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CO2lonialism and the “UnintendedConsequences” of CommoditizingClimate Change: Geographies of HopeAmid a Sea of Oil Palms in the NorthwestEcuadorian Pacific RegionJulianne A. Hazlewood aa Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington,Kentucky, USA

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Journal of Sustainable Forestry, 31:120–153, 2012Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1054-9811 print/1540-756X onlineDOI: 10.1080/10549811.2011.566539

CO2lonialism and the “UnintendedConsequences” of Commoditizing

Climate Change: Geographies of HopeAmid a Sea of Oil Palms in the Northwest

Ecuadorian Pacific Region

JULIANNE A. HAZLEWOODDepartment of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA

Reduction of greenhouse gases as prescribed by the Kyoto Protocolencourages substituting fossil fuels with biofuels. Ecuador’sengagement with such climate change policy frameworks and sub-sequent biofuel production plans have led to drastic landscapetransformation. Since the implementation of the first large-scaleoil palm (Elaeis guineensis) plantation in the Canton of SanLorenzo, Esmeraldas province in 1998, palm monoculture hasreplaced 22, 242 ha of Ecuador’s coastal Chocó rainforest. Therecent and rapid expansion of oil palm plantations has seri-ous and detrimental socio-ecological repercussions for the local

This article is the result of collaboration on all levels, for which I am deeply appreciativeand would like to express my sincere gratitude. I dedicate this article to the San Lorenzocommunities, whose friendship, strength, and positivity I carry with me and to whom I feelindebted for all they have shared with me over the years. I am also very thankful to mydissertation advisor, Susan M. Roberts, for her inspiration and guidance in organizing mycurrent doctoral research project. Additionally, I extend much appreciation to my colleaguesDaniel Ortega-Pacheco, Emily Billo, and especially, Allison Harnish, as well as to my mentors,Morgan M. Robertson, and again, Sue Roberts, for their direction and comments on earlierdrafts of this article. I would then like to profoundly thank Chisato Tomimura as well asthe anonymous reviewers’ for their hard work and patience during the article’s publicationprocess in the JSF . Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the Inter-American Foundation,the National Science Foundation, and University of Kentucky’s Geography and Latin AmericanStudies Departments for financial support. Finally, I am grateful to FLACSO-Ecuador andparticularly the Altropico Foundation for their institutional support and assistance during myresearch period in always lively, and most certainly lovely Ecuador.

Address correspondence to Julianne A. Hazlewood at [email protected].

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Geographies of CO2lonialism and Hope 121

Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous communities. This article high-lights both the agro-ecological and cultural practices and theinter-ethnic networks through which these communities constructand sustain “geographies of hope” amid landscapes character-ized by fallen forests, poisoned rivers, social conflicts, and a seaof oil palms. Drawing on the theoretical linkages between cli-mate change, colonialism, and capitalism, this study investigatesSan Lorenzo as an agricultural frontier where “CO2lonialism” isarticulated through biofuel (oil palm) production. Expounding onthe ecological debt of the Global North to the Global South, thisarticle critically examines actions and discourses that bulldozerainforests, livelihoods, and constructive discussions regarding theglobal warning of global warming.

KEYWORDS oil palm, Afro-descendents, biofuel, climate changemitigation, Ecuador, Esmeraldas, geographies of hope, indigenouspeoples (Chachi and Awá), sumak kawsay (vivir bien living well),rights of Nature

INTRODUCTION

In 1997, the Canton of San Lorenzo, located in the Northwest EcuadorianPacific Region and in the province of Esmeraldas, was accessible merely bya mud and gravel road descending slowly from the Andean city of Ibarra.The road traversed switchbacks that crossed rivers and waterfalls as it cutthrough jagged mountains and dense tropical forests. The forests stretchedfrom cloud-enveloped highlands and extended all the way into the lowlandcoastal regions. Today, the Ibarra-San Lorenzo highway is paved with manygravel logging roads branching outward from it. Migrant settlers, trying toeke out a living along the roadsides, have cleared hillside forests in higherelevations for cattle ranching and agriculture. Yet, the most striking change inthe landscape is encountered in the lowlands of the Canton of San Lorenzo:a seemingly endless sea of oil palms (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) swallowingthe ancestral territories of Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous Awá and Chachipeoples.

These oil palm plantations invade both the natural and cultural worldsof San Lorenzo in detrimental ways. Within the Afro-Ecuadorian village of LaChiquita, the Awá village of Guadualito, and the Chachi village of La Ceiba(Rodas & Hazlewood, 2009a; see Figure 1), four major effects of oil palmexpansion have been identified: (a) destruction of native forests (Bernis &Cárdenas, 2007; Cárdenas, 2007; Benalcázar, 2009) and loss of innumer-able endemic and/or endangered flora and fauna habitats (Nuñez Torres,2004; Koh & Wilcove, 2009); (b) contamination of rivers—through improper

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FIGURE 1 Study sites in Canton of San Lorenzo, Esmeraldas, Ecuador (Rodas & Hazlewood,2009a) (color figure available online).

disposal of agrochemicals and oil palm processing runoff—and resultanthealth problems for the people of the communities (Nuñez Torres, 2004);(c) dispossessions of territory and instigation of social conflicts between thehistorically peaceful indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities (Misiónde Verificación, 2007); and (d) violations of indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorianpeople’s rights to food security and food sovereignty and to living well(Misión de Verificación, 2007).

Oil palm plantations have transformed San Lorenzo residents fromlargely self-sufficient people into “castaways”; once able to travel freelythrough one another’s lands and across national borders, they are nownearly stranded on dispersed and isolated landholdings that resemble islandsin a growing sea of palms (see Figure 2). As the demand for biofuel contin-ues to increase (WWF Germany, 2007)—and as oil palm is four times moreproductive than any other oil-producing crop (Rieger, 2006)—it is likely thatthe sea of palm monoculture will expand further across the world, threaten-ing to engulf the territories of indigenous and other marginalized peoples atan accelerated pace. The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN, 2007) hascoined the term CO2lonialism to emphasize the colonial nature of biofuelproduction and other invasive “green” business ventures encouraged underglobal climate change policies. These policies are often formulated with lit-tle to no input from rural Afro-descendent and indigenous peoples whose

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FIGURE 2 The author with a collaborator on the perimeter of his 42-ha farm/forest islandsurrounded by a 4000+ ha sea of oil palms owned by Palpailon S.A. oil palm company(photo by Daniel Ortega-Pacheco) (color figure available online).

communities and lands are most severely affected by climate change and itsmitigation strategies.

Indigenous peoples’ and environmental organizations claim that biofueldevelopment and carbon trading, spurred by the Kyoto Protocol’s (UnitedNations, 1998) market-based mechanisms, are “false solutions to climatechange” (Global South Workshop, 2007; IEN, 2007; Tebtebba Foundation,2008; Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change [IPGSCC],2009). Further, they maintain that Northern industrialized economies (Annex1 countries in the Kyoto Protocol) are transforming a global ecologicaldisaster into a multi-trillion-dollar enterprise (Zarembo, 2007; IndigenousEnvironmental Network, personal communication, April 21, 2008). As Tauli-Corpuz and Tamang (2007) write, global warming as a social and envi-ronmental problem has ceased to evoke fears about the looming threat tohuman and ecological well-being, and has come, instead, to represent “ . . .

a business endeavor which offers opportunities to gain new property rights,assets, and openings for capital accumulation” (p. 9).

