Ecological Imperialism Research Paper

Ecological imperialism includes: (a) the geographical introduction of non-native organisms such as disease pathogens, crops, and livestock and, during recent years, the transfer of toxic waste, nuclear contaminants, and other hazardous materials; (b) the ecological interaction of the introduced organisms and materials with human activities that incur environmental changes, often degradation; (c) the environmental role of imperial institutions, historically often those belonging to colonialism; (d) the work of the environmental sciences in the context of imperialism, in some cases for the goal of conservation; and (e) the use and ideas of the environment by persons and groups that resist the rule of empire.

Geographical introduction of nonnative organisms is a facet of ecological imperialism that is based on the dynamics of biogeography or the distribution of plants and animals. The spread of non-native organisms, or ‘colonizers,’ was a concomitant of the European empires (Crosby 1986). Introduced organisms were brought both by accident and by design. Disease organisms resulted in massive epidemics and mortality among non-Europeans. Mortality due to pathogens that were introduced in imperial exploration and colonialism of the Europeans resulted in the deaths of 25–50 million American Indians, whose immunities did not include such Old World diseases as smallpox, measles, typhus, and influenza (Denevan 1992). Another avenue of ecological imperialism was the introduction of crops, food plants, and livestock. Ecological ease of the transfer of major economic organisms—such as wheat, pigs, cattle, and sheep— was a key to success of the European empires in expanding their rule over the ‘Neo-Europes’ of temperate North and South America, southern Africa, New Zealand, and Australia (Crosby 1986, Gade 1999). Not least, the ecological colonization of invasive weeds and animal vermin, such as nettles and black rats, actively undermined the living habits, resource use, and production systems and social organization of the subjects of European imperialism.

The impacts of ecological imperialism are influenced by human ecosystems, that is, the ecological interactions among people and their biotic and abiotic surroundings in a given place (i.e., human and cultural ecology). Common interactions are associated with cultivation, land and resource use, and other sorts of environment-related activities that have occurred in the expansion and rule of empires. Dynamics of human ecosystems determined the actual impacts of introduced diseases, crops and livestock, and weeds and vermin. Often these effects were set amid general environmental degradation, such as worsened soil erosion and fertility loss, deterioration of water supplies, and the decline of vegetation resources due to overgrazing and extensive clearing. Some human ecosystems allied to ecological imperialism are thought to have been consonant with environmental conservation. The colonial wheat and livestock-raising customs of the Spanish Empire, for example, may have been environmentally sound in certain places in Mexico (Turner and Butzer 1992, Sluyter 1999).

Ecological imperialism involves the power of particular institutions and social groups, which is a focus of the perspectives of environmental history and political ecology (Grove 1996, Mackenzie 1990). Imperial institutions typically governed the ownership or allocation and use of arable resources such as farmland and irrigation. Also, protection was common under colonial conservation institutions. Conservation policies and resource control were aimed at soil protection and irrigation works as well as nonarable resources such as forests, grazing and rangelands, and game reserves. The motivation for colonial conservation included the use and appropriation of resources for business and the needs of the imperial state; the interests of states and rulers in limiting or localizing degradation; and cultural concerns symbolized by images of Eden and Paradise. Some imperial conservation has been deeply influenced by the concerns and agendas of modern science. For example, the colonial scientists in the employ of European empires in India, southern Africa, and on oceanic islands (e.g., Mauritius, St. Helena, Barbados) were driven by the fear of resource scarcity. This concern in the context of ecological imperialism, or ‘Green Imperialism,’ contributed to the birth of modern environmentalism (Grove 1996).

Ecological imperialism is also concerned with the resistance and opposition to authoritarian rule. Imperial subjects have both reacted against imposed environmental restrictions and created ecological customs as part of political alternatives. Colonial subjects in Africa, India, and Asia drew on their customs of a moral or affective economy in protesting or refusing to comply with conservation policies involving soil protection, game reserves, and water diversions (Neumann 1998). Slaves and colonial Indians in North and Latin America created customs of food plant use and production with environmental capabilities that enabled their resistance against the administrative fiats of European colonialism (Carney 2001, Zimmerer 1996). These investigations are a broadening of the study of ecological imperialism that extends beyond either moral outrage with denunciation or mere justification and prescription.

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