human ecology revie ecology/her_8,1,2001.pdfecological agriculture in hedmark county,norway geir...

Human Ecology ReviewSummer 2001

Volume 8Number 1

In this Issue

Wolf Management and RestorationMartin A. Nie

Conflict in Timber-Dependent CommunitiesCharles Clark

Environmental Themes in Political DiscourseThomas J. Burns and Terri LeMoyne

Environmental Injustice and Human Rights AbuseFrancis O. Adeola

Ecological Agriculture in Hedmark County, NorwayGeir Lieblein, Charles A. Francis

and Hanne Torjusen

Official Journal of the Society for Human Ecology

Human Ecology ReviewEditor

Linda KalofDepartment of Sociology & Anthropology

George Mason UniversityFairfax, VA 22030 USA

[email protected]@gmu.edu

Book Review Co-Editor International Editor Book Review Co-EditorThomas Burns Eva Ekehorn William AbruzziUniversity of Utah Commonwealth Human Muhlenberg CollegeDepartment of Sociology Ecology Council Department of SociologySalt Lake City, UT 84112 USA 72 Gloucester Court, Kew & [email protected] Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3EA UK Allentown, PA 18104 USA

[email protected] [email protected]

Assistant EditorHeather L. Heckel

Department of Sociology & AnthropologyGeorge Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030 USAPhone: 703-993-1443 Fax: 703-993-1446

[email protected]

FoundersJonathan G. Taylor

Scott D. Wrightwww.humanecologyreview.org

Editorial BoardMarc Bekoff University of Colorado Lawrence Hamilton University of New HampshireRichard J. Borden College of the Atlantic Luc Hens Free University, BrusselsSherry Cable University of Tennessee Gary A. Klee San Jose State UniversityCaron Chess Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick Ardeshir Mahdavi Carnegie Mellon UniversitySusan Clayton Wooster College Allan Mazur Syracuse UniversityMelville P. Cotè College of the Atlantic Bonnie McCay Rutgers Univ., New BrunswickDebra Davidson University of Alberta Paul McLaughlin Hobart & William Smith CollegesFederico Dickinson Unidad Merida Thom Meredith McGill UniversityThomas Dietz George Mason University Susan Opotow University of Massachusetts BostonMyron Floyd Texas A&M University Peter Richerson University of California, DavisR. Scott Frey Univ. of North Florida J. Timmons Roberts Tulane UniversityScott Friskics Fort Belknap College Robert Sommer University of California, DavisBernhard Glaeser Gothenburg University Joanne Vining University of Illinois, UrbanaVernon Gras George Mason University Thomas Webler Antioch New EnglandMichael Greenberg Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick Michael Welsh Albright College

Human Ecology Review (ISSN 1074-4827) is a refereed journal published twice a year by the Society for HumanEcology. The Journal publishes peer-reviewed research and theory on the interaction between humans and theenvironment (Research in Human Ecology), book reviews (Contemporary Human Ecology), essays, commentaryand applications relevant to human ecology (Human Ecology Forum), and letters, announcements of meetings,awards and other items of interest (Human Ecology Bulletin). Information for contributors to the refereed section ispublished on the inside back cover. For contributions to the journal, contact Linda Kalof at the above address.Information is also at www.humanecologyreview.org.Human Ecology Review is indexed or abstracted in Elsevier Biobase/Current Awareness in Biological Sciences,Environment Abstracts, Environmental Knowledgebase (http://www.iasb.org), Environmental PeriodicalsBibliography (EPB), Linguistic and Language Behavior Abstracts, Social Planning and Policy Abstracts, Uncover,and Sociological Abstracts.

© Society for Human Ecology

Human Ecology ReviewVOLUME 8 SUMMER 2001 NUMBER 1

CONTENTS

Research and Theory in Human Ecology

The Sociopolitical Dimensions of Wolf Management and Restoration in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martin A. Nie 1

Stability and Moral Exclusion: Explaining Conflict in Timber-Dependent Communities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Clark 13

How Environmental Movements Can Be More Effective: Prioritizing Environmental Themes in Political Discourse. . . . . . . . . . . Thomas J. Burns and Terri LeMoyne 26

Environmental Injustice and Human Rights Abuse: The States, MNCs,and Repression of Minority Groups in the World System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Francis O. Adeola 39

Human Ecology Forum: Essays, Commentary and Applications

Future Interconnections Among Ecological Farmers, Processors, Marketers, and Consumers in Hedmark County, Norway: Creating Shared Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geir Lieblein, Charles A. Francis and Hanne Torjusen 61

Contemporary Human Ecology: Book Reviews

The Ecological Indian: Myth and History, by Shepard Krech III . . . . . Reviewed by Dean R. Snow 73

Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature,by John Bellamy Foster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewed by J. Christopher Kovats-Bernat 0

Spaces of Hope, by David Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewed by Terri LeMoyne 0

Briefly Noted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Edited and Compiled by William S. Abruzzi 0

On the Cover

“King of the Pride,” Masai Mara, Kenya, by Paige Tucker

© Society for Human Ecology

Editor’s Note

Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001© Society for Human Ecology

Human Ecology Review

From the EditorLinda KalofGeorge Mason University

This is the seventh issue of Human Ecology Review produced here at GeorgeMason University. We continue to operate with the support of our Dean, DanieleStruppa, and the talents of Tricia Waldron and her staff at Queen City Printers,Burlington, Vermont. We now have a separate URL for HER, www.humanecology-review.org. The web site provides journal contents, abstracts, information for contrib-utors and the names of our valuable Editorial Board members. Subscription infor-mation for the journal is also on the site so please give the URL to your librarian if yourinstitution does not yet subscribe to HER. Library subscriptions are our most solid baseof visibility and funding. Please help us in our ongoing effort to increase the numberof institutional subscriptions to Human Ecology Review.

The Society for Human Ecology Congratulates SHE PresidentDr. Jonathan G. Taylor

Recipient of the Honor Award for Superior Achievement from the Department of the Interior, November 2000

The Society for Human Ecology Announces the Student Paper Competition Winner

Donovan Woollardfor the paper

“A Question of Value: A Social Capital and Community-Based ResourceManagement Literature Review”

Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (EETA)Marc Bekoff and Jane Goodall would like to form a group to be called

“Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.” The purpose of the group will be todevelop and maintain the highest of ethical standards in comparative ethologicalresearch that is conducted in the field and in the laboratory, and to use the latestdevelopments from research in cognitive ethology and on animal sentience toinform discussion and debate about the practical implications of available dataand for the ongoing development of policy. If you are interested, please contactMarc Bekoff at [email protected] or at EPO Biology, University of Colorado,Boulder, CO 80309-0334, USA.

Research in Human Ecology

Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001 1© Society for Human Ecology

Abstract

This article examines the political cultural context andsociopolitical dimensions of wolf management and restora-tion in the United States. Drawing on the experiences of var-ious wolf programs throughout the country, including NewEngland, the Northern Rockies, Upper-Midwest, Southwest,and Yellowstone National Park, it documents how wolves areoften used as a political symbol and surrogate for a numberof socially significant policy issues. It also examines the politics of problem definition in the policymaking process. A“politics” model of public policy is used as an analyticalframework to examine the following dimensions that are inex-tricably tied to the debate over wolf management and recov-ery: land use and the politics of ecosystem management;wilderness preservation; The Wildlands Project and the roleof conservation biology in political decisionmaking; the mer-its and future of the Endangered Species Act; rural culture,concerns and interests; and the contested role of science andpublic participation in wildlife policymaking and manage-ment. The article ends with a discussion of how thesesociopolitical and contextual variables affect political deci-sionmakers and those responsible for wolf management.

Keywords: wolves, wolf reintroduction, wildlife policy,endangered species management

Throughout the United States, wolves (Canis lupus) arereturning to ancient paths and old landscapes. Whether ontheir own through natural recolonization, or by human inter-vention and active reintroduction, wolves are returning tovarious parts of the U.S. — gray wolves in the NorthernRockies (USFWS 1994), Upper-Midwest (USFWS 1992),the Mexican wolf in the Southwest (USFWS 1996), the redwolf in the Southeast (USFWS 1990), as well as morenascent and exploratory efforts in New England, the PacificNorthwest and the Southern Rockies. Their return, and thedebate surrounding it, is one of the most important storiesthat will be told of wildlife policy and American environ-mentalism.

Similar to a number of other environmental issues anddebates, wolf politics and policy is often about much morethan just wolves and their management. The struggle overcarnivore conservation is often a surrogate for broader cultural conflicts: “preservation versus use of resources,recreation-based economies versus extraction-dependenteconomies, urban versus rural values, and states’ rights versus federalism” (Primm and Clark 1996, 1037). In TheWisdom of the Spotted Owl: Policy Lessons for a NewCentury, Yaffee (1994a) documents how the spotted owl con-troversy in the Pacific Northwest transcended the overly sim-plistic “jobs versus owls” dichotomy to include a number ofmore complex sociopolitical and bureaucratic dimensions.According to Yaffee (1994b, 53), “Just as children and owlsstrongly reflect the environment in which they live, policyand management decisions are shaped by their sociopoliticalcontext. To understand why things are the way they are, pro-fessionals and organizations need to understand this context.To ensure that good technical ideas are implemented effec-tively, they need to be able to deal with, and influence, thissociopolitical environment.” Furthermore, says Yaffee(1994a, 1994b), in the case of the northern spotted owl, aswith other endangered species issues, what often appear to besimple conflicts are instead multidimensional ones with seri-ous consequences for public policy and natural resource man-agement.

Yaffee (1994b, 59) notes that the sociopolitical contextof endangered species management is vitally important,“making them much more important and symbolic, and moredifficult to resolve, then they would be otherwise.” This con-text has serious implications for wildlife agency organiza-tional and professional behavior, and Yaffee therefore urgesorganizations and professionals to more seriously considerthe sociopolitical dimensions of endangered species manage-ment. Yaffee’s work provides an important basis to ask thefollowing: (1) What are the sociopolitical themes of variouswolf management and reintroduction programs foundthroughout the United States? (2) What are the policy impli-cations for decisionmakers, managers and successfulhuman/wolf interaction? This research differs from the

The Sociopolitical Dimensions of Wolf Management andRestoration in the United States

Martin A. NieUniversity of Minnesota DuluthDepartment of Political ScienceDuluth, MN 55812-2496USA1

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2 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001

important sociological work done in the area by focusingmore directly on the political contours and policy-end of thedebate (see, for example, Scarce 1998, Wilson 1997).

A number of research sources and methods were usedthroughout the “Wolf Policy Project.” Document analysis(draft and final environmental impact statements, publicopinion polls, transcripts from official proceedings, publiccomments), participant (stakeholder) observation, attendingkey meetings, and the use of a written survey questionnaire togather background information were all used throughout theproject. More than 30 formal and informal qualitative inter-views, usually lasting for one hour or more, with key partici-pants in wolf biology, policy and management throughout thecountry, provides the research with an important grounding inreal-world concerns and concrete issues of significance.Dozens of other informal discussions have also been con-ducted. Prominent members of the conservation community,wolf advocates, wildlife managers, scientists and wolf biolo-gists, academicians, ranchers and their representative organi-zations, hunters, and other important stakeholders were inter-viewed in 1999-2000. Personal interviews and discussionsconducted in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, WestYellowstone, Washington state, and Wisconsin were supple-mented with extensive telephone interviews.

A Politics Model of Public Policy andCarnivore Conservation

There are important political, cultural and legal ques-tions related to carnivore conservation that still need to beaddressed. While critical work has been done in the area,social-science related gaps remain. Interdisciplinaryapproaches to wildlife and carnivore conservation are slowlybecoming more mainstream and prevalent in the literatureand the sciences (Jacobson and McDuff 1998). Uncoveringthe human dimensions of carnivore conservation, accordingto Jacobson and McDuff (1998, 265) involves research into“the beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and socioeconomic,demographic, and organizational characteristics of the stake-holders involved in natural resource conservation issues.” Ona broader level, endangered species recovery also requires amore in-depth understanding of human values, public opin-ion, political and policy processes, agency culture and orga-nizational behavior, and the flow of communication (Clark1997; Clark et al. 1994). Conservation problems are, at theirroot, people problems. Whether or not wolves are hunted andtrapped by the public in Minnesota after Endangered SpeciesAct (ESA) delisting or successfully reestablished in NewEngland are not fundamentally questions of science, butrather questions founded on values, ethics and politics.

