ENVL 4500- ENVL-4500 NW Field Experience Prep

Angelique Wanek
Professor Tait
10/26/2017

Chapter 5: Neoliberal Boom, 1987-2000: The Rise of Eco-dependence

To begin, leaving the origins era (1978- 1987) and heading into the neoliberal boom of
Ecuador's environmental movement (1987-2000), there was still tension between eco-resisters
and eco-dependents from their relationship with eco-imperialists. Eco-resisters were not the
only group of people that were irritated with eco-imperialist during this time frame. It seems as if
all Ecuadorians had a love-hate (more like hate-hate) relationship with the presence of eco-
imperialism.
For one thing, eco-imperialists who during this time were transnational and international
funders, the main concern was the environment and the environmental movement. On one
hand, eco-imperialist can be credited for stepping up to the plate to cover the weak Ecuador
state that was in place during this time. Through eco-imperialist, many of Ecuador's NGO's were
funded and at one point there was recorded to be about 5,000 present (Lewis,2016, p.81). This
was both a good and bad thing.
With regards to eco-imperialist funding methods, NGOs being established in Ecuador
was the main way of how things got done in Ecuador; water tested, land preserved, regulations
put in place, etc. On the other hand, many argued that NGOs were more focused on
bookkeeping, accounting, and competing for funding money than creating change. It is said, that
due to this internal strife between groups, relationships between similar NGOs were divided
instead of united. These reasons constituted the bad positions of eco-imperialist presence.
Eco-imperialist did not just come into power willy-nilly like, they came to power with the
intention of their agenda being put forward. The eco-imperialist agenda that they came into
Ecuador with focused mainly on "green projects", on environmental issues (Lewis,2016, p.91).
Eco-imperialist also came in with the agenda to ignore "brown issues" which referred to local
issues such as social/environmental issues (Lewis,2016, p.91). The problem with this is that
because eco-imperialist held all the power, for Ecuador's weak state and these organizations
had all the money. So, things were accomplished in Ecuador, but the order of importance of
things done in Ecuador was established by eco-imperialist not the public interest at heart. This
meant that the environmental issues eco-imperialist found important' were often bias issues.
For this reason, activists started to revolt against eco-imperialist.
To compare, eco- dependents opened these organization with open arms. During the
time that eco-imperialist was on the rise, Ecuador was lacking funds for eco-dependent
organizations. Eco-dependents hence became dependent on eco-imperialist to fund their
organizations. Through this exchange, eco-dependents would complete the projects eco-
imperialist would be interested in, to receive funding. So, although there was competition
between different eco-dependent organizations, there was no other way these organizations
would have survived at the time.
 Reflection

While I believe that eco-imperialist was essential during the Neoliberal boom and
impacted the environmental movement, I believe they could have been a little less bias. For
instance, instead of investing in projects that only they believed in, they should have looked at
the bigger picture. Like imagined if these funders encouraged other NGOs to share information
to between each other. Think of the type of ideas that would have been thought of! Or what if
eco-imperialist would have invested more time or energy into brown issues'. Think of the public
backing they would have had. I just believe that Ecuador's environmental movement would have
taken off faster and would have accomplished a lot more if different organizations were helping
each other out. Unlike this scenario where the only communication is a boss-worker scenario
between eco-imperialist and eco-dependents.

References

Lewis, Tammy. L. (2016) Ecuador's Environmental Revolutions: Ecoimperialists,

Ecodependents, and Ecoresisters. MIT Press, 2016.