Examining the case of palm oil production in San Lorenzo, Ecuador,this article joins such critiques. This article takes a critical stance toward the

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international biofuel market—which is purchasing up the palm oil producedin San Lorenzo—and challenges global climate change mitigation policy andthose seeking to capitalize on “green” markets like biofuels without sufficientknowledge of the socio-ecological effects of their development. Drawing onexisting works, this article links the landscapes of injustice and isolation wit-nessed in San Lorenzo to a persistent colonial air that permeates North-Southrelations and that guides present discourses surrounding climate change andalternative fuel technologies. Instead of recognizing global climate change assymptom of an inherent defect of capitalism, the Global North continues toexploit both the Earth and the Global South, enacting new forms of extrac-tion and exploitation that are specific to time and place, but are enduringlycolonial (P. Louis, personal communication, April 22, 2009; IPGSCC, 2009).

The relationships between capitalism, colonialism, and climate changeexplained in this article are drawn from 13 yr of research experienceand observations of oil palm plantation expansion in San Lorenzo Canton.In investigating similarly oppressive relationships in other contexts, schol-ars have previously focused on “geographies of violence” (Blomley, 2003;Beroiz, 2005; Gregory & Pred, 2006). This research takes a differentapproach by focusing on “geographies of hope”—the agro-ecological andcultural practices and inter-ethnic networks that create possibilities of socialand environmental justice, and ultimately, peace (Harvey, 2000; Braun,2005; Agnew, 2007; Blomley, 2007; Hyndman, 2007; Klinkenberg, 2007;Lawson, 2007; Radcliffe, 2007; Sparke, 2007; Wolch, 2007)—in San Lorenzo.Geographies of hope encompass what Escobar (2008) refers to as “peace-with-justice” (p. 17) processes. Integral to one another, peace and justiceare potentialities toward which people constantly struggle, but they aredifficult—if not impossible—to attain, as definitions of peace and justiceand their acceptability continuously change through time. It is only throughinvolving those peoples most heavily affected by climate change—due toancestral ties to their lands—in climate change mitigation policy decisionsand through engaging diverse perspectives and multiple ways of knowing(Wildcat, 2009) that we can understand the implications of global cli-mate change and its mitigation, facilitate peace-with-justice, and construct“geographies of hope”.

The first section of this article examines the current climatic events assymptoms of a global socio-economic crisis. The concept of CO2lonialismand its key role in understanding climate change mitigation policy arediscussed with perspectives on global economic, political, and discursivedrivers of destructive biofuel development policies that lead to the desper-ate isolation of San Lorenzo communities. The second section examines thestate of CO2lonialism in San Lorenzo; namely, how these expanding oil palmplantation monocultures have created both environmental predicamentsand social conflicts. It demonstrates that the “unintended consequences”of commoditizing climate change via biofuel production and using new

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colonial strategies are irreversible. Here, the phrase of “unintended con-sequences” is used in reference to the language that certain economists andnatural scientists use in a subtle effort to shift the responsibility for the neg-ative social and environmental consequences of climate change mitigationaway from those who are responsible for the policies.

The third section explicates an alternative interpretation of the phrase“unintended consequences,” whereby oil palms have catalyzed “unin-tended” or unexpected consequences of a distinctive sort: two distinctivegeographies of hope constructed by Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian com-munity members. Encouraged by the rights of all San Lorenzo residents(human and non-human) “to living well” guaranteed by the new Ecuadorianconstitution enacted on October 7, 2008 (Asamblea Constituyente delEcuador, 2008), community residents have built intra-island geographies ofhope, which involve sustaining and enriching biodiversity and a collabora-tive network within village agro-ecosystems, and inter-island geographiesof hope, based on the establishment of inter-ethnic networks between theisolated lands.

I conclude that indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples’ constructionof intra-island and inter-island geographies of hope is essential for under-mining and decolonizing current climate change mitigation strategies andproviding new approaches to the present socio-environmental predicamentin which we find ourselves. According to Smith (1999), decolonizing theseclimate change mitigation discourses involves re-searching, re-creating, andre-presenting the histories of colonized peoples. In other words, investigat-ing CO2lonial geographies and supporting hopeful geographies—like thoseof San Lorenzo community residents—is necessary to demonstrate that theclimate crisis is actually an articulation of the stuctural flaw in capitalismitself. This argument underscores why biofuel development and oil palmplantation expansion must be stopped or, at the very least, more strictlyregulated and monitored in order to secure the rights of indigenous andAfro-descendent peoples.

THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND CO2LONIALISM

The history of colonialism in the Americas began 500 yr ago, when “undis-covered” indigenous peoples’ lands and resources were expropriated, andindigenous people were pushed to less productive lands, if not movedto other continents as slaves or peons. Such displacement provided thelabor and raw materials indispensible for establishing and sustaining thefoundations of industrial capitalism in the Global North. Today, in hope ofcontinually expanding their capitalist economies while cutting greenhousegas emissions, the Northern nations are turning to biofuels (Global ForestCoalition & Global Justice Ecology Project, 2007). Yet, because the conditions

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most suitable for producing a sufficient quantity of biofuels to meet demandare lacking in such industrial capitalist countries, alternative fuels are mainlyimported (Global Forest Coalition & Global Justice Ecology Project, 2007).This, in turn, is driving the establishment of large-scale sugarcane and oilpalm monoculture plantations across the tropical South. Now oil palm plan-tations are rapidly replacing rainforests throughout Latin America (Bravo,2007).

Ecuador presently has the sixth greatest area of oil palm cultivation inthe world and second in South America after Colombia (FEDAPAL, 2008).State-level, but often internationally-funded, plantations in Latin Americahave contributed to the usurpation of Afro-descendent and native peoples’land and then labor. This is a phenomenon redolent of the European colo-nialism and capitalist expansion witnessed during the “Age of Discovery”(Global South Workshop, 2007). The most recent embodiment of theinterrelations between colonialism and capitalism, CO2lonialism unfolds inmarginalized lands that were previously outside the market’s reach. In low-land Ecuador, these processes are instantiated as the encroachment ofexpanding oil palm plantations on indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples’ancestral territories.

