced to coexist with different
state institutions and civil society.

New social movements in Latin America demonstrate that racial arguments are still a
valid practice utilized by progressive social actors with positive results. Indigenous, black,
feminist, gay and lesbian, and environmental movements among others challenge
hegemonic notions of who counts as a political actor, what counts as a political issue,
and where politics happens. In particular, indigenous and Afro-descendants movements
have initiated intense debates on nation-building projects predicated on homogenous
and homogenizing conceptions of the citizen as mestizo or ladino, whereas some

indigenous movements demand autonomy and sovereignty in their territory

constructing notions of nationalism based on ethnicity. (Sundberg, 2008:30)

Environmental problems, conflicts for resources, human rights, social inequality, poverty
and exclusion from society are all connected factors that affect and influence each other.
As Nygren states, the disappearance of tropical forest and the impoverishment of
cultivated land are affected mainly by control of natural resources and conditions of land
ownership, state agricultural, forest and environmental policies and also international
markets of tropical products. Poverty is rarely the straight reason for environmental
problems in Latin America. I would add that poverty is, especially in the case of
indigenous peoples, the result of environmental problems caused by external
investment and extractive policies.

Current environmental threats for indigenous communities are the hydrocarbon
exploitation and gold mining. These activities cause deforestation due to the continuous
large scale transportation of workers and heavy machinery; the setting of camps,
heliports and paths; the pollution of water caused by high temperature water mixed
with heavy metal and the use of mercury in gold mining. Workers arrive with their
families and relatives, who inhabit areas close to indigenous territories and start
cultivating coca to subsist. The Amazonian indigenous have to deal with all these
changes and in most cases they become unable to control their territory socially,
politically or economically. (Greene, 2006; Fano, 2009)

Furthermore, social problems like prostitution, alcoholism and human trafficking
become a reality in these communities. Since indigenous peoples are usually providers of
low profitability goods and cheap labour force, it is clear that these new development
and economic activities do not really benefit them. Nevertheless, according to Greene
(2006) and Fano (2009), thanks to the close ties Indigenous organizations have with
international networks and the strict neo-liberal policies of the governments, the
indigenous organizations are becoming a new force, strong enough to stop invasive
development projects, and to defend their own rights. In the last two decades, the
Amazonian indigenous movements in the region played a vital role in the formation of a

transnational Amazonian coalition in South America, participated in the creation of new

indigenous legislation in the UN, and constructed a global alliance between indigenous
peoples and environmental activists. (Ibid)

To sum up, I believe the alliance between indigenous movements and environmental
activism is a strategic opportunity to reorganize the management of natural resources,
to promote social and political equality, and to assure the participation of indigenous
peoples and other ethnic minorities or discriminated sectors of the population in the
process of decision-making. It is extremely important to foster the revival and learning of
the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples as well as to guarantee the active
participation of these minorities in the social, political and economic life of the countries
they live in.

References:

Carruthers, David (2008). Environmental Justice in Latin America. MIT Press:
Massachusetts, London.
Fano Morrissey, Laura (2009). The Rise of Ethnic Politics: Indigenous movements in the
Andean region Development. Society for International Development. 52 (4): 95
499.
Graham, Laura (2002). How should and Indian speak? Amazonian Indians and the
symbolic politics of language in the global public sphere. In Warren, Kay & Jackson,
Jean (Eds.), Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin
America (pp. 181-228). University of Texas Press: Austin.
Greene, Shane (2006). Getting over the Andes: The Geo-Eco-Politics of Indigenous
Movements in Peru's Twenty- First Century Inca Empire. Journal of Latin American
Studies. 38 (2): 327 354.
Newell, Peter(2008). In Carruthers, David (ed.) Environmental Justice in Latin America.
MIT Press: Massachusetts, London.
Nygren, Anja (2014). Ymprist ja yhteiskunta. In Kettunen, Harri and Vuola, Elina (eds)
Latinalainen Amerikka. Ihmiset, kulttuuri, yhteiskunta. Vastapaino: Tampere.
Schmall, Emily (2011). The Devils Curve: Faustian Bargains in the Amazon. World
Policy Journal 28 (1): 111 118.
Sundberg, Juanita (2008). In Carruthers, David (ed.) Environmental Justice in Latin
America. MIT Press: Massachusetts, London.