The wolf continues to be an animal symbolizing largercultural values, beliefs and fears (Hampton 1997; McNamee1997; Kellert 1996; Kellert et al. 1996; Lopez 1978; Steinhart1995). The abomination and violence migrating settlers dis-played in ridding the frontier of wolves is instructive here —wilderness and the animals within it were interpreted asobstacles to progress (Nash 1967). As Lopez (1978) notes,the wolf not only became an object of pathological animosi-ty but also a scapegoat for larger sociocultural and economichardships. Values are not immutable however. As AldoLeopold’s (1949) personal transformation — seeing that“fierce green fire” in the eyes of a wolf die on a Southwesternmountain — so poignantly confirms, personal values and atti-tudes towards wolves and the natural environment canchange. So can the values and beliefs of entire generations.While a deeply-seated animosity towards the wolf remainsstrong among a minority of Americans (Kellert 1996), forothers, the wolf and its restoration now symbolizes our lastchance to atone and make amends with wildlife and wilder-ness. The wolf has thus “functioned as a particularly power-ful barometer of changing and conflicting attitudes towardwildlife” (Kellert et al. 1996, 978). New generations areinterpreting the wolf and other large carnivores using a dif-ferent set of environmental values in an altogether differenthistorical and sociocultural context (Mech 1996). Both sup-port for, and opposition towards, wolf restoration is thus bet-ter understood using a political framework acknowledgingthe importance of cultural history and political symbolism —two key components in the art of political decisionmaking.

Wolf politics and policy will confound even the mostrigorous techno-rational and scientific approach to policyanalysis. This is in large part due to the fact that participantsand decisionmakers in the debate cannot agree on thedebate’s parameters or what issues are even being debated.The rational decisionmaking policy model often looks some-thing like this: (1) policy objectives are identified, (2) alter-native courses of action for achieving these objectives areidentified, (3) possible consequences of each alternative arepredicted, (4) each possible consequence of each alternativeis evaluated, and finally (5) the best alternative that maxi-mizes the attainment of objectives is selected. It is a frame-work that is embedded, at least from surface appearances, inmost environmental assessments and environmental impactstatements. Such an approach to politics and public policyhas an important lineage, from the scientific managementparadigm put forth during the progressive era to calls madefor a “science of administration.”

Those immersed in wolf politics and policy, howevermuch they may pine for a more rational, scientific and order-ly way of making it, will recognize the over-simplicity of the

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Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001 3

rationality model. This rationality project, according toStone (1997, 17), not only misses the point of politics butalso “grossly distorts political life.” While there are certain-ly stages of policymaking that can be both analyzed andimproved, wolf politics cannot be adequately understoodusing such a mechanistic assembly-line model. Unlike therationality model, the politics model of public policy recog-nizes the importance of the following factors often missingfrom a purely techno-rational analysis: community and con-ceptions of the public interest; groups and organizations, asopposed to individuals, being the basic building blocks ofpolitics; culture, influence and socialization; the role of his-tory and loyalty; myths and images; cooperation, coordina-tion, coalition-building and strategic alliances; how informa-tion is interpreted, imperfect, framed and strategically with-held; and finally, how the essence of policymaking is thestruggle over ideas — the “very stuff of politics” (Stone1997, 32). These ideas, social constructions and competingvisions of the public interest are at the heart of wolf politicsand policy.

The Wolf Policy “Problem”: The Politics ofProblem Definition

Problem definition is the first stage of the policymakingprocess. How a policy issue becomes “framed,” and a prob-lem defined is critical because it alters the way we think, talkand approach a policy issue. It determines what issues get onthe governmental agenda, and how they will be implemented— if implemented at all. The process is a contested one, withcompeting individuals, interests and organizations trying tosell their preferred definition of the problem. The definingprocess occurs in a number of ways, but each has majorimplications for an issue’s political standing, perceptions oflegitimacy, and the types of policy solutions that areadvanced. Say Rochefort and Cobb (1994, 3), “By dramatiz-ing or downplaying the problem and by declaring what is atstake, these descriptions help to push an issue onto the frontburners of policymaking or result in officials’ stubborn inac-tion and neglect.”

These competitors fully understand that how an issuebecomes framed and a problem defined favors some playersand solutions over others. Weiss (1989, 116) contends thatproblem definition relies on “a package of concepts, symbols,and theories” that energizes and empowers some interestswhile silencing others. And in Stone’s (1997, 154) politicsmodel, “Problem definition in the polis is always strategic,designed to call in reinforcements for one’s own side in aconflict — strategic problem definition usually means por-traying a problem so that one’s favored course of actionappears to be in the broad public interest.” These problems,

according to Stone (1997, 155), “are created in the minds ofcitizens by other citizens, leaders, organizations, and govern-ment agencies, as an essential part of political maneuvering.”The language and symbols used in problem definition thuslegitimate and mobilize some values while discounting others.

Problem definition is an important problem-solving toolas well. One comprehensive assessment of its use with car-nivore conservation concludes that “problem definitionshould be viewed as the key analytic and technical tool fordeveloping effective, practical solutions to carnivore conser-vation” (Clark et al. 1996, 947). The importance of problemdefinition in endangered species management is illustrated bythe black-footed ferret recovery program in Wyoming. Theblack-footed ferret — widely considered the most endan-gered mammal in the United States — was once thought bymany to be extinct. In 1981, however, a small population wasdiscovered in northwestern Wyoming. A captive breedingprogram was soon initiated, and some ferrets were reintro-duced back into the wild in 1991. As allowed under Section6 of the ESA, the federal government gave Wyoming, specif-ically the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGF),primary responsibility for ferret restoration.

This management program has been extensively studiedby Clark (1997) who is highly critical of the way in whichWGF defined the ferret problem. According to Clark’s analy-sis, WGF defined the problem in a number of important ways.It was defined as a states’ rights issue for example. This def-inition, says Clark (1997, 141), “figured prominently in theagency’s relationships with all other participants and hadparamount consequences for how all aspects of the ferret program were structured and carried out.” In short, “WGFwould run the show, the federal government would pay for it,and all other participants would be subordinate to thisarrangement” (Clark 1997, 142). Closely associated with thisstates’ rights definition, says Clark, was the agency’s bureau-cratic management orthodoxy. Defining the problem thisway, “Only a very limited range of structural and operationaloptions was thus deemed plausible, namely, those that main-tained or enhanced agency power and constituted the pro-gram along bureaucratic lines” (Clark 1997, 143). Scientificconservatism was another dominant problem definition usedby the agency. As such, there was the time-honored practiceof calling for yet more study and research instead of takingnecessary action. Like most recovery efforts since the ESA,says Clark (1997, 147), “the ferret program was thus largelycast as a scientific problem. Even through ferret protectionhad widespread social, economic, and political implications,the language of ferret recovery remained fundamentally sci-entific and technical.” Clark also places this problem defini-tion and “package of ideas” in its larger subcultural context:


“the strength of certain political symbols in Wyoming (andthe region) — states’ rights, individual and property rights,and scorn for the federal government, environmentalists, andeasterners — provided a highly favorable medium for WGF’sdefinition” (Clark 1997, 157).

Clark’s “ferret problem” sheds important light on howthe wolf recovery and management issue has been framedand the problem defined. Many of Clark’s definitionalthemes are found in various wolf cases as well. What differsperhaps is the extraordinary symbolic quality of the wolfdebate and the sheer number of players involved. And ofcourse ferrets do not eat cows, sheep or elk. Nonetheless,various interests have attempted to define the “wolf problem”in a way that advances their vision of the public interest andtheir hand in the game. Wolves and wilderness, wolves asscience and management problem, wolves and ecologicalrestoration, wolves as federal Trojan horse, and wolves andthe urban exploitation of rural communities are but a few ofthe ways in which participants have tried to define the prob-lem. If the public and political decisionmakers accept thatthe wolf problem stems from too many cows and not enoughwilderness, then both wolves and wilderness go forward. If,on the other hand, the issue is one of federal intrusiveness,then wolves, the ESA and the FWS are on trial. While not allof these symbol and surrogate issues have been used in prob-lem definition, many of them have with serious implicationsfor how we approach “the wolf problem.”

The Sociopolitical Dimensions of WolfManagement and Restoration

The following are some of the more prominent socio-political themes and cultural contours that together providethe context of the wolf management and restoration debate.

Land Use and the Politics of Ecosystem ManagementWolves are an important political symbol not only

because of what they may do, but what some feel they maypreclude others from doing. Questions and controversies per-taining to land use dominate this debate. Many in the wiseuse movement believe that wolf recovery, especially reintro-duction in the American West, is a ruse and political ploy formore regulatory federal lands management, therefore posinga serious threat to rural communities, extractive industries,and the sanctity of private property and individual freedom.Despite promises made to the contrary, some fear that tradi-tional uses of public land and private property will be jeopar-dized by more wolves in more places.

Nowhere are the divergent meanings and varying socialconstructions of wolves more apparent than in the GreaterYellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). This important ecosystem

has provided the arena in which environmentalists and wise-users debate not only wolf reintroduction but also the futureof land use and land use planning on the public domain, shiftsin economic power, the meaning and balance of nature andthe human role in it (Cawley and Freemuth 1993). SaysWilson (1997, 454), “This is not really a story about wolves,but a story about people and their struggle to define the futureof land use in the American West — it is within this highlycharged political context that the wolf in Yellowstone must beunderstood as a symbol, ‘a biopolitical pawn’ in a much larg-er conflict currently being waged between the activists of twosocial movements — environmentalism and wise use.”Scarce (1998) finds the Yellowstone wolf debate even morecomplex, with a number of different socially constructed fac-tors being played out in themes of control/power and self-determination/freedom.

The shift from a multiple-use resource-based paradigm(resourcism) to a more wholistic and participatory ecosystemmanagement paradigm is often central in the debate over wolfrecovery. Ecosystem management (in theory and sometimesin practice) is a dramatic break from the traditional resourcemanagement paradigm (Lackey 1997). According to Cortnerand Moote (1999, 37), “Traditional resource management ispragmatic, seeing in nature a collection of resources that canbe manipulated and harvested, with humans in control.Ecosystem management, on the other hand, views nature withsome reverence and respect for the awesome complexity withwhich its components are interwoven. Protection of ecosys-tem attributes and functions, particularly biodiversity, is crit-ical.” Ecosystem management accentuates the intrinsic values and natural conditions of the environment, seeks eco-logical sustainability as a management priority, and is con-sidered more flexible, adaptive, inclusive, participatory, anddecentralized than traditional resource management.

Key participants in the wolf debate see this potential par-adigm shift in much different ways. Environmentalists frametheir arguments for wolves in the context of healthy, balancedand well-functioning ecosystems — wolves are a key compo-nent of any attempt at serious ecosystem management.Wolves and other predators are but one part, although animportant one, of these larger natural processes. It is not justabout wolves, but about such things as unchecked ungulatepopulations, native flora under pressure from these popula-tions, and other complex biological relationships and ecolog-ical cycles we do not yet fully understand. They thereforeurge public land agencies to move away from a strict utilitar-ian (“multiple abuse”) model towards one with more well-balanced management principles.

Many living within the GYE see this shift in manage-ment as a potential threat however. One survey shows thatnearly two-thirds of rural community residents in the GYE

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fear that ecosystem management will result in greater gov-ernment control, and some 70 percent believing that it repre-sents an attempt by government to control development oflower elevation lands (Reading et al. 1994). Wolves remaininextricably tied to the debate over ecosystem management.It is a step in the right direction say environmentalists, indica-tive of what needs to be done in other ecosystems with othersspecies, from lynx to grizzly bears. For others, however, it issymbolic of a radical biocentric environmentalism becomingformally institutionalized in land management and wildlifeagencies, and done so at the peril of traditional customs, cul-tures and rural communities.

Wilderness Preservation, The WildlandsProject and the Role of Conservation Biology

in Political Decisionmaking

Wolves can survive outside of formal wilderness areas(Mech 1995). Due to a range of factors, however, includingthe willingness of humans to live with the animal, the wolf’sfuture has been inextricably tied to the fate of Americanwilderness. Long-term and large-scale carnivore conserva-tion is thought by many to require the existence and enlarge-ment of either officially-classified wilderness areas or at leastsparsely populated environments in which human/predatorconflict can be minimized (Grumbine 1992). The wolf fig-ures prominently in the fight over wilderness preservationand the enlargement of either federally classified wildernessor additional roadless areas. For many wolf advocates, thewolf symbolizes the virtues and necessity of wilderness —how close we have come to losing it and the possibility ofsafeguarding its future.

The political relationship between wilderness andwolves has been recently documented in the case of Mexicanwolf reintroduction in the American Southwest. The Centerfor Biological Diversity believes officially classified wilder-ness is absolutely essential for successful wolf recovery inthe Southwest. The Center, among dozens of other environ-mental groups, contends that wolves were released inArizona’s non-wilderness Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area(BRWRA) instead of the official Gila wilderness of NewMexico because of New Mexico’s powerful livestock indus-try. The Center advocates that the Blue Range be designatedas formal wilderness and that a second primary recovery zonebe used further east in the Gila/Aldo Leopold wildernesscomplex. The Center believes that the Gila/Leopold offers asafer haven for wolves than does the Blue Range. The groupalso believes that the BRWRA and the Gila/Leopold wilder-ness complex should be connected by biological corridorsallowing for easier wolf travel, that the U.S. Forest Serviceshould begin closing unnecessary roads within the entire

recovery area, and that all grazing permits within the prima-ry recovery areas and travel corridors should be phased out(Center for Biological Diversity 1998).