The Metabolic Rift of Capitalism and Today’s Economicand Climate Crises

Since the industrial revolution, the Global North’s dependence on fossilfuel use for various industrial activities (Lohmann, Nordberg, Hallstrom, &Osterbergh, 2006) and consequent land cover change (IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2007) have resulted in a 35–39% increasein carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (Canadell et al., 2007; Le Quéréet al., 2007; Raupach et al., 2007; Canadell, Raupach, & Houghton, 2008;Gregg, Andres, & Marland, 2008; Tauli-Corpuz & Lynge, 2008; Global CarbonProject, 2010). Industrialized Northern countries (Annex 1 countries of theKyoto Protocol) are responsible for 80% of the greenhouse gases in theatmosphere emitted since the industrial revolution, and today, their emis-sions account for more than 45% of global emissions (Carbon Trade Watch,2005; Tauli-Corpuz & Lynge, 2008). As a result of the expected environmen-tal changes—such as the increasing temperature, rising sea levels, massiveloss of biodiversity, and more frequent natural disasters—it is estimated thatas many as 200 million people will become climate change refugees by 2050(Myers, 1995).

Scientific and indigenous sources recognize the severity of global cli-mate change. Foster (2007) claims that we are in the midst of an “acceleratingglobal ecological crisis” (p. 2), of which global warming is an expression—aglobal warning. The Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change(IPGSCC, 2009) declared: “Mother Earth is no longer in a period of climate

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change, but in climate crisis.” Yet, this is not the first time that we findourselves in an environmental crisis due to economic over-exploitation ofNature.

In Capital, Karl Marx (1887/1999) concluded that both “alienationfrom the land” (Novack, 1970) and industrial agriculture are socio-economicprocesses that are central to capitalist expansion. He highlighted that suchincreased pressures on the earth via industrial agriculture necessitates“mining the soil” (Santa Barbara, 2007, p. 10). These ideas are based uponEdward Wakefield’s (1833) theory of systematic colonization and Justusvon Liebig’s (1847) ideas about agricultural systems’ need to sustain theirmetabolism by using fertilizers. These increasingly intensive demandsof the Earth result in the “irreparable rift” of the metabolic relation ofhumans and Nature: the ecosystems cannot absorb or adequately recyclethe noxious by-products of industrial capitalist production. Simultaneously,the capacity of the Earth to provide the raw materials to sustain continuedeconomic production is reduced. This irreparable rift of societies’ metabolicinterrelations with land becomes clearer with time as the positive feedbackloop grows larger and revolves faster: More people are pushed out fromtheir lands as industrial agriculture expands, thus leading to an increase ofurban population and greater demands from an industrial, urban-centeredpopulation for industrial agricultural expansion (Foster, 2000; Global SouthWorkshop, 2007).

Marx (1863/1972; 1887/1999) demonstrated that, historically, the solu-tion to the contradiction between increased consumption and decreasedavailability of natural resources has been to create new markets and/or toimport products from abroad. For example, England imported Irish soils inthe first half of the 19th century to replenish their own depleting supply.Still, Irish soils did not provide enough nutrients to keep English soilsfertile and, rather than alter their model of industrial agriculture, Englandbegan importing bird guano from Peru (von Liebig, 1847; Marx, 1863/1972;Clark & Foster, 2009). Even with the new markets, new sources of labor, andnew supplies made available through capitalist expansion, the raw materialsnecessary for production—in this case, English production—would remainfinite. The rift in the capitalist system has practically necessitated colonialbehavior on the part of industrialized nations into the present day; nonre-newable resources and elements fundamental to human life—soil, water,and air—are instead destroyed by this behavior (Clark & Foster, 2009).

Expanding on the notion of capitalism’s metabolic rift, Clark and York(2005) refer to the inability of the Earth’s atmosphere to process increas-ing outputs of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon, as a “carbon rift.” Ashistory has attested, using market mechanisms—from the production ofbiofuels to the trading of carbon credits—does nothing to solve the under-lying problem—the over-exploitation of finite resources. Still, in an effortto boost the failing economy, we pursue modes of production by building

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new “green” markets that will perpetuate the destruction of the environment,ignore the deeper, fundamental flaw in capitalism, and expand the carbonrift (O’Connor, 1991, 1994; Global South Workshop, 2007). In this notion, itbecomes apparent that the climate crisis is fundamentally tied to an ongoingcrisis of economics.

CO2lonizing and Decolonizing Indigenous and Afro-DescendentPeoples’ Territories

Recognizing the close tie between colonialism and climate change, indige-nous and environmental leaders, scholars, and policy-makers point outthat the real estate footprints of biofuel production plans and other cli-mate change mitigation schemes based on the United Nations’ CleanDevelopment Mechanisms are threatening the world’s remaining tropicalrainforests (Biofuelwatch et al., 2007; Global Forest Coalition & GlobalJustice Ecology Project, 2007; Tauli-Corpuz & Tamang, 2007; Grunwald,2008; Tauli-Corpuz & Lynge, 2008). It is important to note that the colo-nial phenomena described here are not limited to international relationshipbetween the North and South; historical economic and racial tensions aswell as environmental degradation may also occur within a national border.In San Lorenzo, for example, communities are under economic pressure toconvert rainforests for oil palm production, both to meet the rising interna-tional consumer demand for affordable fuel alternatives, and to realize thedevelopment plans of the Ecuadorian state.

Around the globe, 1,400 distinct indigenous and traditional ethnicpeoples inhabit remaining tropical forests (Mukhopadhyay, 2009). Still, gov-ernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are making plansfor tropical forestlands behind closed doors without the free, prior, andinformed consent of the forest communities (IEN, 2007; Tauli Corpuz &Tamang, 2007; Redman, 2008; Rights and Resources Initiative, 2008; Tauli-Corpuz & Lynge, 2008; IPGSCC, 2009). According to Rising Tide NorthAmerica (2009, p. 18), three conditions must be met in order for for-est residents to participate in climate change mitigation policy-makingefforts: (a) marginalized communities must be empowered by stemmingtrends that reinforce their ‘poverty’; (b) industrial capitalist countries mustrefrain from using the Global South as their “resource colonies” (p. 18);and (3) Northern countries must pay their “historical and ecological debt”(IPGSCC, 2009; Espinosa, 2008) to Southern countries. Additionally, indus-trial capitalist countries must stop colonial practices to sustain their economy(Lander, 2009), and nations in the Global South must respect the rightsof self-determination of marginalized people—in the case of San Lorenzo,indigenous, Afro-descendent, and other rural communities. As Iroquois(Onandaga) Chief Oren Lyons (2008) states, a resolution to the pendingeconomic and climate crises means “Business as usual is over.”

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THE LANDSCAPE OF CO2LONIALISM IN THE NORTHWESTECUADORIAN PACIFIC REGION

San Lorenzo Canton and the surrounding Chocó Rainforest offer a goodexample of the impacts of climate change and its mitigation. The indigenousand Afro-descendent communities in San Lorenzo are vulnerable to climatechange and bear the burden of externally determined climate change miti-gation decisions, even though they have little responsibility for the problem.Development plans and policies have been transforming contiguous ances-tral rainforest territories to scattered “islands” of communal territorial landholdings surrounded by the vast “sea” of oil palm plantations.

