Extractivism
[13][B] Environmental concerns of extractivism include; climate change, soil depletion, deforestation, loss of food sovereignty, declining biodiversity and contamination of freshwater.
[15] Social and political implications include violation of human rights, unsafe labour conditions, unequal wealth distribution and conflict.
[16] As a result of this, extractivism remains a prominent debate in policy related discourse because while it sometimes delivers high economic gains in the short term, it also poses social and environmental dangers.
[17] Scholarly work on extractivism has since applied the concept to other geographical areas and also to more abstract forms of extraction such as the digital and intellectual realms or to finance.
[17] Regardless of its range of application, the concept of extractivism may be essentially conceived as "a particular way of thinking and the properties and practices organized towards the goal of maximizing benefit through extraction, which brings in its wake violence and destruction".
[18] Guido Pascual Galafassi and Lorena Natalia Riffo see the concept as a continuation of Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America (1971).
[19] Extractivism has been promoted as a potential development path in which raw materials are exported and revenues are used to improve people's living conditions.
[20] In contrast to older forms of extractivism, neo-extractivism regulates the allotment of resources and their revenue, pushes state-ownership of companies and raw materials, revises contracts, and raises export duties and taxes.
More commonly, the people at these sites experience worsened living conditions, such as in the cases of extraction from Indigenous communities in Canada’s boreal forest.
Álvaro García Linera, Vicepresident of Bolivia from 2005 to 2019 wrote:[23] The concept of extractivism has been criticized by Nicolás Eyzaguirre, Chilean Minister of Finance between 2000 and 2006, who cites the mining sector of Australia as a successful example of a "deep and sophisticated value chain", with high human capital, self-produced machinery and associated top-tier scientific research.
[3] During colonization, large quantities of natural resources were exported from colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas to meet the demands of metropolitan centres.
Many Indigenous scholars argue that extractivism opposes their philosophy of living in balance with the earth and other life forms in order to create abundance.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar and writer, compares these ideas of destruction versus regeneration in her book A Short History of the Blockade.
It’s taking something, whether it’s a process, an object, a gift, or a person, out of the relationships that give it meaning, and placing it in a nonrelational context for the purposes of accumulation.” The colonial action of theft goes beyond only extracting from the earth.
She writes, "Extractivism ran rampant under colonialism because relating to the world as a frontier of conquest- rather than a home- fosters this particular brand of irresponsibility.
[29] However, the government still plays an important role in leading development by determining which TNCs they allow to extract their resources and how thorough they are when it comes to enforcing certain standards of social responsibility.
It is argued that the emergence of this industry in the neo-liberal context has allowed extractivism to contribute to stabilizing growth rates, increasing direct foreign investment, diversifying local economies, expanding the middle class and reducing poverty.
[3] It is often falsely assumed that technological advancements will enable resources to renew more effectively and as a result make raw material extraction more sustainable.
[32] Global climate change, soil depletion, loss of biodiversity and contamination of fresh water are some of the environmental issues that extractivism contributes to.
[36] TNCs can take advantage of more lenient health and safety conditions in developing countries and pay inadequate wages in order to maximize their profits.
[36] As well, foreigners usually fill the highest paying managerial positions, leaving local community members to do the most labour intensive jobs.
[37] Frequently, the enclaves where extractivism occurs are distanced from government involvement, therefore allowing them to avoid being subjected to the enforcement of national laws to protect citizens.
[38] It is argued that prolonged social transformation cannot thrive on export dependent extractivism alone therefore making neo-extractivism a potentially flawed development method on its own.
The conflicts are driven because Indigenous lives are put in jeopardy when they are dispossessed, when they lose their livelihoods, when their water and land is polluted and the environment is commodified.
In protest of the logging project on their land, the Penan of Borean Malaysia claimed it was a case of civil disobedience as a means to end it and succeeded.
In ‘89, Kayapó peoples stood up against the building of dams on their land in Pará, Brazil, causing their funding to be stopped and successfully ending the project.