The political wolf-wilderness relationship is also evidentin New England and will likely become even more so in thefuture. RESTORE: The North Woods, a visionary conserva-tion organization in New England, made a conscious anddeliberate attempt to tie the fate of wolves to that of wilder-ness as a way to get the public thinking of the two as syner-gistic, inseparable and complimentary. Instead of a perceivedmyopic concentration on one single species, they work in amore wholistic fashion to bring back biodiversity and theevolutionary process to New England. A psychological shiftis needed, they say, to get the public thinking of the NorthWoods as an ecosystem — wilderness and wolves — and notjust as a woodlot and “working forest.” They thus wagesimultaneous battles to bring back the wolf to the Northeastwhile also proposing the controversial Maine WoodsNational Park.

The Wildlands Project (TWP) is also unmistakably inter-woven into the story of wolf management and restoration.The mission of TWP is both simple and sweeping,

to protect and restore the natural heritage of NorthAmerica through the establishment of a connectedsystem of wildlands — To stem the disappearance ofwildlife and wilderness we must allow the recoveryof whole ecosystems and landscapes in every regionin North America — we live for the day when griz-zlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection togrizzlies in Alaska; when wolf populations arerestored from Mexico to the Yukon; when vast forestsand flowing prairies again thrive and support theirfull assemblage of native plants and animals; whenhumans dwell with respect, harmony, and affectionfor the land; when we come to live no longer as con-querors but as respectful citizens in the land com-munity (The Wildlands Project 2000, 4).

Although considered radical in its scope and mission by itsopponents and the wise use contingent, TWP has beenendorsed by several scientific luminaries including E.O.Wilson of Harvard University. Many of its ideas, albeitwatered down, have also found their way into formal plan-ning measures such as Florida’s plan to protect the Panther.The now common use of terms such as “The GreaterYellowstone Ecosystem” is also an example of how manybasic tenets of the project have become mainstream. The sci-entific basis of the TWP is based largely on the work of con-servation biology (Soule and Terborgh 1999). Both recog-nize the same basic features of “rewilding:” large, strictlyprotected core reserves, connectivity and keystone species.

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These are the three C’s of rewilding: cores, corridors, andcarnivores. TWP and many conservation biologists focus onlarge predators like the wolf for a number of reasons: thediversity and resilience of ecosystems is often maintained bytop predators, they require habitat connectivity for their long-term viability, and they often require large core areas and thusjustify bigness.

Wolves are important focal species according to TWPbecause their requirements for survival also represent factorsimportant to maintaining ecologically healthy conditions.According to the TWP, “If native large carnivores have beenextirpated from a region, their reintroduction and recovery iscentral to a conservation strategy. Wolves, grizzlies, cougars,lynx, wolverines, black bears, jaguars, and other top carni-vores need to be restored throughout North America in thenatural ranges” (Foreman et al. 2000, 20). While advocates ofwolf reintroduction are not necessarily proponents of TWP,wherever there have been ideas or plans of wolf reintroduc-tion, there are also ideas or plans for rewilding — theYellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, The SouthernRockies Ecosystem Project, the Greater LaurentianWildlands Project, the Appalachian Restoration Campaign,and others. In Southern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, forinstance, the struggle over wilderness and reintroducing largepredators like the wolf seem at times indistinguishable. TheWild San Juans wildlands network advocates restoring natur-al carnivores to the area; protecting and expanding large, wildcore habitats; securing critical landscape corridors, and“rewilding the San Juans” in the process.

Safeguarding roadless land within core areas is a majorgoal of the project. From this point, it is easy to see whyTWP is so controversial. Many of those opposed to wolfrecovery see wolf reintroduction as one part of a much largerand more radical and restrictive environmental agenda.Terms such as “wildlife highways” and “biological corridors”are not only understood by opponents of wolf recovery butare also used as evidence “that these environmentalists wanta lot more than just wolves.”

As can be surmised from above, there are various pillarsof conservation biology that reappear in the debate over wolfrecovery. Among other principles, conservation biologyaccentuates the importance of large areas of interconnectedwildlands for predators and biodiversity in general, the perilsof habitat loss and fragmentation, the importance of greaterecosystems, and the need for biological corridors for wildlifemovement and genetic diversity. The political struggle overwolves, wilderness and larger wildlands is often based on theassumptions, concepts and tools of this conservation-basedscience. In parts of the conservation community, however, itsproper role is contested.

In Adirondack Park of New York, for example, there areimportant questions pertaining to the biological and ecologi-cal feasibility of a persistent wolf population due to such fac-tors as habitat fragmentation, lack of biological corridors andconnectivity, and the general risks of wolves being reintro-duced into a human-dominated landscape. One controversialbiological assessment of reintroducing wolves into theAdirondacks recommended against it due to these basictenets of conservation biology. Commissioned to study thebiological feasibility of Adirondack wolf reintroduction, theConservation Biology Institute concluded:

we do not believe gray wolves can be permanentlyreestablished in the AP [Adirondack Park]. Thoughour analyses suggest that the AP comprises suffi-cient habitat to support a small population of graywolves, regional conditions are not conducive tosustaining wolves over the long term (e.g., 100years) — a small population might exist for, say 50years. However, we should not confuse existencewith persistence. The latter implies perpetuity,which we believe is the unstated objective of mostreintroductions (Paquet et al. 1999, 40-41).

Given this regional isolation, the Institute believes that reintroduced gray wolves would face the typical problemsassociated with island species and small populations.Consequently, in the Adirondacks, any serious discussion ofwolf reintroduction also includes a concomitant discussion ofconservation biology — what it is and what role should itplay in political decisionmaking. While conservationistshave been quite receptive to a science verifying the impor-tance of their agenda, when that science cuts the other way,some of the assumptions and tools of that science suddenlybecome up for debate.

The Merits and Future of the Endangered Species Act

Essential to understanding both wolf management andreintroduction programs underway throughout the UnitedStates is the ESA of 1973 (Keiter and Holscher 1990). As thepace of unprecedented extinction quickens, the ESA — itspotential and failures — become more evident as well aspolitically manipulated. Since 1973, only eleven specieshave been removed from the endangered species list due tosuccessful recovery (CRS 1998). This number is used by bothsupporters of the act, whom want it either strengthened orbetter funded and implemented, as well as by opponents,whom use it as evidence that the act is unworkable andshould be modified or repealed. The wolf has become once

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again an important political symbol. This time, it either rep-resents political validation of the much-beleaguered ESA, oryet another example of the act’s social and economic costs.

Successful wolf recovery is beginning to be used as anexample of the act’s potential and fulfilled expectations.Delisting the gray wolf in the Upper-Midwest, for instance,would certainly be one of the act’s most symbolic achieve-ments. With little national attention and fanfare, gray wolvesin Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan have been successfully restored with approximate-ly 2,500 wolves in Minnesota (estimated at 750 in 1970), 200wolves in the Upper Peninsula (estimated at six in 1973, andwith an additional 29 on Isle Royale) and 250 in Wisconsin(zero in 1973) (see, for example, Michigan DNR 1997,Minnesota DNR 1999, Wisconsin DNR 1999). Perhaps morepolitically important, their recovery, while certainly not freeof controversy, has taken place without many political fearsand apprehensions being legitimized: deer and moose popu-lations have not been devastated, extractive industries such astimber and mining have not been threatened; and the live-stock industry, while experiencing some wolf depredation,has not been ruined.

Wolves have also become entangled with what some seeas too much compromise and capitulation in implementingthe ESA. The most controversial aspect of wolf recovery inthe Northern Rockies and Yellowstone National Park, forexample, has proven to be the designation of reintroducedwolves in central Idaho and Yellowstone as “nonessential,experimental” populations. This designation was proposedas a way to give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)greater flexibility in the management of wolves in theseareas. The designation has been used with different speciesas a way to facilitate management and lessen state, local andindustry concerns over various land use restrictions.Concerned about the few number of species successfullyremoved from the ESA list, and the belief that people wereoften more afraid of the law and its restrictions than the ani-mals themselves, Congress amended the ESA in 1982.Pragmatic political representatives believed that by providingthe FWS more managerial flexibility, species recovery couldbe facilitated in a less controversial political climate. In theranching country of the Northern Rockies, this designationwas chosen as the “preferred alternative” in order to appeaselocal landowners and livestock operators, and to ensure themthat wolf reintroduction would not unduly jeopardize regularways of doing business. Unlike wolves that are protected as“endangered” in northwest Montana, wolves in central Idahoand Yellowstone could be killed or removed from an area incertain circumstances, such as evidence that there has beenlivestock depredation.

Believing that human-induced mortality is one of thegreatest barriers to successful wolf recovery in this region,the FWS attempted to demonstrate, with the experimentaldesignation as its primary tool, that federal agencies wouldact quickly to alleviate depredation problems (FWS 1987).Broadly stated, this debate pits the legislative intent of theoriginal ESA versus the ability of a bureaucracy to effective-ly and flexibly implement this legislation. It is a conflict thatis hardly unique in politics and public administration. Withthis statutory clause, Congress has given the FWS an abilityto maneuver in a complicated and divisive political and cul-tural environment. From the perspective of the FWS, likethat of many other agencies, this type of managerial flexibil-ity is essential if wolves are to have more than just paper sup-port and protection. In other words, some believe that pro-tecting wolves on paper is different than protecting wolves onthe ground. To do the latter, many managers believe thatstate, local and community concerns must be seriously andhonestly dealt with, and if they are not, successful wolfrecovery over the long-term is improbable.

On the other hand, this type of compromise and capitu-lation seriously divided the nation’s conservation communityand this rift is still apparent in many circles.2 In the NorthernRockies and Yellowstone, the debate over wolves is political-ly loaded with these important questions pertaining to “sell-ing out” versus “getting things done.” Again, the debate heregoes well beyond wolves. It is also about appropriate politi-cal strategy, the ethics of compromise and the difficulties ofcoalition-building.

Rural Culture, Concerns and Interests

Wolves, like a number of other threatened and endan-gered species, have provided another opportunity to discussand debate the role and future of rural places and communi-ties. Often bound with the fate of unpredictable commoditymarkets and extractive economies, some see the wolf, and thedanger it poses to livestock, as yet another assault on ruralcommunities. Some rural citizens also view wolf support asbeing a largely urban phenomenon. For instance, while wolfsupport is generally favorable in both urban and rural areas,urban residents (those in the Twin Cities of Minnesota andAlbuquerque, New Mexico for example) are also generallymore supportive of wolves and their reintroduction than areresidents of rural areas (Duda and Young, 1995; Kellert 1999).

Rural places throughout the nation are facing a numberof daunting challenges. As Renee Askins (1995, 115), exec-utive director of the Wolf Fund, a Moose, Wyoming-basedorganization that worked for the return of the wolf toYellowstone, emphasizes in an often repeated quote:

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If I were a rancher I probably would not wantwolves returned to the West. If I faced the condi-tions that ranchers face in the West — falling stockprices, rising taxes, prolonged drought, and anation that is eating less beef and wearing moresynthetics — I would not want to add wolves to mywoes. If I were a rancher in Montana, Idaho orWyoming in 1995, watching my neighbors give upand my way of life fade away, I would be afraid andI would be angry. I would want to blame something,to fight something, even kill something.

Some believe that if such a hearing and public outreach doesnot take place, wolf restoration will be seen as yet one moreexample — from the move towards corporate agriculture tofalling beef prices — of what little regard the government hasfor a quickly disintegrating culture. As one rancher informedme, while international markets and corporatization can bequite complex, wolves are relatively simple and can fitstraight into the scope of a rifle.

Throughout the U.S., wolves have provided a lensthrough which to evaluate the power and political strategies ofvarious rural industries, interest groups and organizations.Like the northern spotted owl and the timber industry, wolvesare similarly intertwined with ranching culture and the live-stock industry. This industry and its political representationhave largely structured the basic parameters of both wolf man-agement and restoration efforts. Wolves are being reintro-duced, for example, in Idaho, Yellowstone and the Southwestunder the ESA’s nonessential, experimental designationbecause of pressure placed on political representatives and theFWS by the livestock industry. For critics of this industry,wolves provide the latest opportunity to attack the economicand ecological costs of the Western ranching culture, as wellas what is perceived as the “captured” nature of the FWS.Says Goble (1992, 101), “The wolf represents a threat — bothphilosophically and economically — to the industry’sentrenched subsidies. In attempting to placate this politicallypowerful industry, the agency charged with protecting thewolf has itself violated the Endangered Species Act.”