The CO2lonization of indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians’ territories inSan Lorenzo emerges out of a long-standing regional history of slavery,colonization, and disfranchisement. Interestingly, oil palm was introducedalong with slaves from Africa to Europe. The plant, whose oil was usedto grease industrial machines, was then brought to the Americas, whereAfrican slaves were charged with manning the colonial palm plantations(Poku, 2002; Rieger, 2006). African water buffalo have also been recentlyintroduced to South America for the inter-plantation transport of palm fruit.As the plantations come to dominate the San Lorenzo landscape, it is push-ing the descendents of freed African slaves from the ancestral fishing andagroforestry territories that they have been maintaining for centuries. Thisdisplacement instigates conflicts between indigenous and Afro-Ecuadoriancommunities.

Creating an Agricultural Frontier: Paving the Way for Oil PalmPlantation Expansion

The Chocó rainforest houses one of most diverse and fragile ecosystems inthe world (Nuñez Torres, 2004). Afro-Ecuadorian people have lived along-side the Chocó’s rivers since the early 16th century (Leon & García, 2006),long before the rainforest was included as part of the Chocó Bioregion thatextends from Panama to Esmeraldas (Gentry, 1979, 1986) and long beforethe region was named the Tumbes-Choco-Magdelena Biodiversity Hotspot(Myers, 1988; Dinerstein et al., 1995; Sierra, Campos, & Chamberlain, 2002;Conservation International, 2007).

Afro-Ecuadorians make up 70% of the population of San LorenzoCanton, Mestizo people 24%, the indigenous Awá people, and the indige-nous Chachi peoples constitute together the smallest fractions 4.77%(Torres & Ramón, 2004). All San Lorenzo communities base their livelihoodson the forests and rivers, and for centuries have lived from fishing, hunt-ing, and farming impermanent plots for subsistence. Until recently, theAfro-Ecuadorian and the indigenous peoples of San Lorenzo moved backand forth across what is now the Ecuador-Colombia border (West, 1957;

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Medina, 1992; DeBoer 1996; Thurston, 1997; García, 2007). Although longinvolved in trade beyond their ethnic borders (West, 1957), the peoplesof San Lorenzo were economically and politically marginalized by theEcuadorian government until the mid-20th century because of their region’sharsh climate and remote location. In fact, the northwest Ecuadorian coastwas classified as “empty” land unsuitable for either colonial settlement oreconomic development until the 1950s (Arguello, 1995). This age-old con-cept that regards peripheral lands as empty and rural livelihoods as meagerand dispensable (Carrere, 2009; Gudynas, 2009; Quintero, 2009) drives therapid expansion of oil palm plantations from Colombia to San Lorenzo.

Colombia leads South America in palm oil production. Partly funded byUSAID, the expansion of Colombian palm plantations has displaced wholecommunities and thousands of people and has claimed hundreds of lives(Ballvé, 2009). This displacement has accentuated the pressure on ancestralterritories and increased urban migration in neighboring Ecuador (J. García,personal communication, November 8, 2008). Four Colombian oil palmcompanies—Los Andes, Ales Palma, Palasema, and Palpailon S.A. (previ-ously named Acualosa and then Guaisa; Misión de Verificación, 2007)—havebeen leading the expansion of palm plantations, bringing their politics intoEcuador (Buitrón, 2002; Riofrio, Reinberg, & Hernández, 2009) and violatingthe existing legislation that forbids foreign ownership of Ecuadorian prop-erty within 10 km from the border (Misión de Verificación, 2007). Such illegalpractices combined with the reluctance of local officials and state judiciariesto enforce the constitutional rights perpetuate colonial practices that violatehuman, environmental, and ancestral rights.

In the late 1990s, oil palm companies with operations in Colombiabegan to market Ecuador’s San Lorenzo Canton as “la tierra del sol y lluvia(land of sun and rain)” for establishing oil palm plantations (Armendáriz,2002, p. 2). Shortly thereafter, a package of “unintended consequences” ofoil palm plantation expansion began to affect the livelihoods of people in theancestral territories of the three San Lorenzo communities—La Ceiba of theChachi people, La Chiquita of the Afro-Ecuadorian people, and Guadualitoof the Awá people.

Transforming Residents of Ancestral Rainforest Territoriesinto Island Castaways

Oil palm plantation expansion in San Lorenzo has resulted in four principlesocial and ecological problems: (a) destruction of native forests and lossof innumerable endemic and/or endangered flora and fauna habitats; (b)contamination of rivers—through improper disposal of agrochemicals andoil palm processing runoff—and resultant health problems for the peopleof the communities; (c) dispossessions of territory and instigation of social

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conflicts between the historically peaceful indigenous and Afro-Ecuadoriancommunities; and (d) violations of indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian people’srights to food security and food sovereignty and to living well. Each aspect ofthe serious consequences that accompany oil palm plantations is explainedin detail in the following sections.

OIL PALM PLANTATION EXPANSION AND DEFORESTATION

From 1998 to 2008, the total area of oil palm plantations in Ecuadornearly tripled: from 72,210 to 207,285 ha in a decade (National Associationof African Oil Palm Cultivators [ANCUPA], 2008a). Esmeraldas, commonlyknown in Ecuador as “the green province,” now has the largest area of oilpalms among all the provinces of Ecuador, accounting for 38% of the totalarea of oil palm plantations in the country in 2005 (Bravo, 2007; ANCUPA,2008b). In the Canton of San Lorenzo alone, the area of oil palm planta-tions increased 80 times (from 276 ha in 1998 to 22,519 ha in 2007), withan average annual increase of 894.40% between 1998 and 2007 (Cárdenas,Bohórquez, Frenkel, Narvaéz, & Bernis, 2007). The number of oil palm com-panies operating in San Lorenzo has also increased dramatically; from zeroin 1997 to nine in 2008 (see Figure 3; Rodas & Hazlewood, 2009b). As the oil

FIGURE 3 Map of African oil palm plantations in San Lorenzo Canton (Rodas & Hazlewood,2009b) (color figure available online).

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FIGURE 4 Land cover and land use change in 1998–2007 in the study area. The darkest areaindicates location and extent of oil palm plantations (color figure available online).

palm plantations expand, the last remnants of San Lorenzo Chocó lowlandrainforest are disappearing (Bernis & Cárdenas, 2007; Cárdenas, 2007; seeFigure 4). This deforestation is linked to less rain, higher temperatures, andincreased incidents of malaria, leishmania, and other tropical diseases in SanLorenzo (Misión de Verificación, 2007).

This trend still continues with even an accelerating speed. Future plansfor San Lorenzo include expansion of the oil palm plantations to as many as60,000–100,000 ha (Real, 2000; Buitrón, 2002; Rodríguez, Schenck, & Levy,2007). As the oil palm plantations spread, encroaching on communal ter-ritories and isolating them from each other, communication between theterritories becomes increasingly difficult.

