Latin American political ecology draws strength from feminism and movements

A child runs beside the river. In Guapinol, Honduras, communities are engaged in active land defense against projects that affect the environment, such as mining. Photo © February 2022. Lizbeth Hernández.

Reportage • Ricardo Balderas • December 12, 2024 • Leer en castellano

Last week 200 academics, activists, land defenders and journalists from around the hemisphere attended the Fifth Latin American Congress of Political Ecology, where participants outlined the emergence of new horizons of rebellion.

The event was held from December 4 to 6 at the Del Valle campus of the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), and brought together thinkers who are working collectively to problematize ecological devastation and to explore alternatives coming out of the field of political ecology.

This vision of the world draws on diverse forms of knowledge to understand the devastation of territory in Latin America and the Global South, according to Aida Luz Lopez, a member of the event’s Organizing Committee and a researcher at the UACM.

“For more than 30 years, since political ecology first emerged, critical academics and people committed to social change have shaped the discourse,” said López in an interview with Ojalá. “We support activist academia, which is engaged and accompanies popular struggles and encourages students to do the same.”

This researcher believes that political ecology urgently requires feminist analysis and critique. Disciplines that lack analytical depth often shape the discussion of environmental problems and put forward techno-scientific fixes. For decades, scholars grounded in political ecology have responded to this by framing climate change in a way that points beyond solutions like carbon credits or the use of renewable energy, which, from the perspective of this researcher, obscures the deep roots of the crisis.

The El Tranvío cooperative in Guapinol is raising chickens so as not to depend on African palm monoculture, which has negative environmental impacts. Photo © February 2022. Lizbeth Hernández.

Political ecology, as understood and taught at the UACM, draws on the humanities and uses critical theory, feminism, and elements of Marxism to argue that the capitalist system, which is predatory by nature, is the source of the problem of environmental devastation.

"Every time there is a conference on sustainable development, the advances are minimal or nonexistent. Meanwhile, environmental degradation and crisis continue to worsen,” said Lopez. “Movements grounded in collective action break the impasse and, in that context, feminists can intervene to make the dynamics of patriarchal relations visible.”

Ecofeminism and the energy transition

Yayo Herrero López is, among many other things, an ecofeminist activist who has dedicated her work to explaining the origin of what she calls the “ecosocial crisis.” She uses this term to refer to the constellation of impacts related to global warming, an outcome of the indiscriminate use of fossil fuels, of high emissions from energy consumption by countries in the Global North, and their dependence on the plunder of other nations to sustain their energy consumption.

In her talk, Herrero argued that the European Union’s focus on renewable energy and green technologies is leading to a new wave of colonialism, as rich countries continue to exploit the resources of the Global South. She harshly criticized the Green Agenda, which does not address the problem of resource depletion or the perpetuation of colonial dynamics of exploitation.

Herrero thinks the EU’s Green Agenda lacks a justice-based vision of the energy transition. “If we were to imagine a just transition, we would have to imagine a huge reduction in energy and mineral consumption in the rich world, so that the rest of the world can develop sustainable life models and relations within their territories,” said Herrero in an interview after her presentation. “The EU agreements do not contemplate this.”

In her view, the EU’s approach to the energy transition perpetuates the very capitalist system that brought us the current crisis. The unregulated consumption of resources by wealthy countries, which are home to the businesses promoting technologies such as wind power, solar panels and, in the case of the automotive industry, hydrogen, compete with other nations for access to key raw materials that are rarely found within their own nations.

One of the main ways to achieve a future without dispossession is to understand the strong community structures among Indigenous people and their understanding of territory. These concepts have been blurred in Westernized societies. “We have been forced to understand the land from the outside, from superiority,” said Herrero.

The Aguán river is crucial for the survival of many communities in Guapinol, Honduras, which is why they are organizing to defend it. Photo © February 2022. Lizbeth Hernández.

On the last day of the conference, participants and speakers spoke out against the impunity following the murders of Sergio Rojas and Jerry Rivera in Costa Rica and demanded that the Costa Rican government comply with Law 6182 and return lands to Indigenous peoples.

Mexico deports recognized Chilean activist

The congress was a resounding success in terms of attendance and discussion, but an important voice was missing: Mexican authorities prevented Chilean researcher and Mapuche solidarity activist, Anahí Moya Fuentes, from attending.

Moya Fuentes was traveling with a Chilean passport and arrived in Mexico City on the morning of Thursday, December 5, on a delayed flight, according to Aida López. Immigration agents detained her and, although she managed to communicate with someone from the congress, deported her shortly thereafter.

“She [Moya Fuentes] contacted me in the early morning and we began to mobilize,” said López. “I was in touch with someone in charge of the Immigration Office at the Benito Juarez International Airport. They told me they would look into the matter but then we received the news that authorities had deported her without any kind of formal process.”