Tribal Participation and ManagementAuthority

Wolf recovery and reintroduction in various regions ofthe country has provided an opportunity for many in thedebate to reexamine the role of tribes in wildlife policymak-ing and management. First Nations play an important butconfusing role in the story of wolf recovery. First of course,there is no one tribal role. Instead, there are literally dozens.To confuse matters even more, there are often different rules

and regulations pertaining to fish and wildlife managementthat are specific to a particular band, not the tribe as a whole.For example, in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin andthe Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the eleven bands of theChippewa (often referred to as Ojibwe or Anishinabe), couldin theory have eleven different sets of wolf management rulesand regulations. While the Great Lakes Indian Fish andWildlife Commission (GLIFWC), an intertribal organization,helps ensure that off-reservation hunting and fishing rightsguaranteed by various treaties are protected, there is littlethey do pertaining to fish and wildlife policy on the variousreservations. These reservations are not as large as thosefound further west. Nevertheless, it does illustrate the man-agerial complexity faced here, as well as the need for mean-ingful intergovernmental (international) communication andcooperation. Wolves will increasingly find themselves in acomplicated federal, state and tribal legal landscape, manywith different management guidelines, cultures and values.

Idaho’s staunch political resistance to the FWS reintro-ducing wolves into central Idaho opened the door to tribalparticipation and wolf management responsibilities. The NezPerce tribe acquired the role, as outlined in the FinalEnvironmental Impact Statement (FEIS), the state of Idahodid not want. As the Idaho House voted down the revisedstate wolf management plan, with one member contendingthat the issue had “little to do with wolves and lots to do withstate sovereignty,” the Nez Perce and FWS worked out acooperative management and recovery plan (Wilson 1999,553). This five-year agreement gave the tribe responsibility,with FWS funding and oversight, over tracking and monitor-ing, disseminating information, and public education. Unlikethe state of Idaho, the Nez Perce — a member of the EISadvisory team and wolf recovery planning participant —actively sought out an important role for the tribe in wolfrecovery. In the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, forexample, the tribe stressed that it wanted to be a participantin program management and that whatever alternative waschosen, the tribe “should be ‘a’ or ‘the’ major player in wolfrecovery” (Wilson 1999, 554).

The symbolic importance of Nez Perce wolf manage-ment is hard to miss. According to Jaime Pinkham (1999) ofthe Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, their wolf recov-ery effort put a spotlight on the tribe for a couple of reasons.First, this was the first time that an Indian tribe had taken thelead role in the reintroduction of an endangered species underthe ESA. And second, “It highlighted the fact that a tribe hasthe scientific capability as well as the political savvy to takeon a project such as this” (1999). Despite the historic rolethat the Nez Perce have played in wolf recovery in Idaho, animportant question lingers: what happens, and what roledoes the tribe, in relation to the state of Idaho, play upon

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future delisting and state wolf management? While the tribewould like to continue playing a role, it also understands thestate’s traditional wildlife authority and management respon-sibilities.

Unlike the Nez Perce in Idaho, the San Carlos Apacheand White Mountain Apache (or Fort Apache), both locatedimmediately to the west of the BRWRA in Arizona, initiallyadopted resolutions opposing Mexican wolf recovery in theBRWRA (USFWS 1996). For both tribal governments, live-stock depredation and budgetary constraints were importantconcerns. Also significant, however, both reservations gener-ate significant revenue from non-tribal member game hunt-ing. For the San Carlos Apache, for instance, trophy elkhunting by non-members provides approximately $500,000in hunting revenues annually. Significant revenue is alsogenerated by small game hunting, trapping and fees fromguiding. It is much the same for the 1.63 million acre WhiteMountain Apache who generated approximately $1 million innon-member hunting revenues in 1995, and annually sell trophy elk permits at $11,000 each (USFWS 1996). Theimpact of wolves on game species migrating onto the reser-vation is therefore a major concern. For the San CarlosApache, as with other Anglo populations near the BRWRA,wolves are often seen as another threat to an insecure ruraleconomy. Not only do multiple-family and tribal cattle operations exist on the San Carlos reservation, but these fam-ilies, as do other tribal members, face numerous economichardships.

Science and Public Participation in WolfManagement and Policymaking

While questions regarding the “what of wolf policy” areindeed controversial, questions regarding the “how and whoof wolf policy” are often as equally contentious. Who shouldbe the primary decisionmakers — elected representatives,trained wildlife biologists and scientists, residents of affectedareas, the national public-at-large? Who are the direct andindirect stakeholders — rural local citizens, ranchers, envi-ronmentalists? How much weight should their voices begiven? How should decisions be made — top-down, execu-tive order, participatory and discursive design, by initiativeand referendum? The role of science and scientists and thatof public participation has been, and will continue to be, acentral theme in the debate over wolves and their manage-ment. This issue is related to calls made for making wildlifeagencies more open to individuals and groups outside of gov-ernment and as a way of promoting cooperation (Clark et al.1994b).

Wolves are being managed and reintroduced during anunprecedented trend in the use of stakeholders, collaboration

and consensus-building in environmental management and decisionmaking (Cestero 1999; Chess et al. 1998;Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). Constantly seeping into thedebate over wolves in various regions and states are issuespertaining to who should be making wolf-related manage-ment and policy decisions. For example, as states in theNorthern Rockies and Upper-Midwest prepare their statewolf management plans for FWS approval (after possibledelisting from the endangered species list), each state agencyis giving careful thought to the role and weight that stake-holders should have in the process. Deciding on how deci-sions should be made — from the proper balance of scientistsand stakeholders to deciding on who should be invited to thedecisionmaking table — have often been as controversial asquestions more specifically related to wolves and their man-agement.

Wolves are among the most studied species in the world.With such knowledge, along with the significant strides madein wildlife monitoring and management, some scientistsbelieve that they should have primary responsibility for managing wolves. Others, however, noting the significantsociopolitical, economic and cultural elements of wolf recov-ery, as well as the lack of consensus in some areas of wolfscience, believe that the public, in one form or another,should have a preeminent role in setting management objec-tives and guidelines.

The FWS has allowed states flexibility in how theydevise their wolf management plans, insofar as they ensurethe survival of the wolf at or above recovery levels.Minnesota’s first Wolf Management Plan (subsequentlyrejected by the Minnesota state legislature), for example, wascreated using a series of public meetings followed by aneight-day stakeholders’ discussion (Minnesota WolfManagement Roundtable) that led to a consensus agreementon state wolf management. The roundtable was comprised ofrepresentatives from environmental, agricultural, hunting,trapping, and wolf advocate organizations, government agen-cies, and other affected citizens and stakeholders. The pur-pose of the roundtable was not perfunctory nor merely advisory: the commissioner of Minnesota’s Department ofNatural Resources pledged support of the roundtable consen-sus, whatever that may be, as long as it assured the survivalof the wolf and the recommendations were “biologicallysound.”

Local citizen input regarding wolves and other large car-nivores such as the grizzly bear is often criticized by envi-ronmentalists in the American West who most often fear thatdomination by cattle and extractive industry interests will bedisguised under the pretense of “public participation.” Wolfmanagers in Minnesota, however, struggled with quite a dif-ferent problem: what happens when the public, as represent-

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ed by the wolf roundtable, advocate more wolves than manyfederal scientists and managers want or think they can effec-tively manage? Along with a number of other important rec-ommendations, the roundtable agreed that wolves inMinnesota should be allowed to naturally expand their rangein the state, and in order to assure their continued survival theminimum statewide winter population goal was set at 1,600wolves with no maximum goal or ceiling. The numbers rec-ommended by the roundtable were above those stated in the1992 Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf placing opti-mal populations in the 1,250-1,400 range in wilderness andsemi-wilderness locales. The 1992 plan justified such rec-ommendations as a way to both ensure wolf survival in thestate, produce enough dispersers to help repopulate adjacentstates while at the same time minimizing human/wolf con-flicts.

One of the most consequential developments inMinnesota’s imminent wolf management was thus the dispar-ity between scientific and public management of the state’swolves. Prominent wolf biologist David Mech, for example,an ardent and long-time wolf advocate and chair of the WorldConservation Union’s (formerly IUCN) Wolf SpecialistGroup, feared that roundtable recommendations regardingthe wolf population would likely lead to increased livestockdepredation, exacerbated human/wolf conflicts (especially asthey disperse outside of wilderness and into agriculturalareas), and public backlash (Mech 1998). Furthermore,Mech was concerned that once wolf numbers got as high asthose recommended by the roundtable, attempts at control-ling wolf populations would become more difficult, time-consuming and expensive, if even possible (Mech 1998).

Mech is quite critical of various interest groups havingsuch an important voice in the management of Minnesota’swolves. Not only does he believe that biologists should bemaking these decisions rather than stakeholders, but thatpolitical decisionmakers in other wolf reintroduction projectsare watching Minnesota, and if they see that once wolves arereintroduced, management is taken out of the hands of pro-fessionals, they will be much less likely to move forward withthe reintroductions. Mech believes that wolf reintroduction iscontingent upon proving to local communities, the public-at-large and policymakers that the animal can be successfullyand scientifically managed, and if such management is takenaway from the wildlife professional and given to specialinterests in whatever guise, global wolf restoration will behalted. Furthermore, says Mech, provisions for strict popula-tion control was the premise to wolf restoration in theNorthern Rockies, the Southwest and North Carolina.

Conclusion

Similar to the case of the northern spotted owl, wolfmanagement and restoration transcends issues strictly per-taining to wolf behavior. This examination of the sociopolit-ical dimensions of wolf management and restoration buildsupon the work of others whom earlier recognized that speciesendangerment cannot be separated from context for “they areinextricably intertwined,” and that by “attempting to restorespecies by ignoring everything but the species’ biologyinvites failure” (Clark et al. 1994b, 419-420). From owls togrizzlies, “Many obstacles to species restoration are rooted inthe valuational, economic, or political dimensions of the sit-uation” (Clark et al. 1994b, 420). Such contextual mappingand wholistic approaches, moreover, are important to thoseresponsible for wolf management and reintroduction pro-grams. As noted by Yaffee (1994b, 70-71) in the case of thespotted owl, “The success in future efforts to protect biolog-ical diversity will depend in large part on how well agenciesand professionals understand and act within this sociopoliti-cal context.” Those closest to wolf management and restora-tion now recognize the growing importance of these humandimensions (see Bangs et al. 1998, 797).

As the debate over wolves (and the next step of statewolf management) proceeds, it is important to recognizethese larger cultural and sociopolitical issues and concerns.From the possibility of wolf reintroduction in New Englandto the more established programs of the Upper-Midwest,Northern Rockies and Southwest, wolves will continue to beabout more than just wolves. These sociopolitical dimen-sions and competing problem definitions certainly make wolfconservation and restoration complicated and acrimonious.On the other hand, they also provide another opportunity tobetter understand and more fundamentally address theseimportant issues. There is little doubt why the wolf remainssuch an important symbol and surrogate — in facing thefuture of the wolf, we are unmistakably facing our own.

Endnotes

1. [email protected]. The debate over how the ESA should be implemented, and whether

or not it should be implemented at all, culminated in litigation overwolves in Yellowstone. The original litigation first began by a law-suit filed by the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) who wererepresented by the Mountain States Legal Foundation (a wise-use ori-ented organization opposing wolf restoration). This lawsuit claimedthat the nonessential, experimental status of reintroduced wolvesthreatened the health and protected status of wolves that were possi-bly already in the area, as well as those that would disperse there,therefore jeopardizing naturally recolonized wolves that wereclaimed to already be in Yellowstone. The AFBF used the experi-

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mental clause as a way in which to halt active reintroduction, andforce newly reintroduced wolves to be removed. A few environmen-tal organizations also found themselves uncomfortably sided withtheir traditional adversaries in this lengthy legal battle. Unlike theAFBF, however, these organizations opposed the use of the experi-mental designation because they believed it not only endangered nat-urally recolonized wolves, but that reintroduced wolves should beafforded the maximum protection allowed under the ESA. Thesecases were later combined into a single case and heard by the FederalDistrict Court in Wyoming in 1994. In a controversial ruling, thecourt claimed that the experimental designation did reduce protectionof “endangered” wolves from northwest Montana that may naturallydisperse into the experimental area of Yellowstone. This ruling waslater overturned by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all of those individuals that were interviewed as partof the wolf policy project, as well as anonymous reviewers for commentsand suggestions. Very generous support from the Office of the VicePresident for Research and Dean of the Graduate School of the Universityof Minnesota has provided me the opportunity to carry out much of thisresearch.

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Abstract

Economic and social dislocations in Northwest tim-ber-dependent communities during the last fifteen yearsresulted from industrial restructuring pushed by global com-petition, stock manipulations, technological modernizationand environmental regulations. Timber community instabili-ty and resultant social conflict are linked to cultural issuesnestled in differences in community resiliency, internal diver-sity in production relationships, industrial profitability ratio-nales and the management of scientific information.Previous studies used terms such as “traditional,” “commu-nity stability,” “timber dependency,” and “moral persua-sion” outside of defined community contexts and unrelated tolocal environmental conditions, which led to unwarrantedgeneralizations about combatants within post-1985 industri-al restructuring in the Northwest. This study of a northwestMontana timber county examines connections between struc-tural issues and exclusionary cultural mobilization, suggest-ing that hyper-contextualization may provide a deeperresearch avenue than previous universalized studies.