WATER CONTAMINATION AND DETRIMENTAL HEALTH EFFECTS

Research has shown that fungicides, insecticides, and pesticides used inplantations contaminate water sources and seriously affect the health andwell-being of the local people as well as the environment (Nuñez Torres,1998, 2004). A study conducted by the Ecuadorian Ministry of PublicHealth found that instances of people being harmed by agrochemicalstripled between 1999 and 2003 (Aguilar Jarrín, 2003). Such instances resultfrom the improper disposal of waste from oil palm companies like LosAndes and Ales Palma. In November 2008, countless dead fish were seen

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FIGURE 5 Numerous dead fish floated on the surface of the black and iridescent watersafter Los Andes Palm Company dumped their palm oil processing wastewater directly into LaChiquita River (photo by author) (color figure available online).

floating on the surface of the La Chiquita River near an Afro-Ecuadorianvillage, La Chiquita (see Figure 5). This was the third time in a year thattoxic wastewater from the palm extraction facilities had contaminated thecommunity’s river. Local children often have no choice but to drink fromthe river. This violates the human and Ecuadorian constitutional right toclean water and “to live in healthy environment” (Asamblea Constituyentedel Ecuador, 2008, Article 14).

Although oil palm plantations do provide temporary work of 5 toUS$10 per day, they mostly do not provide trainings, safety precautions, orinsurance to those handling the toxic agrochemicals (Misión de Verificación,2007). The workers wash the agrochemical application apparatuses in therivers, thereby contaminating the waters with pesticides and herbicides(Source A, personal communication, November 7, 2009)1.

People of La Chiquita and Guadualito report that there is foam onthe surface of the river and that drinking the water causes headaches,stomachaches, and vomiting. Women who wash their clothes or childrenwho bathe in the river commonly develop itchy white rashes on theirskin or lesions that become open wounds when scratched (see Figure 6).

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FIGURE 6 A child from the community of La Chiquita with open sores on his legs frombathing in La Chiquita River. Such sores have only appeared on the people’s skin since thepresence of the Los Andes palm oil processing plant upriver (photo by author) (color figureavailable online).

It has been reported that the polluted waters also cause children’s hair tofall out. One woman in La Chiquita attributed her miscarriage to spend-ing too much time washing clothes in the river (Misión de Verificación,2007). Analyses of water quality for La Chiquita and Guadualito Rivers wereconducted in response to local complaints. Unfortunately, the Ministry ofEnvironment representatives charged with data collection lost their camera—along with the visual records of river pollution—after becoming intoxicated.The final Ministerial report concluded that the rivers were cleaner thanthose in Ecuador’s capital (Source B, personal communication, November 21,2009).

Today, people in La Chiquita buy large bottles of water for drink-ing and cooking when they can afford it. People in Guadualito, on theother hand, do not buy water. Instead, they are resigned to walk upto 1 km to collect either polluted water from the rivers or less pollutedwater from streams (Source A, personal communication, November 7, 2009).The concentration of agrochemicals in river water—a result of increas-ing deforestation, decreasing rains, and the recession of rivers during thelong, dry summer months—exacerbates this grave situation of limited wateraccess.

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DISPOSSESSIONS OF TERRITORY AND INSTIGATION

OF SOCIAL CONFLICTS

Territory is a very complex issue in San Lorenzo, since the system of land-holding was imposed from the outside and was not a part of the residents’ancestral and traditional custom. Indeed, the disregard for ancestral sys-tems of land ownership and the conversion of communal territories intoprivate property witnessed in San Lorenzo has been a cornerstone of col-onization in Latin America and elsewhere for centuries (J. García, personalcommunication, March 14, 2009; International Verification Mission, 2009).

Most Afro-Ecuadorians do not have legally recognized communal rightsover their lands. The insecurity of their land tenure, combined with col-lusions between oil palm companies and national and local politicians,are cited by all forest communities as contributing to the dispossession ofancestral lands and limited responsive action on the part of local politi-cians. In some cases, local politicians are reported to play a role in assistingpalm companies in the acquisition of forest territories. When palm com-panies pressure Afro-Ecuadorian communities or individuals to sell theirlands, local politicians are rumored to receive compensation for lookingthe other way. In one case, the mayor of San Lorenzo himself threatened agroup of community leaders who had been active in protecting their com-munal and constitutional rights by telling them that “he who talks a lot findshimself three meters under the ground” (Source B, personal communica-tion, November 21, 2008). The oil palm companies have illegally acquiredmostly Afro-Ecuadorian lands by using the following tactics: (a) harassingpeople who refuse to sell their land by damaging or stealing their cropsand killing their livestock (Global South Workshop 2007; Source C, per-sonal communication, October 23, 2008), or even by burning their houses(Cervantes, 2009); (b) isolating people by privatizing previously public roadsand restricting access to their lands (Source D, personal communication,November 5, 2008); (c) using hitmen to threaten people with violence,and even to murder people who are reluctant to sell their lands (SourceD, personal communication, November 5, 2008); (d) preying on indebtedfamilies—typically by armed groups that are rumored to be paramilitariesand/or Aguilas Negras associated with Colombian drug trafficking and oilpalm companies—and appropriating the borrowers’ lands when they can-not pay back their debts (Source D, personal communication, November5, 2008); and (e) exacerbating social conflicts between indigenous andAfro-descendent peoples over ancestral territories (Global South Workshop2007) by encouraging Afro-Ecuadorian land traffickers to claim indigenousterritories.

Tied to the last point, the coercion of Afro-Ecuadorian communities bypalm companies often resulted in landless families and internal communalconflicts. In San Lorenzo, one of the poorest Cantons in all of Ecuador

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(Benalcázar, 2009), landless Afro-Ecuadorians sometimes work for palmcompanies as land traffickers after selling their ancestral lands to the palmcompanies out of economic desperation. The Afro-Ecuadorian land traffick-ers then accuse Chachi and Awá peoples of living in their ancestral territoriesand physically and verbally threaten the Chachi and Awá peoples to eithergive up or “co-manage” their current lands. As these conflicts are framedas “ancestral territory matters,” state and local authorities—rumored to bepolitically and economically tied to the palm business—claim neutrality andtake little, if any, action to honor land titles.

VIOLATION OF INDIGENOUS AND AFRO-ECUADORIAN PEOPLES’ RIGHTS

TO FOOD SECURITY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AND TO LIVING WELL

The constitutional rights of Ecuadorians, human and non-human, are threat-ened in many ways. As a result of the extreme contamination of forestwaterways, Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous community members eat con-siderably less traditional foods like fish or crustaceans. Instead, they mustbuy the food from the city of San Lorenzo. In 2007, the Ministry ofEnvironment banned the sale of ‘illegal’ lumber in Esmeraldas due to thediminishing area of forest cover. This means that all people who used tosell lumber are now required to have forest management plans, which areexpensive for San Lorenzo community residents. This regulation had twomajor effects: (a) convicting ‘the poor’ San Lorenzo community residents bybranding them as the principal culprits of illegal deforestation, while the oilpalm plantations continued to clear large areas of forest; and (b) prohibitingthe Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenous people in San Lorenzo from harvestingtrees and, consequently, eliminating a source of revenue that would oth-erwise cover the costs of food and education. It goes without saying thatdenying the communities access to the timber business deprives the localcommunities of food security.