Keywords: moral exclusion, environmental conflict,industrial restructuring, community stability

Introduction

The symbolic and ideological conflict over forestresources in Lincoln County, Montana, from 1985-1993occurred in response to factors perceived as destabilizing tothe county’s three timber-dependent communities of Troy,Libby and Eureka. These perceived threats included envi-ronmental regulations, labor strife, excessive timber harvests,and new scientific evidence indicating forest habitat degrada-tion. This paper presents findings concerning public conflictin timber debates in Lincoln County using a three-tieredinvestigation that included direct participation in issues,matched random and purposive surveys, and a profitability/production analysis of national forests and private lands during 1960-1994. After examining the study area and par-

ticipants in timber debates, the paper demonstrates howinter-community differentiation encouraged a cultural strug-gle over old growth management in the early 1990s. Thiscontextualization draws attention to attitude and behaviorpatterns that distinguish local environmentalists from themajority of county residents. Building from the structuraldifferentiation between communities and the subculturalcharacteristics of environmentalists, the paper constructs atheoretical explanation for the inevitable growth of rhetoricalconflict, here called moral exclusion, in which scientificinformation became an antagonist rather than a mediator inthe public discourse over endangered species and forest man-agement.

Examination of localized socioeconomic structures oftimber communities reveals them to be differentiated by theirspecific relations of production, community social organiza-tion, level of dependency on natural resources and economicdiversity (Freudenburg 1992; Kaufman and Kaufman 1946;Le Master and Beuter 1989; Machlis, Force and Balice 1990;Power 1996). Some timber communities have structuraladvantages over others. For example, technological differ-ences in mill and harvesting machinery combine with com-pany bidding strategies and restrictions from environmentalregulations to promote intra-regional competition betweentimber companies. Local conditions impact, but do not nec-essarily determine, multi-national decisions to restructurerespective corporate divisions and lumber mills to maintainprofitability. Restructuring decisions are closely linked tonational housing market trends and international productionlevels. During certain production cycles, a global cost-pricesqueeze between rising retooling costs and industrial over-production drives corporate activity towards the colonizationof less regulated regions of the world, a process that leavesNorthwest timber communities destabilized with high unem-ployment levels (Freudenburg 1992; Freudenburg et al.1998).

Both declines in forest resources and the imposition ofincreased environmental restrictions after 1985 (Dumont1996; Flowers et al. 1994), particularly in Northwest oldgrowth groves associated with the spotted owl, provided



Stability and Moral Exclusion: Explaining Conflict inTimber-Dependent Communities

Charles ClarkDepartment of SociologyUniversity of New MexicoAlbuquerque, NM 87131-1166USA1

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direct impetus for the retooling of regional mills. Investmentinto laser mill technology geared toward the harvest of smalldiameter logs competitively disadvantaged timber communi-ties that continued to harvest large diameter old growthforests. Laser technology is low-labor intensive and its intro-duction produced high unemployment levels and weakenedthe strength of timber industry unions. Concurrently, esca-lating public oversight and internal controversy in manage-ment agencies questioned congressionally mandated produc-tion levels (Sedler et al. 1991) and the sustainability of tim-ber harvests in terms of their effects on wildlife (AFSEEE1989).

The rise of social conflict in timber communitiesthroughout the Northwest after 1985 directed attentiontowards issues of what Robert Lee (1989) called “stable com-munities” rather than “community stability.” In place of aconcentration on sustainable production levels, Lee sug-gested in a series of works (1989, 1990, 1993, 1994) that thestudy of normative stability in timber communities undergo-ing rapid structural change was as critical as structural analy-sis in comprehending the intensity of timber conflicts in theNorthwest. Lee’s adaptation of Opotow’s (1990) conceptualframework of moral exclusion to timber conflicts offers ameans to examine the symbolic importance of the clash of“jobs versus the environment” that continues to be a divisiveforce within so many timber communities (Freudenburg1998; Lee 1994; Moore 1993; Summers 1992).

Moral exclusion is the use of rhetorical symbols to dele-gitimize opponents in a way that justifies their exclusionfrom political participation in management decisions or fromthe economic benefits of natural resource extraction. Opotow(1990, 1) emphasizes that moral exclusion places individualsand groups “outside the boundary in which moral values,rules, and considerations of fairness apply.” Environmental-ists delegitimize hardworking loggers by valuing endangeredspecies survival over human subsistence and, in the process,justify environmental reforms that impose cultural destabi-lization and economic insecurity on logging families (Lee1989, 1994; Summers 1992). Moore (1993) paints the cul-tural debate as double-sided with the spotted owl being a“representational ideograph” that simultaneously representsincongruent ideological positions for loggers and environ-mentalists. Neither side’s viewpoint is particularly related tothe “scientific issues” of threatened owl survival or the use ofowl population density as a valid indicator for the health ofold growth habitat. Instead, Moore believes that both per-spectives use the symbol of the owl to invoke in-group soli-darity. This moral inclusion is partially sustained throughboundary maintenance that not only excludes “others” fromin-group membership but also excludes in-group collectiverecognition of exterior facts that bear on the local natural

resource conflict. Moral exclusion thus provides a means forsub-group mobilization (Coser 1956; Collins 1974, 1993),but not necessarily in accordance with objective environmen-tal, social or industrial conditions.

Previous Studies

This report emphasizes post-1985 occurrences in timbercommunities. The implementation of national forest plansafter 1985 under provisions in the National ForestManagement Act of 1976 offered the means for environmen-tal challenge to public forest management procedures.Previously, industry had adjusted frequently to constructionbooms and busts, forest resource declines, federal manage-ment policies, and environmental regulations without signifi-cant social conflict (Dumont 1996). Following 1985, bothenvironmentalists and loggers developed sophisticated,mobilized resistance in which efforts to delegitimize oppo-nent protests against federal timber harvest programs werecharacterized by moral exclusion.

Most sociological studies of timber communities devel-oped in relation to the effects of spotted owl management incoastal rainforests of California, Oregon and Washington.Lembke (1976) and Marchak (1979, 1984) opened the debateon industrial restructuring by pointing out that modernizationof technology in the timber mills of California and BritishColumbia, particularly for composite products, permittedincreased volume production but reduced employment simul-taneously. This reverse relationship between technology andjobs appeared in numerous other investigations (Bailey et al.1993; Flowers et al. 1994; Freudenburg 1992; Freudenburg etal. 1998; Machlis and Force 1988; Power 1996; Summers1992). Studies after 1988 routinely noted the damage done tolocal culture and social organization by technologicalchange, single resource dependency and environmentalrestrictions (Freudenburg et al. 1998; Lee 1989; Machlis,Force and Balice 1990; Warren 1992; Zaslowsky 1990).

Earlier social analyses into timber community conflictspresented timber shortages as socially constructed limitationson industrial output rather than as empirical ecological prob-lems (Brulle 1996; Lee 1989, 1994; Moore 1993). In theirview of sustainable forestry, habitat modification rather thanhabitat degradation had occurred. However, three indepen-dent studies by environmentalists reinitiated interest in envi-ronmental factors. The National Audubon Society funded anold growth field verification survey in Oregon, Washingtonand Montana that demonstrated that effective old growthhabitat on federal lands counted significantly fewer acresthan claimed by federal agencies. A Montana study thatreached Congress and raised concern over “Phantom Trees”suggested that standing mature timber was greatly over-

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estimated by the Forest Service in inventory reports sent toCongress to set mandated harvest levels (Sedler et al. 1991).A bull trout inventory by the Alliance for Wild Rockiesshowed significant post-harvest declines in bull trout survivalrates in Montana and Idaho. These combined with federalagency studies of threatened spotted owl and grizzly bearpopulations to apply pressure for volume reductions on fed-eral lands in the early 1990s.

Concern over the adaptive flexibility of logging commu-nities to cutbacks resulting from federal management regula-tions led to a series of studies on community stability. Lee(1989) and others reviewed an early study by Kaufman andKaufman (1946) of two timber communities in northwestMontana as an exemplary investigation of natural resourcedependency. Kaufman and Kaufman examined three levelsof social-ecological relationships: sustainable forest man-agement, the production objectives of private industry, andthe stability of local social institutions. They recommendedincreased public input into forest management decisions, thediversification of community relations to timber production,sustainable harvest practices on private timberlands andincreased concern over social impacts of management deci-sions. However, “the one empirical sociological study of atimber-dependent community ... was not well received by theForest Service and was largely ignored until recently” (Lee1989, 30).

As timber debates heated up in the late 1980s, a growingnumber of researchers turned to the measurement of environ-mental attitudes and longitudinal behaviors. Fortmann andKusel (1990) measured pro-environmental propensitiesbetween old and new residents of forest communities, findingsimilarities in positive attitudes among newcomers and olderresidents but stronger sentiments among women. Machlisand Force (1988) found that the operationalization of “com-munity,” “stability” and “dependency” led researchers toapproach sociocultural values from distinctly different per-spectives and to reach different conclusions. They suggestedthe need to stress resiliency and transition in analyzing com-munity stability and attitudes.

The case study presented in the following pages, takenfrom the Lincoln County site in northwest Montana of theKaufman and Kaufman study, addresses four weaknesses inthe cited literature. First, the inability of previous studies toconnect cultural studies to serial2 cross-community studiesoverlooked inter-community differentiation. Operational-izing communities as whole units and aggregating them over counties or regions (Machlis, Force and Dalton 1994)obscures the cultural dynamics in timber debates. Second,universalizing corporate restructuring decisions asindustry-wide fails to reveal central factors that affect com-munity resiliency. Diverse local timber production allows

adjustments to market fluctuations and changes in resourceavailability regardless of environmental regulations. Third,previous use of moral exclusion outside of a localized contextled to “ideal-type” stereotypes of timber debate combatantsrather than providing the thick description necessary to ana-lyze moral engagement. In post-1985 timber debates, moralexclusion first and foremost played a role in controversy overthe legitimate role of scientific investigation in resource man-agement. This local critique by loggers redirects attentiontowards issues of the relativity of scientific positions and thevalidity of a particularized voice (Heidegger in Zimmerman1990; Lee 1994; Plumwood 1993; Warren 1996). Finally,previous studies failed to acknowledge the early 1980s inte-gration of environmental roles within industrial structures asa means to assure forest industry sustainability. In fulfillingtree planting and forest inventory roles essential to industrialsurvival, roles that predated the old growth controversy, envi-ronmentalists operated within, not outside, the forest man-agement structure during the conflict. Timber communityorganizers found it difficult to attack the scientific claims ofenvironmentalists whose job was to understand the conditionof forest habitat. The Lincoln County situation suggests thatmoral exclusion evolved as a tool of the timber industry toassist the mobilization of diverse communities against envi-ronmental scientific claims.

The Study Area and the Combatants in the Timber Debate

Lincoln County lies in the northwest corner of Montanawhere it leads state counties in annual timber production(DSL 1995). In two years in the early 1990s, Lincoln Countyled the nation in timber production from national forests. TheKootenai National Forest (KNF) and significant private tim-berland dominate landownership in the county. Annual pri-vate and public harvests from Lincoln County and the KNFaveraged 288 million board feet (mmbf) from 1972-1994,64% from public lands (Clark 1995). From 1985-1994, sevenmills in four counties and two states with an annual millingcapacity of over 800 mmbf vied for contracts on the KNF.The excessive mill capacity above sustainable harvest levelsinsured an active competitive bidding market between timbercompanies.

In the1980s, structural differentiation in timber relationscharacterized the county’s three communities of Libby,Eureka and Troy (see Table 1). A single, unionized sawmilland plywood plant dominated Libby’s lumber productionwhile Eureka counted numerous non-unionized, diversifiedtimber industries that included two sawmills, a chip plant,and a large cedar post and rail operation. Troy lacked a lum-ber mill, its several short experiments with mills over the

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years never successfully competing with the nearby largesawmill operation in Libby (Kaufman and Kaufman 1946;Edgar 1994). As the seat of county government and in its roleas regional service center, Libby contained the county’s mostdiversified workforce. Both Kaufman and Kaufman’s earlystudy and Edgar’s recent one found that Troy suffered uniqueeconomic disadvantages, evidenced by higher unemploy-ment, greater impoverishment and a sense of social anomieand frustration at its perpetual weakness in the face of eco-nomic dominance by Libby. Eureka, located some 70 milesfrom Libby, remained independent from the influence of thestrong Libby economy maintaining close industrial ties toCanada and the Flathead Valley of Montana.