The felling of rainforests and encroachment of oil palm plantations islinked to a number of interconnected political, economic, and environmen-tal factors including favorable climate, low price of land, lack of controlover land trafficking, and poor enforcement of environmental regulations(Armendáriz, 2000). The national and local governments play a major rolein contributing to these conditions through state-level fiscal aids and subsi-dies, indifference to violence, and legislation that favors corporations overcitizens (Real, 2000; Vélez & Vélez, 2008).

The megaproject of biofuel production (J. García, personal communica-tion, November 8, 2008) continues with colonial exploitation and corruptionthat violate communities’ constitutional rights to food security and foodsovereignty and to living well (Denvir & Riofrancos, 2008). What is mostworrisome is that these conditions are encouraged and supported by theEcuadorian state (Benalcázar, 2009).

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Inconsistencies in Ecuadorian Legislation: State Supportfor Biofuel/Oil Palm Expansion

A review of oil palm legislation from 1998 to 2008 reveals the Ecuadorianstate’s sponsorship of oil palm expansion and consequent social andenvironmental disruption. A closer look at the policies also suggests a con-tradiction between the social and environmental costs of oil palm plantationand the rights guaranteed in the Ecuadorian constitution.

On August 8, 2002, the Ecuadorian President Gustavo Naboa—whohas relatives in the oil palm sector and another relative who used to bethe Minister of the Environment during his presidency—passed ExecutiveDecree No. 2691 (República del Ecuador, 2002), in which the status of“unclaimed” lands in the Canton of San Lorenzo was changed from perma-nent protected forest to zones for sustainable and agricultural development(Ramos, 2002). This change in land status assisted the transfer and sale offorests to the oil palm companies, allowing for the “double business” (Bravo,2007, p. 1) of selling the wood from rainforest clearing and establishing oilpalm plantation (García, 2007). As a result of this legislation, 50,000 haof state lands previously meant for conservation—including 30,000 haof tropical forests (Armendáriz, 2000; Tuinstra, 2008), and 5,000 ha ofAfro-Ecuadorian, and 1,000 ha of Awá ancestral territories (Ramos, 2003)—was converted to a new agricultural frontier for “sustainable agriculturaldevelopment” (Bravo, 2007, p. 111).

The Executive Decree No. 2691 is an evidence of the Ecuadorianstate’s (President Naboa’s) support for oil palm plantations (Buitrón, 2002;García, 2007; Misión de Verificación, 2007), and the expansion of planta-tions necessitates a “policy of dispossession” (Ramos, 2003). Yet, under theEcuadorian constitution, ancestral communal territories are indivisible andun-transferable. Citing this legislation as a basis for a legal action, indigenousand Afro-Ecuadorians, together with environmental organizations, filed suitwith the Constitutional Tribunal. Though the suit was approved, the uncon-stitutional decree is yet to be abolished (Buitrón, 2002). This is partly due tothe persuasiveness of market-oriented climate change mitigation discoursesthat highlight “green” business opportunities like biofuel development asviable industries to be enacted in the Global South.

Ecuador’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, for example, suggestsEcuador is ideal for ethanol and biodiesel production for its diversity ofmicroclimates, quality of soils, and availability of labor (elEconomista.es,2006). The Ecuadorian state and palm oil companies promote biofuels asa “sustainable solution” to climate change, claiming that the plantationsproduce oxygen, provide employment, and develop the agricultural sec-tor (Amendariz, 2002; Carrere, 2002; Gonzalez, 2007; Benalcázar, 2009).This claim contrasts sharply with the ongoing destruction of forests by oilpalm plantations. It is said that biodiesel reduces greenhouse gases by 41%

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138 J. A. Hazlewood

compared to fossil fuel-based diesel, but this statistic does not take the costof land conversion into account (Dominguez, 2008). It is estimated thatdeforestation accounts for 17.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and28% of global carbon dioxide emissions (IPCC, 2007; Tauli-Corpuz & Lynge,2008). In other words, replacing native forests with oil palm plantations tosubstitute fossil fuels with biofuels is not an effective climate change mit-igation strategy; land-use change is known to have an adverse effect oncarbon emissions (Santa Barbara, 2007; Tuinstra, 2008; Ortega-Pacheco &Jiang, 2009; Rogers, 2009).

Since 2004, a number of legislative acts have been passed by theEcuadorian Congress encouraging the continued expansion of biofuel pro-duction. With the National Program for Biofuels (Executive Decree No. 2332;República del Ecuador, 2004) the government announced plans to mixbiofuels with petroleum-based fuels up to 10% in Guayaquil and Quito,the principal metropolitan areas of Ecuador. Following the inauguration ofRafael Correa in January 2007 (Jull, Redondo, Mosoti, & Vapnek, 2007),Ecuador created a national biofuels council. The council consists of thepresident of Ecuador, five Ecuadorian Ministries (Agriculture, Environment,Industry, Electricity and Energy, and Mines and Oil), two sugar cane pro-ducer associations, the National Association of African Oil Palm Cultivators(ANCUPA), fuel sale and distribution organizations, and PETROECUADOR(Executive Decree No. 146; República del Ecuador, 2007; Gonzalez, 2007).With the passing of the Promotion of the Biofuels Law, also in 2007, the gov-ernment formalized plans outlined in the 2004 National Program for Biofuels,mandating increased domestic use of biofuels, diversification of energysources, and reductions in carbon emissions (Executive Decree No. 28–148;Congreso Nacional de la República del Ecuador, 2007).

In an interesting turn of tables, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Assemblyintegrated the concept of sumak kawsay, a Kichwa concept meaning vivirbuen or living well, into the new Ecuadorian Constitution enacted onOctober 7, 2008. This phrase entitles all Ecuadorians to their cultural prac-tices and identity-based, mostly self-sufficient livelihoods based on localecology and economy (Asamblea Constituyente del Ecuador, 2008; LaDuke,2008; Quintero, 2009). The 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution also grants rightsto Nature as a social actor (Galeano, 2009). Nature’s constitutional right “tohave its existence and the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles,structure, and functions and processes of evolution integrally respected . . .”(Article 71, Asamblea Constituyente del Ecuador, 2008; Acosta, 2009a;Lander, 2009) forms the basis of humans’ right to living well, together withand in relation to Nature. Thus, the Ecuadorian Constitution has made abridge—albeit a fragile one—to connect the metabolic rift between econ-omy and Nature. Guaranteeing sumak kawsay and supporting communities’ability to build and maintain their own cultural identity based on their “har-monious relationship” and access to ancestral territories, healthy forests

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and lands, clean rivers and water (Asamblea Constituyente del Ecuador,2008, Article 275) means securing the rights of Nature as well (AsambleaConstituyente del Ecuador, 2008; Acosta, 2009a, 2009b; Acosta & Martínez,2009; Carrere, 2009; Houtart, 2009; Quintero, 2009; Wray, 2009).

The expansion of oil palm plantations violates San Lorenzo commu-nities’ constitutional right to sumak kawsay (living well) and the rightsof Nature and disables the peoples’ ability to retain cultural practicesand identity-based, mostly self-sufficient livelihoods. The new EcuadorianConstitution serves both as a theoretical safety net and as a glimmer ofhope that can inspire local resistance to these violations (Acosta & Martinez,2009), and many of the community members of San Lorenzo recognize this.As one of the principal Chachi representatives stated, “We can only hopethe constitution accomplishes all it has outlined to do” (Source E, personalcommunication, October 1, 2009).

Regaining and reinforcing sumak kawsay requires a decolonization ofdevelopment and climate change mitigation discourses linked to what Afro-Ecuadorian, Chachi, and Awá people call “the struggle to defend ‘poor’people’s rights,” “the struggle for peace.” A statement of a San Lorenzoresident, “We are all the State” (Source F, personal communication, June 7,2009), demonstrates the ideal to which San Lorenzo community members arenow adhering. Even in the midst of “this jungle of injustice” full of contradic-tions and conflicts, the Chachi, Awá, and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples still clingto constitutional ideals as foundations of hope for a brighter future of justiceand peace and employ a number of strategies to counter the detrimentaleffects of biofuel production in San Lorenzo Canton.

GEOGRAPHIES OF HOPE IN A SEA OF PALMS

The Chachi people of La Ceiba, the Awá people of Guadualito, and Afro-Ecuadorian people of La Chiquita construct geographies of hope. They buildintra-island geographies of hope by maintaining agro-ecological and culturalpractices and a collaborative networks on their communal lands. They alsocreate inter-island geographies of hope, or inter-ethnic networks betweenisolated communities that help defend their right to sustain their culturalpractices and identity-based, potentially self-sufficient economies againstimpinging colonial strategies of the state, regional governments, and oil palmplantation owners.

Sustaining Identity-Based Livelihoods in the Sea of Palms:Intra-Island Geographies of Hope

Surrounded by oil palm plantations, the communities of Chachi people ofLa Ceiba, Afro-Ecuadorian people of La Chiquita, and the Awá people of

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Guadualito still generally maintain sustainable practices and enhance agri-cultural diversity. They thus practice a paradigm of “relationality” (Pacari2009, p. 32) or “relational sustainability” (Langdon, 2002),which expressesthe importance of considering the needs and well-being of surroundinghuman and non-human existence. They also build community life aroundmingas—a kind of family-based work trade—in their territorial ‘islands.’These cultural practices are the material and ideological cornerstones ofintra-island geographies of hope. Escobar (2008) calls such communalspaces on the Colombian Southwest Pacific Coast right on the other sideof the Ecuador-Colombia border “territories of difference” and claims thatthey can also be understood as “territories of life” (p. 25).

Diverse food systems and the last remnants of the coastal rainforestsexisting within indigenous and certain Afro-Ecuadorian lands demonstratethat these local communities are able to maintain ecologically sustainablepractices for centuries. Such agro-ecosystems of the local communities,developed in culturally specific relationship to particular conditions of theland and climate, are the very basis of their identity-based economy andtheir intra-island geographies of hope.

Indigenous and Afro-descendent communities practice shifting or swid-den agriculture, in which their 1- to 2-ha plantain-based plots are calledchacras. Because of heavy precipitation and lack of a real dry season, thepeople of these communities use a slash-and-mulch method (Patiño, 1965;Thurston, 1997). Unlike slash-and-burn system (known along the PacificCoast of Ecuador and Colombia as chipiado or tapado) in which vegetationis cut and burned, slash-and-mulch cultivators sow seeds, clear vegetation,and allow the decomposed vegetation to serve as mulch (or fertilizer) forgermination a week to 10 days later (DeBoer, 1996; Thurston, 1997). Someof the benefits of the slash-and-mulch system include the following ecolog-ical benefits: more nutrients for crops; higher water holding capacity; lessevaporation and increased moisture retention during dry periods; lower soiltemperature; reduced water runoff and erosion; better protection of youngseedlings from severe sun or rain; better control of fungi, bacteria, weeds,and nematodes; and increase in organic matter and earthworm populations(Thurston, 1997).

Most Chachi, Awá, and Afro-Ecuadorian families have two to threechacras. The chacras are rotated and usually organized into three-tiers.Each chacra varies, but the top tier generally includes high-quality woodtrees and tall fruit trees. The second tier includes five to seven varieties ofplantains and bananas. With increasing chocolate prices that have generatedhopes of a sweeter reality in the last few years, many families are plantingshade-loving cacao between the plantains or taller fruit trees. The third tier iscomprised of mostly annual crops planted between the trees and plantains.Most families’ agro-ecosystems also include secondary forest, from whichtimber may be harvested at times of economic need. According to an Awácollaborator, there are more small animals in their communal territory than

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before, as they escape from the palm plantations and take refuge in thenearby villages (Source A, personal communication, June 30, 2007). Peoplegenerally know which fruit trees attract small animals of their interest.

The diversity of these agro-ecosystems starkly contrasts with the palmmonocultures that surround them, reflecting a communal philosophy, whichwas described by one Awá man as “live and let live” (Source G, personalcommunication, November 17, 2008; see Figure 7). Accordingly, these iso-lated islands of ecological diversity represent an ideal place to initiate acounterattack against CO2lonialism. Within the islands, the people employcultural practices that build on and enhance the natural environment.These cultural philosophies and practices form the pillars of intra-islandgeographies of hope.

These intra-island geographies of hope are realized in family coop-eration, mingas (or rotational community labor), and shared communalaspirations. For instance, when a family needs to plant corn, neighbors cometo help the family to weed the area and sow seeds. Mingas are the backboneof interdependence and unity within communities.

The Awá people of Guadualito are planning to start an association ofminga participants. This association will maintain the facility of a communalpig farm, which will allow participants to finance mingas in the future,thus institutionalizing the practice of community cooperation and sowing the

FIGURE 7 The Chachi community of La Ceiba has bountiful agro-ecological diversity, thebasis of food security and sovereignty, and thus, of an intra-island geography of hope (photoby author) (color figure available online).

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seeds of community self-sufficiency. By supporting residents’ right to foodsovereignty and to realize shared aspirations of sumak kawsay, this initiativeserves as the organizational basis of San Lorenzo’s intra-island geographiesof hope.

Transforming a Sea of Palms into a Frontier for Struggle: Inter-IslandGeographies of Hope

Even when pitted against one another, Afro-Ecuadorians, Chachis, and Awápeoples all recognize the encroaching sea of oil palm plantations andits tides of violence against Nature and their communities as a commonproblem. In an interview, Awá President Olindo Nastacuaz stated:

There should not be separation between los Afros [the Afro-Ecuadorians]and the indigenous peoples. Better, we should unite so that there is notseparation . . . [we should] discuss [the problems] together in union ifwe really want to move the country forward and respect the people’srights. Because the truth is . . . we are the same and we have the sameproblem in common. (personal communication, May 26, 2009, translatedby author)

Escobar (2008, p. 11) conjures up the image of traditional fishing nets toexpress how ever-changing social relations and networks, or “meshworks,”are an important basis of defending ethnic territories and life. By castingsocial nets between their isolated territories, the Chachi, Awá, and Afro-Ecuadorian people keep their lands connected and collectively defend theirrights to the ancestral territories, self-determination, clean water, and foodsovereignty—all within a constitutional right to sumak kawsay.