Several major environmental and structural occurrencesbrought instability to communities in Lincoln County from1985 to 1994. A massive lodgepole pine beetle epidemic

encouraged the Forest Service to expand its road system intoa remote area along the Canadian border known as the Yaak.The Yaak is one of five designated grizzly bear recovery areasin the Rocky Mountains and the need to harvest lodgepoleclashed directly with Endangered Species Act protection forgrizzly habitat. Under Reagan programs to downsize gov-ernment, the Forest Service cut costs by increasing the size oftimber sales.3 This resulted in the elimination of small log-gers (gyppos) from competitive bidding and enlarged gyppodependency on company ties. Proposed Wilderness Area des-ignations (1985) and the implementation of the KNF Plan(1987) raised fears that wildlife standards would limit har-vests and destabilize local economies. Eight years of droughtand several large fires pressured the government into sal-vaging smaller diameter trees while appeals by environmen-talists led to tighter restrictions on old growth harvests.

Table 1. Structural Characteristics in Lincoln County Communities.LIBBY EUREKA TROY CRG

Urban Population 3574 1214 984

Economic diversity - county government - ranching community - wilderness area- service center - gambling industry - guiding services- community college - wilderness area- wilderness area- ski area

Relations to timber production - one huge lumbermill - one industrial mill - no lumbermill - tree planting- one rural sawmill - one medium mill - two rural sawmills - forest inventory

- woodchip mill - small cedar mill- large cedar mill

Forest Service districts* - Supervisors Office - Rexford District - Troy District*Libby, Canoe Gulch - Libby District - Fortine Districtconsolidated in 1996 - Canoe Gulch

Employment categoriesMillworker 20.5% 11.8% 5.7% 0%Logger 9.1% 19.6% 17.1% 3%Forest Service 4.5% 8% 11.4% 15.2%Service 35.2% 19.6% 20% 30.3%Retired 27.3% 23.5% 22.9% 12.1%

Families with woods workers 18.4% 54% 50% 48.9%

Importance of timber incomecritical 55.7% 54.9% 40% 12.1%supplemental 19.3% 13.7% 14.3% 33.3%unimportant 25% 31.4% 45.7% 54.6%

Income level1-10,000 20.5% 13.6% 28.6% 9.1%10-20,000 26.5% 27.3% 34.3% 27.3%20-30,000 30.1% 31.8% 14.3% 15.2%> 30,000 22.9% 27.3% 22.9% 48.9%

Families with unemployment 28.4% 25% 40% 15.2%

Party affiliationIndependent 42.7% 44.6% 50% 31.2%Democrat 36.6% 31.9% 26.5% 56.3%Republican 20.7% 19.1% 20.6% 9.4%

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Finally, Reagan/Bush administrative support for free tradelowered tariffs against Canadian softwood imports, produc-ing a cost/price squeeze which limited industrial investmentin technological modernization and contributed to the indus-trial competitive shakedown throughout the Northwest(Freudenburg 1992; Freudenburg et al. 1998). These forcesweakened the bidding advantages of the large old-growthdependent Libby mill, which faced the need to invest in smalllog technology at a time when import competition was low-ering national lumber prices. Even without consideringdirect effects of environmental regulation, a restructuring oflocal industrial relationships seemed inevitable.

A useful view of intra-regional competition comes fromlooking at the changes within the industrial structure ofLincoln County during the period under consideration (Table2). The Libby mill lost its dominant role in production dueto diminishing supplies of old growth, while a chip mill inEureka, a small diameter log mill in Libby, and an exclu-sively salvage-oriented mill outside of Troy stepped up pro-duction. Competitive bidding between companies drovestumpage prices — the bid price companies paid for therights to cut standing trees under government contracts — torecord heights. Profits spiraled downward (Clark 1995).

Environmental pressure also increased during the 1980s.The Cabinet Resource Group (CRG) formed in the early1980s in response to efforts to construct two dams on theKootenai River. A local coalition of interests stopped theproposed re-regulation dam above Libby and the Kootenai

Indian Tribe intervened to protect Kootenai Falls as a sacredsite. In both cases CRG played a central role in the opposi-tion, a role local papers rhetorically ascribed to“no-growther” anti-development forces. CRG concentratedon water quality, mining and wilderness issues in themid-1980s, only belatedly becoming involved in forestrydecisions with the implementation of the KNF Plan in 1987,the Upper Yaak Environmental Impact Statement in 1988 andthe Kootenai Accords in 1989.4 President Reagan’s veto of aMontana Wilderness Bill that included local environmentalproposals for wilderness designations and KNF plans to hikeharvest levels led CRG to participate in regional forest-watchactivities, though CRG remains known today as one of themore independent and locally-focused environmental groupsin the state.

These structural and oppositional events combined withnumerous timber sale appeals, the indecisiveness of the for-est management planning process, and new state and federalwater quality and wildlife regulations to undermine the senseof stability for Lincoln County citizens. How were environ-mental attitudes and sense of social instability related? Bothdemographic and structural differences within and betweenthe communities needed to be examined in relation to thegrowing body of scientific evidence concerning forest degra-dation and economic conditions. How did the public naturalresource debates respond to concrete conditions and how didthey reflect the need for in-group mobilization in the face ofgrowing economic instability? By studying the inter-rela-tionship of structure and culture in timber debates, the link-age between moral exclusion, environmental decisions andcommunity stability could be judged. The conclusion pre-sented here is that along with productive structures and eco-nomic hardship from industrial restructuring and imposedenvironmental regulations, exclusionary politics involvingcomplicity between community loggers and the industrialelite are also necessary to explain the unity of opposition toenvironmental regulation in Lincoln County around 1990.

The Study Methodology

The county’s three communities of Troy, Libby andEureka provide an excellent source for the study of timberdebates due to the existence of serial community studies(1946, 1953, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995), the high profileof social conflict within the communities, and the advancedlevels of organization of both loggers and environmentalistswithin the conflict over timber management. Previous socio-logical (1946, 1992, 1993) and agency (1953, 1990) studiesindicated community differentiation in industrial relationsand natural resource attitudes dominated Lincoln Countyrelationships.

Table 2. Timeline of structural changes in mills buying KNF timber.

1982 First appeal of Yaak timber sales.1983 St. Regis begins massive harvest of private lands to reduce value of

standing timber stock and to improve cash flow potential of the millby increasing inventor.

1985 St. Regis Paper Co. sells its Libby lumbermill to ChampionInternational. Cash-poor Champion exacts a $3/hour wage cut fromunion to help finance its purchase.

1987 Forest Plan implementation begins.1988 Libby millworkers join regional strike to regain wage cuts of 1985.1988 Yaak injunction stops 11 mmbf sale in Upper Yaak timber sales.

Yaak FEIS process begins.1990 New by-product pellet plant opens in Eureka.1990 Yaak FEIS is finally finished but it is appealed.1993 Louisiana Pacific opens small log mill in Libby.1993 Champion closes Libby mill and sells mill to a California company

and its timberlands to Plum Creek mill of Eureka.1994 Libby mill reopens under Stimson Lumber Company but sawmill is

parted out and sold, leaving only advanced technology plywoodplant in operation.

1994 WI Forest Products in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, is sold and shut down.1994 Yaak timber sales approved by court and harvest begins.1995 LP mill in Thompson Falls, MT is sold and shut down.1996 LP small log mill in Libby closes.

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This paper presents the findings of a 1988-95 investiga-tion into the timber debates in Lincoln County built from afour-tiered investigation: (1) direct participation in the tim-ber debates as a member of a local environmental group; (2)a 1994 random, county-wide telephone sample whose surveyinstrument examined the following: demographics; environ-mental, recreational, and forest practices; attitudes towardsforest management and concerns over community stability;(3) an industrial production/profitability analysis using stateand federal production and pricing records from 1960-1994;and (4) a written purposive sample mailed to the membershiplist of the local environmental group, the Cabinet ResourceGroup (CRG). The latter was required when local environ-mental activists who played central roles in local timberdebates failed to show up in the stratified sample of the coun-ty.5 The random sample permitted survey validation throughcomparison with previous serial surveys while the purposivesurvey allowed direct cultural comparison (attitudes andbehaviors) between the general populace of the three com-munities and the population of people willing to identifythemselves as environmentalists during the heat of the timbercontroversy. The revealed cultural differences could then becontextualized or placed within historical events, structuralrelationships, and environmental conditions to determine theroles that moral exclusion and increasing environmental reg-ulation played in political events from 1985-1994.

The production/profitability study aggregated state andfederal production figures for harvests from private timber-lands in the county and the Kootenai National Forest. Thesewere compared with national lumber price trends andMontana stumpage bid levels, converted to 1994 constantdollars using Department of Commerce price deflators foreach year. This analysis allowed a general comparison ofprofitability of northwest Montana production to other areasof Montana and a comparison between private and federaltimber harvests in relation to lumber prices. From the com-bination of this data and historical occurrences such asstrikes, housing recessions, and timber sale appeals it becamepossible to theorize about the effects that environmental reg-ulations had on local production and industrial restructuringdecisions. This was possible because, for the most part, envi-ronmental regulations affected harvests from public but notprivate timberlands.

As a final methodological point, I must address the issueof my personal “voice” since I operated as a participant in thetimber debates of Lincoln County for fifteen years. Duringthat period, I planted 200,000 trees on the KNF, worked sixseasons performing timber inventories on the KNF undercontract and wrote a citizen’s ecosystem alternative includedin the Upper Yaak FEIS. Precisely because of the social con-flict encountered during that effort, I turned to sociology and

the application of scientific investigative techniques to under-stand socioecological conflict. I adapted the survey reportedhere to include issues raised by previous surveys in LincolnCounty by other sociologists, but I also chose not to disregardknowledge gained while working on the KNF. The questionsasked during the survey reflect personal experience both asan activist and as forest technician, presenting areas I feltfundamental to the local context of the timber debate. Otherlocal voices may well have asked the questions differently orchosen other topics for focus. Information on historicalevents was collected during my seven years of activism inLincoln County and from documents reviewed later as a soci-ologist. I caution readers to consider, as feminists and post-modernists have pointed out, that the voice of participants inunfolding events are rarely the same as the views of outside“objective” third-party social scientists who must reconstructhistorical developments from the testimony of others. Thecomplex multi-leveled analysis of this study speaks for mydesire to preserve as much objectivity as possible. The tele-phone survey, supported by the Norcross WildlifeFoundation, operated through the University of Montana andthe callers received training and pay as investigators. Thedemographic results mirrored those of the Lincoln CountyCanvass (Edgar 1994) done the previous year, thus validatingthe survey’s ability to provide an accurate voice for attitudesin the county at large.

Differentiated Community Structure Results

The structural and demographic community profiles areprovided in Table 1. Libby, a one company union town, votedDemocratic and was service oriented. Eureka traditionallyvoted Republican (a reality contradicted by respondent inde-pendence voiced here), shared its timber industry with ranch-ing and enjoyed the county’s highest income levels. Troyremained politically divided, the most impoverished, and hadthe highest rate of unemployment (see also Edgar 1994; NCC1992). Eureka and Troy had similar timber employmentdependency, with Eureka’s greater mill capitalization indicat-ed by its higher mill employment. Combining Libby with theother two towns in aggregated statistics is somewhat prob-lematical from a demographic and structural standpoint.

When general forest and community stability attitudesare brought into the equation, all three communities take ona separation not apparent in demographics (Table 3). Eurekaresidents participate more in public meetings but worry muchless about the influx of “outsiders” moving into the area thanTroy or Libby. They feel the most economically stable inspite of a high concentration in timber employment. Libby’sstronger belief in the instability of its community (92%)reflects the closing of the Libby sawmill six months before

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the survey — but this negative attitude is mitigated byLibby’s highest level of optimism for the future found in allthree towns. Troy, on the other hand, was extremely negativeabout the future economy of the county and about the sus-tainability of timber harvests. Kaufman and Kaufman’s(1946) finding of social anomie in Troy seems particularlydeeply rooted in its structural weakness within the county,just as Eureka’s relative confidence is structurally based inhigh income levels and industrial diversity.

The results of the economic analysis (Charts 1-4) help usto judge the effects of environmental regulations on industri-al productivity during the 1980s and 1990s (Clark 1995).Chart 1 shows the cumulative effects on the KNF from tim-

ber harvests from the years 1961-1993. Combining the vari-ous forms of harvest with the effects of fire clearly supportsenvironmental concerns over escalating cumulative risks toforest habitat on the KNF. Chart 2 illustrates private and pub-lic forest harvests from 1972-1994, showing that after 1988,harvests fell dramatically from both private and public land inspite of environmental regulations primarily affecting federallands. There was no effort on the part of industry to make-upsupposed lost volume by harvests from private lands after1986. The reason can be observed in Chart 3. Stumpageprices rose rapidly but national lumber prices fell until 1991when they rebounded. Critical to this discussion is that thedifferential between stumpage and lumber prices dramatical-ly crashed in 1987, introducing the most severe cost/pricesqueeze in the last thirty-five years. However in comparisonwith other Montana forests, this did not happen as signifi-cantly on the KNF where the cost/price differential fell lessthan 30% in 1989 and then leveled out and recovered slight-ly (Chart 4). During the peak period of timber controversyand industrial restructuring, then, corporate rates of profitsdropped dramatically nation-wide, but Kootenai Forest profit

Table 3. Stability and Conservation Attitudes.