There are a number of cases where the San Lorenzo communi-ties have come together to reclaim their “rights to [ethnic] or colonialdifference,” while also building on commonalities encountered in “epis-temic frontier regions” (Mignolo, 2005; Escobar, 2008) or “contact zones”(Sundberg, 2006). In one case, the Chachis collaborated with the Awáfederation (FCAE) to write a legal document to defend Chachi territory.In another case, the Afro-Ecuadorians of La Chiquita and the Awá com-munity of Guadualito filed a joint suit, citing the poor water quality ofLa Chiquita River as a violation of the rights of Nature and their rightto sumak kawsay. This is a landmark case in Ecuador as well as in theworld, because it demands that corporations compensate communities forviolating the rights of Nature and the people’s right to sumak kawsay,or living well (Source H, personal communication, December 21, 2009).Additionally, in the last 4 yr, an Ecuadorian intercultural organization—La Red Fronteriza de Paz—was built to defend interlinked communities’right to establish a “territory of peace,” a buffer zone, and “to transcend

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the Colombian-Ecuador frontier,” thus “regionalizing the concept of peace”(Source I, personal communication, November, 10, 2009). “We do notwant palms; we just want peace” one La Chiquita collaborator commented(Source J, personal communication, May 7, 2009). These inter-ethnic net-works have involved local as well as regional, national, and internationalcollaborations.

A wild hope was carried to the isolated islands of San Lorenzo bythe winds of social change. Despite the extremely difficult circumstancesof biofuel development and oil palm plantation expansion that surroundtheir communities, with the new Ecuadorian Constitution, the communitiesof La Ceiba, La Chiquita, and Guadualito have cultivated hope and trans-formed it into inter-island and intra-island collaborative geographies of hopeto re-assert the rights of themselves and Nature. Each community representsa company of families who, with hope as their basis, stand in commonpurpose in opposition to the sea of oil palm plantation’s violent waves ofCO2lonialism and environmental and socio-cultural degradation that surgeonto their lands.

CONCLUSION: DECOLONIZING CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATIONAND GATHERING WILD HOPE

“There is a time and place in the ceaseless human endeavor to changethe world, and when alternative visions, no matter how fantastic, pro-vide the grist for shaping powerful forces for change. I believe we areprecisely at such a moment” (Harvey 2000, p. 195).

Predictions associated with climate change coupled with the structuralflaw in capitalism highlighted by Marx—the socio-environmental metabolicrift—indicates that we will face a tsunami of problems in the near futureif we do not address the source of the deep socio-economic and climatecrises. Therefore, climate change mitigation can be understood as a space fordecolonization, a frontier of both panic and promise, or a process in whichdisaster, despair, and hope all collide. The discussions about such a multi-aspect crisis themselves create a place where we can dismantle the tight linksbetween capitalism, colonialism, and climate change—reevaluating capital-ism itself and its potential to destabilize the rights of people and Nature.Because climate change mitigation discussion is highly political, indigenousleaders criticize the adoption of purely scientific or purely economic solu-tions. Instead, they maintain that measures for climate change mitigationshould be: (a) based on a thorough examination of the economic, ecologi-cal, and cultural causes of the crisis; and (b) built from indigenous peoples’knowledge and practices developed in ancestral Nature-culture nexus (IEN,2007; Tebtebba Foundation, 2008; IPGSCC, 2009; Wildcat, 2009).

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Nevertheless, those indigenous communities—who are heavily affectedby climate change and climate change mitigation and whose resourcesand labor have built the foundations of many developed nations—havenot been invited to participate in international economic and environmen-tal decision-making (Samangun & Langelle, 2007; Mongobay.com, 2009).However muted indigenous voices may be though, in many cases they are atleast afforded a presence in climate change-related meetings. On the otherhand, while Afro-descendent peoples in the Americas and rural farmingcommunities throughout the world are also vulnerable to climate change,and affected by mitigation decisions, they are almost completely excluded.Although this article has only focused on Afro-Ecuadorian and indigenousAwá, and Chachi communities, it needs to be emphasized that communitiesof mixed ethnicity and all campesino (peasant or farmer) communities inSan Lorenzo are facing similar challenges imposed by current climate changemitigation strategies. Discussions for viable strategies for climate change mit-igation must include all communities who are affected by and vulnerable toclimate change and its mitigation measures.

The circumstances in San Lorenzo attest to the precariousness of treat-ing biofuel development as a climate change mitigation strategy. Biofueldevelopment practices can be viewed both as a colonial strategy and asa result of commoditizing climate change. Such “green” business venturesexacerbate inequality between the Global North and South and betweenthose who cause and those who are most affected by climate change withinthe South. In order to change the track of climate change mitigation strate-gies, decolonization is necessary. Climate change brings the opportunity tolearn from past mistakes, evaluate present knowledge, and bring an end tohistorical patterns of colonization and injustice.

To save the planet while mitigating colonial-based economic inequali-ties between the North and South, we need to take a hard look at capitalism,as Bolivian President Evo Morales points out. He claims that to resolve thiscrisis, now is the time for economically and racially marginalized, plunderedcommunities of the world to demand that the countries with large ecologi-cal footprints pay their ecological debt (United Nations Economic and SocialCouncil [ECOSOC], 2008). To initiate this process, it is imperative to demanddeveloped countries to substantially cut their carbon emissions and to stopfalse climate change solutions like biofuels development, which are threat-ening the last remnants of highly diverse rainforests as well as local residents’lives.

The circumstances surrounding biofuel development and oil palm plan-tation expansion in the Northwest Ecuadorian Pacific Region serve as anexample of why such strategies to mitigate climate change must be stopped.The monoculture biofuel developments in San Lorenzo choke out moresustainable identity-based livelihoods. The sea of African oil palms has to becontrolled so that its negative “unintended consequences” will not flood the

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indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian islands territories and infringe upon theircommunal and ancestral rights.

Ironically, however, this sea of palms has also led to “unintended” emer-gence of intra-island and inter-island geographies of hope constructed byindigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples. These geographies of hope areessential to undermining and decolonizing the discourses and practices thatdrive the palm plantation development. An Afro-Ecuadorian elder from LaChiquita stated: “Hope is the last thing that gives out . . . from there, hopegives out when one dies” (Source K, personal communication, October 1,2009). Despite the destruction of the rainforests, hope remains resilient. Withour world in deep economic and climate crises, those forest people whogather wild hope to construct the geographies of hope could potentiallyshare their experiences and resulting wisdoms with the global community.Thus, it is essential to secure spaces for such exchanges and to defend therights of Nature and the community residents’ rights to sovereignty, foodsecurity, clean water, and self-determination in choosing routes to sumakkawsay in their respective places. By doing so, we can collectively carve outhopeful paths that can lead us out of the climate change conundrum.

NOTE

1. Names in personal communications throughout document are withheld for privacy reasons.

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Journal of Sustainable Forestry: CO2lonialism and the "Unintended Consequences" of Commoditizing...

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