LIBBY EUREKA TROY CRG

Demographics

Years of family residency 32.60 28.00 26.20 13.60

Family members work in woods 18.4% 54% 50% 51.6%

Community Stability

Public meeting participation in last 3 years 25% 44.9% 34.3% 65.7%

% worried about outsiders 37% 20% 72% 27%

% who believe community is stable 5.7% 23.5% 11.4% 18.2%

% optimistic about the future 41.8% 32.6% 14.3% 63.7%

Conservation Attitudes

Timber industry unsustainable at current levels 40.2% 40.4% 60% 72.7%

Public schools should teach conservation 75% 77% 89% 100%

Importance of timber dollars critical critical critical criticalto family income 55.7% 54.9% 40% 12.1%

suppl. suppl. suppl. suppl.19.3% 13.7% 14.3% 33.3%

Environmental Behavior

Recycle aluminum often 73.3% 42.9% 60% 87.9%

Recycle other products often 20.6% 12.9% 9.5% 66.5%

Common family forest uses (county-wide random survey)hiking 30.7% 75.8%hunting/fishing 64.6% 48.5%berry picking 30.2% 21.2%cross country skiing 8.3% 54.5%

Forest Management Issues

Road closures provide necessary big game habitat 35% 50% 29% 90.9%

Forest Service should manage for Grizzly bear habitat 21.2% 24% 28.5% 87.5%

Should be fewer clearcuts 67% 57% 82% 97%

Need more small sales 68% 66% 72% 78.2%

Log exports hurt local economy 76% 42% 72% 88.3%

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rates remained relatively stable. This data might have ame-liorated local concerns over community stability, but it didnot prevent industrial decisions to close three of the sevenmills cutting KNF timber.

Statistics show environmentalists to be a separate subpopulation altogether, some of which are presented inTable 1. They vote more strongly Democratic, make higherincomes on the average, face less unemployment, are moreeducated and optimistic, and work in logging and millworkmuch less than the countywide population. They engagemore often in public debates, recycle frequently, have forestuse patterns emphasizing recreation rather than utilitarianuses, and give more support to public expenditures for con-servation education and recycling. These differences rein-force Lee’s perception that the 1980s back-to-the-land move-ment changed the cultural characteristics of timber commu-nities and introduced pressures towards cultural instability intraditional logging towns (Lee 1989).

Moral Exclusion and Environmental Attitudes

The evidence thus far presented indicates that contextu-al complexity characterized Lincoln County when it arrived

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at the brink of timber conflict in 1985. The three communi-ties held divergent relations to production, to politics and toincome security. Industry had already begun an internation-al restructuring that involved issues of log exports to Japan,softwood imports from Canada, and the introduction of lasertechnology and subsequent job layoffs without productiondeclines. Junk bond markets and corporate stock raidsencouraged timber companies to liquidate old growth todiminish company net worth as a protective measure againsttake-over. Simultaneously, old growth mapping by theAudubon Society and sustainability studies by northwestMontana environmentalists pressured for sale reductions andtowards the harvest of smaller diameter trees. Management’sability to promote timber sales bogged down due to responsi-bilities to salvage wood from fires and beetle infestationwhile still meeting contradictory Congressionally-mandatedoutput demands and restrictive environmental regulations(Congressional Record, June 29, 1995, H6617). Hardwork-ing timber communities faced the need to mobilize for eco-nomic survival, but how? The formation of a united frontagainst environmental regulations demanded that internalcontradictions such as political party divisiveness andlong-standing resentment from Troy’s weak county positionbe resolved. Moral exclusion and the construction of sharedcultural values about political rights and proper behavior bydelegitimizing the values of one’s opponents provided thethree timber communities a means with which to unifyagainst perceived environmental threats.

At the heart of the Lincoln County campaign was itsopposition to “outsider” control over (what should be)“local” forest decisions. The timber industry/logger coalitionsuccessfully used three rhetorical representations or synec-doches (Moore 1993) around which to organize - “grizzlies,”“locked gates,” and “outsiders” — to bridge the county’sdemographic and production gaps. These representationsproved resilient even as the specific management issueschanged during the years to come. Table 4 illustrates thesymbolic disparity of these issues to the communities andenvironmentalists in Lincoln County. “Grizzlies” and“locked gates” questioned the scientific validity of ForestService management. The grizzly issue challenged habitatprotection under the Endangered Species Act whose legal pri-ority over all other management decisions held the power toadversely affect timber harvest volumes. The open roadsissue opposed limitations on the public’s right to access for-est resources around forest-dependent communities.Loggers, whose Communities for a Great Northwest(CGNW) led the exclusionary campaign, linked positive val-ues associated with the “traditional American family” tosmall logging operations (gyppos) in its anti-environmental-ism identity construction. This proved an effective political

linkage, but one which obscured industrial restructuring pat-terns towards large sales and hired company loggers alreadyin the process of displacing independent gyppos as central toindustrial decision-making in the county.

In the Lincoln County case, however, environmentalistscould not accurately be labeled as “outsiders.” While recog-nizing national pressures by environmentalists for reducedfederal harvests and old growth protection, local environ-mentalists remained the central antagonist in forest manage-ment debates in Lincoln County into the mid-1990s. Moreimportantly, however, in a point sorely missed by all previoussociological investigation into timber conflicts (Dumont1996; Freudenburg et al. 1998; Lee 1989; Moore 1993;Summers 1992), local environmentalists already fulfilledmajor industrial roles in assuring timber sustainability. Notonly did environmentalists, who averaged 13.6 years of coun-ty residency, monopolize nearly all public and private refor-estation contracts, but they also provided under contract thetimber stand data inventories used by the Forest Service andtimber companies for their respective forest managementdecisions. The delegitimation of concerns of local environ-mentalists, 51.6% of whom worked in the woods, provedproblematic to nascent political organizations in timber com-munities because local environmentalists, through their par-ticular employment, were among the most cognizant of allplayers in the timber debate about actual forest conditions.The strategic solution chosen by loggers and industry was tolink Lincoln County environmentalists with wider rhetoricalissues.

A campaign to delegitimize science and hence localenvironmental validity claims developed opposition to ForestService road closure plans (property rights infringement) andgrizzly bear augmentation strategies (potential timber volumereductions). Interestingly, neither were directly related to thethree central issues being pushed by local environmentalists:old growth security, water quality protection and targetinglodgepole pine salvage as a primary harvest strategy (KNF1990) — issues chosen by environmentalists to preciselyemphasize those issues holding substantial cross-culturalsupport. While media rhetoric against “outside environmen-talists” grew locally vehement (Kootenai Valley Eagle, May1985; Western News, May 1985), local environmentalists

Table 4. Forest Attitudes Concerning Synecdochal Issues.

COUNTY-WIDE CABINET RESOURCERANDOM SURVEY GROUP

Supports grizzly management 23.6% 53.1%

Opposes forest road closures 58% 9.1%

Concerned about outsiders 69% 27.2%

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began to use the evidence gained through their industrialwoods work to challenge federal harvest plans. TheEndangered Species Act, the National Environmental PolicyAct, and the National Forest Management Act of the 1970shad laid the basis for an earlier wave of industrial/agencyrestructuring that had created environmentally sensitive rolesin timber management procedures. Most of these roles werefilled in the 1980s by environmentalists, and by agencyresource scientists who, by 1985, were themselves beginningto question Forest Service output objectives (AFSEEE 1989).Only when environmentalism became a social force capableof restricting harvest volumes in the late 1980s did the needarise to exclude environmental proponents from localdebates.

Evidence in Lincoln County indicates that moral exclu-sion arose as a strategy to develop internal solidarity in theface of downsizing and unemployment, heightened industrialcompetition, environmental restrictions on public lands andover-cutting on private ones (Flowers et al. 1993). In 1985,loggers initiated mobilization on two fronts. The first was aWorker’s Compensation Organizing Committee aimed atequalizing cross-state disparities in payments by Idaho andMontana loggers that disadvantaged Montana gyppos. Thesecond was a joint industry/logger political campaign againstgrizzly bear augmentation and proposed wilderness additions(Kootenai Valley Eagle, May, 1985). The anti-augmentationdrive contested plans by the US Fish and Wildlife Service toreintroduce eight reproducing female grizzly bears fromCanada into the Cabinet-Yaak Recovery Area. Theanti-wilderness campaign struggle contested a Forest Serviceanalysis that considered 98% of the proposed wilderness asunsuitable for timber harvest (Kootenai Valley Eagle, July 13,1990).

Ancillary issues extended basic timber complaints toissues involving other community segments. Particularlyimportant was the expansion of anti-road closure argumentsto include access for retired seniors, seen as incapable ofenjoying the forest or collecting firewood without extensiveroad access, and the need for motorized handicapped access.Support for all terrain vehicle access to remote forest areasbrought another segment into the alliance. A proposednational forest fee system for firewood collection by theNational Wildlife Foundation of Washington, DC, solidifiedcross-sector opposition against outside control over localresources. Organizers ascribed these positions to the “uneth-ical” local environmental community. By expanding a senseof anomie historically-rooted in the unequal distribution ofcorporate power between the towns to opposition against ageneralized environmentalism, the loggers forged a unifiedideology that produced county solidarity in spite of growinginternal contradictions which might have divided the com-

munities during industrial restructuring. This mobilizationcan be traced from internal organization among Montana log-gers (1984) to a logger-industry compact (1985), a logger,industry and union coalition (April 1988), a region-wideindustrial opposition to environmental restrictions (May1988), to a cross-sector community concern over propertyrights access (1989), and then to cross-national pro-harvestorganizing in Canada (1990).

Logger capability to provide strong independent politi-cal leadership to their communities after the mid-1980sderives from structural policies concerning gyppos by the J. Niels Libby Mill from 1950 to the early 1980s. The millrarely bid on federal timber, allowing gyppos to contractdirectly with the KNF for stumpage then sold to the mill. Inyears when the KNF offered few small sales, Libby loggerssurvived through direct contracts with J. Niels (later St.Regis) cutting private timberlands, a socioeconomic networkin which the community remained stable in spite of lumbermarket fluctuations and occasional union-company strife.Eureka’s loggers likewise prospered, aided by the one ForestService district inclined to offer a consistent program ofsmall sales. Until Champion bought the Libby mill and aban-doned its gyppo contracts by bidding directly on ForestService sales, loggers in Lincoln County were self-reliant,confident and successful. Afterwards they remained the firsttwo, but success declined as Champion hired loggers fromdistant Kalispell and the KNF greatly reduced its small saleofferings. Faced with deepening economic challenges and aweakened industrial position, loggers backed company oppo-sition to environmental restrictions beginning in 1985 ratherthan seek compromise with environmentalists. This exclu-sionary coalition dominated county politics until wider struc-tural and environmental events overrode the coalition’s powerto control local events eight years later.

Thus even setting aside potential effects from environ-mental regulations, significant market and structural deci-sions affecting the local situation were already evident. TheLibby sawmill was in the weakest position in the late 1980s,having pursued an industrial policy of liquidating private oldgrowth forests to maximize profit-taking (Flowers et al.1993) instead of modernizing the plant for small diameterlogs. The company instituted permanent lay-offs and a$3/hour wage cut in 1985 to overcome a cash shortfall andsurvived a four month union strike in 1988 by keeping itsprofitable plywood mill operating with administrate person-nel. Loggers continued to deliver logs to the mill during thestrike. Large fires in 1988 and 1991 and the lodgepole pinebeetle infestation turned Forest Service sales towards salvageand smaller diameter logs (Chart 1). Louisiana Pacificopened a competitive small log mill in Libby in response todemand in 1992, greatly weakening the position of Libby’s

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large log sawmill. In spite of repeated promises to the com-munity to invest in the needed $17 million renovation fordownsizing the mill, Champion continued its state-wide oldgrowth liquidation policy until 1993 when it closed the Libbyplant. The plywood operations reopened in 1994 underStimson Lumber of California, but the new company disman-tled the sawmill operations.

Discussion

This article suggests three conceptual frameworks forunderstanding the timber debate: industrial and communitystructure, attitudes and subgroup culture, and the role of sci-entific analysis in public debates. Structural analysisexplains the roots and persistence of cultural differences andtheir reproduction within community confrontations.Environmentalists, loggers, millworkers, industrialists andForest Service employees perform essential roles in timbersustainability, with subcultural differences reinforcing thosestructural roles. In spite of years of community coexistence,environmentalists behave differently than most other mem-bers of timber communities in work, recreation, and politics.Respective views of scientific validity also divide communi-ty subgroups.

Timber debates in Lincoln County neither legitimatedthe particular roles of subgroups nor created common con-ceptual frameworks to link them together. In 1991, after sixyears of social conflict, negotiations over the Yaak timbersale attended by the Forest Service, a county commissioner,small loggers, environmentalists, industrialists and small milloperators offered a one-time chance for a community-widerapprochement. Five weeks of negotiations were unable tobreak the stalemate between various sides. Why?

One reason was the inability to formulate agreementover a legitimate role for science in forest management.Loggers viewed science as subjective and situational, not asa neutral and objective format. The battle over environmen-tal regulations implemented after 1985 had nearly fragment-ed the community into new pro-environmental alignments.Disgruntled labor unions joined environmentalists to supporta wilderness proposal known as the Kootenai Accords thatprovoked enormous backlash from loggers and the widercommunities. Continued corporate and Forest Service sup-port for high volume harvests packaged as large sales, ledsome small mill owners and gyppos to switch support tosmall salvage sales being pushed by environmentalists (KNF1990). Many Forest Service employees openly expressedenvironmental concerns when computer mapping and dataanalysis by environmentalists challenged agency allowablecut levels set by Congress. Inventory analysis and the map-

ping and field validation of old growth stands by environ-mentalists proceeded ahead of Forest Service capabilities todo similar studies. These two studies transferred the burdenof proof on to the shoulders of the agency and threatened tointroduce a new era of publicly generated science capable ofsetting management agendas. As the scientific validity ofenvironmental claims mounted, loggers rejected science as anappropriate field of struggle (Lee 1994) and organized aroundmoral and community solidarity. Between 1985 and 1990,political solidarity was forged in timber communities as ameans to overcome structural differences, directed at theexclusion of agency and environmental scientific legitimacy.As scientific documentation accrued showing increased envi-ronmental degradation from the overharvest of private andpublic timberlands (Flowers et al. 1993; KNF 1990; Manning1991), the industrial-logger coalition found ways to expandits three synecdoches to include property rights encroach-ment and family values to garner wider popular support.Local environmentalists were unable to link their observa-tions to wider social issues.

A second reason for fractured negotiations was moralpersuasion — pressure by environmental and scientific elitesto force the transition of hardworking logging communitiestowards pro-environmentalism using moral arguments basedin a subjective revalorization of wilderness (Lee 1994). Leedoubts that such change could occur without authoritarianismand personal liberty restraints. Groups under severe moralpressure fight back. Lee’s point is well taken, but forestissues in Lincoln County are not so divisive as his analysissuggests. My survey also indicated many levels of cross-cul-tural unity between Lincoln County contestants: sharedopposition to log exports and the overuse of clearcut harvest-ing methods, and support for increased small salvage salesand continued conservation education in the schools (Table3).

Community fears of imminent job cutbacks were notunfounded. Liquidation of private forests pointed towardseventual shortfalls (Flowers et al. 1993). Environmental reg-ulations promised further timber harvest restrictions, mostnotably in the old growth groves that fed Libby’s large diam-eter sawmill. However, most proposed restrictions, particu-larly the road closures and grizzly statutes, were to rotaterestrictions to areas without harvest, thus affecting publicaccess but not reducing harvest volumes (KNF 1987). Overlyhigh estimates of standing mature trees on federal land(Sedler et al. 1991) and watershed damage from overharvestof drainages on private timberland affected volumes moresignificantly (KNF 1993). The handwriting was on the wall— sustainability meant less volume and smaller diametertimber.

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Conclusion

What emerges from the purposive survey, but missed inthe random one, is the deep cultural gap between moral com-batants that directs the participants to their various forms ofwork, recreation and attitudes towards conservation.Individualistic loggers harvest and transport trees to mills;environmentalists plant them. Loggers commute daily, risingin the dark, relying on their wives for essential support inreproducing their lifestyles (Warren 1992); environmentalistsleave families, camping around a collective fire while theycomplete their contracts. Loggers mobilize their communi-ties at crucial moments to show political strength; environ-mentalists construct detailed scientific analyses to bolstertheir position in management decisions. Loggers realistical-ly fear affects from grizzly management and road closures ontimber harvests; environmentalists support initiatives thatonly indirectly affect their industrial participation. Seen fromthis angle, moral exclusion appears as an outward manifesta-tion of identity politics clashing in Northwest timber towns.

This study validates the concept of moral exclusion as avaluable theoretical contribution to community conflict theo-ry, but only if the theoretical framework is used within spe-cific contextual histories. The symbolic conflict over naturalresources in Lincoln County responded to factors perceivedas destabilizing to the timber-dependent communities ofTroy, Libby and Eureka. Moral exclusion served to unifydiverse timber communities and to deny the science of envi-ronmentalists control over management decisions. But thedelegitimation of local environmentalists ignored their essen-tial productive roles in the sustainability of timber industry,making internal resolution of the conflict over timber harvestimpossible. Organizational efforts by loggers failed to fulfilltheir objectives — to keep the Champion sawmill in opera-tion and to remove the source of opposition, environmental-ists ensconced within industry itself. Whether moral exclu-sion can be maintained as unifying strategy over more than abrief period of community destabilization remains to be seen.

Lee’s framework of moral exclusion, combined with arespect for voice, offers a means to retain, rather than lose,symbolic intensity. Both moral exclusion and the expressionof particularized voice validate cultural reproduction as cen-tral to the dynamics of natural resource conflicts. I concurheartily with Lee’s (1994) attempt to provide an accuratevoice for hardworking residents in timber country who faceupheavals in their daily realities, but consideration must begiven to the industrial significance of roles that promoteindustrial sustainability, often filled by environmentalists.Finally, moral exclusion is applicable to a variety of situa-tions including cross-national border conflicts and environ-mental justice struggles, both of which involve inter-ethnic

and cross-cultural conflict. This study demonstrates, howev-er, that whatever the application, culture operates withinstructural boundaries that must be carefully analyzed to avoidstereotypes and universalized categorizations of participants.

Endnotes

1. [email protected]. I purposefully use serial rather than longitudinal to emphasize that

previous studies of northwest Montana communities were empirical-ly different rather than repetitions of similar survey instruments.Conclusions are necessarily inductive and comparative in nature.The lack of longitudinal studies presents an immense obstacle to gen-eralizable theories of stable communities in environmental sociology(ES).

3. Large sales accomplished several objectives simultaneously. Theypermitted rapid salvage of large areas of dead and dying lodgepoleand their subsequent reforestation. They also lowered costs to thegovernment, seen as critical as the value of salvaged lodgepole($10-$40/mmbf) raised less revenue than that of previous green salesof old growth ($140/mmbf).

4. The Kootenai Accords was an agreement between the millworkersunion, the Montana Wilderness Association, and the KootenaiAlliance, a consortium of local pro-environmental activists thatincluded the Cabinet Resource Group. The Accords, introduced bySenator Max Baucas in lieu of failed attempts by Montana residentsto achieve consensus on a statewide wilderness bill, supported inclu-sion of roadless and non-timber lands on the KNF for wilderness con-sideration. The Accords died in a hail of anti-wilderness sentimentand a local vote in opposition to the agreement between organizedlabor and local environmentalists even though it had corporate back-ing by Champion International.

5. Failure by CRG members to show up in the random sample isexplained by two factors. One is their diminutive numerical size inrelation to the wider community. Years of intense resource conflicthad isolated the group from more moderate supporters of “environ-mentalism” who found the conflictual nature of the debate distaste-ful. Second, many CRG supporters lived in Sanders County to thesouth, where random survey results were discarded due to procedur-al sampling problems. Sanders County and Lincoln County shareindustrial forests and both logging and forest technician contractorsoften work both sides of the county line.

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26 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001© Society for Human Ecology

Abstract

A number of observers have pointed out that environ-mental movements have, at best, met with mixed success.Our paper develops a theoretical framework for why this hasbeen the case. The work draws on a number of intellectualtraditions, including theories of rational choice, human ecol-ogy, rhetoric, resource mobilization, social movements, criti-cism and conflict. We examine ways in which environmentalissues are framed and prioritized in the collective decisionprocess, both within environmental movements, and for theoverall polity. Environmental issues often are used to ener-gize a constituency to support a given political regime; yetunless the environment is one of the regime’s top priorities, itis typically abandoned in favor of other issues. In a relatedvein, we consider how other social movements can effective-ly co-opt environmental concerns, thereby diverting signifi-cant amounts of collective energy to other ends. The theoryadduced is fractal, or recursive, applying on a number of lev-els of analysis. The paper concludes by suggesting ways inwhich environmental movements can become more effective.

Keywords: environmental movements, orphan issues,prioritizing summary symbols, environmental justice, dis-course, mobilization

Introduction

Observers have noted that, despite growing numbers ofmembers in environmental organizations, and despite theconsiderable fundraising successes of many of these organi-zations, the natural environment has sustained, and continues

to sustain, significant damage (Brulle 2000; Commoner1991). For instance, in an in-depth review of environmentalmovements in the U.S., Brulle (2000, 1 ff.) points out that . . . “We are losing the struggle to reverse ecological degra-dation. The evidence for this is beyond question . . .” Hethen goes on to review work in a number of areas where thisis the case: depletion of life-sustaining resources, exceedingthe ability of the natural environment to absorb waste, humanencroachment into ever-increasing portions of the naturalenvironment, irreversible loss of biodiversity, and humanimpact on the local and global climate.

Social scientists have debated whether environmentalmovements have been successful in stemming these patterns,particularly in developed countries such as those of WesternEurope, the United States and Canada. Although there is nooverarching consensus, many have argued that these move-ments have been successful on some fronts, such as changingattitudes of citizens on such issues as concern for naturalresources and the loss of ecosystems used for inexpensiverecreation. They can be considered a failure at other things,such as changing citizen behaviors in terms of lifestyle mod-ification or devoting time to the movement (Gould et al.1999, xi), although others have argued that the United Stateshas the strongest and most professionalized environmentalmovement in the world (Rucht 1996, 198). On a more struc-tural level, we observe only limited success in shaping polit-ical outcomes. In using the term success, we refer to effec-tiveness in shaping outcomes, rather than to amounts ofmoney raised or to numbers of people on membership lists oforganizations.

Drawing on a number of intellectual traditions, we ana-lyze what is likely to make a movement successful, and com-

How Environmental Movements Can Be More Effective:Prioritizing Environmental Themes in Political Discourse

Thomas J. BurnsUniversity of UtahDepartment of SociologyUniversity of UtahSalt Lake City, Utah 84112-0250USA1

Terri LeMoyneDepartment of Sociology, Anthropology and GeographyThe University of Tennessee at ChattanoogaChattanooga, TN 37403-2598USA

Burns and LeMoyne


pare environmental movements to this ideal type. We broad-ly consider the crucial question of how social issues are pri-oritized, both within the environmental movement and in theoverall polity. We then consider how these prioritization con-cerns impact a number of related factors, including: (1)rhetorical strategies of environmental movements andcounter-rhetorical strategies marshaled against them, (2)compositions of environmental movements as they interpen-etrate with prioritization of issues within those movements,(3) interactions of environmental movements with the politi-cal system, and (4) factors influencing the legitimacy of envi-ronmental concerns and claims in the broader culture. Theseconsiderations, though far from mutually exclusive, are ana-lytically distinct. Prioritization strategies are criticallyimportant because, as sociologists and political scientistshave demonstrated, even among successful political groups,typically only a limited number of issues can be resolvedfavorably; remaining issues, even if endorsed by a substantialmajority, tend to be abandoned. The implications of theseprioritization strategies are crucial for environmental move-ments.

In this paper, we develop theoretical arguments and useillustrations from social and political movements. Previousresearchers have given comprehensive overviews of environ-mental movements at various levels of analysis (Brulle 1996,2000; Dunlap and Mertig 1992; Taylor 1995), and it is notour purpose to replicate that work here. Rather, we developa theoretical framework with which to analyze what webelieve is a ubiquitous social process applying to how ideasfrom social movements in general and environmental move-ments in particular, come to be incorporated into, and priori-tized in, the political process. We then examine implicationsof that theory in light of how it might inform why environ-mental movements have heretofore met with such limitedsuccess.

The theory we develop is fractal, or recursive, in that theprocesses it describes operate on a number of levels. We thusgive instances from a variety of arenas — first from the U.S.polity, particularly in terms of its interface with Americanenvironmentalism, and then present more global examples.

Environmental Themes in Political Discourse

In the polity, environmental issues compete for attentionand action with an assortment of social issues. The politicalarena itself is organized around political actors, such as can-didates for public office. Because of this, a useful vehicle forexploring the dynamics of this competitive process can befound in the way individual candidates prioritize social issueswithin their political campaigns. The political arena is espe-cially important because social movements in general are apt

to work through political opportunity structures (Kitschelt1986, 66), and they often have a greater success rate whenthey forge alliances with political elites (Tilly 1978).

Candidates campaign on a multiplicity of issues, utiliz-ing polls to decide which political issues to emphasize(Robinson 1982). It is here that politicians decide which“truth” to tell. For example, a politician in the U.S. may bepro-choice, pro-environment, pro-affirmative action, and pro-union. Which issue he/she emphasizes, and to whom,becomes critical: pro-choice to NOW, pro-affirmative actionto the NAACP, pro-environment to the Sierra Club, pro-unionto the AFL-CIO, etc.

The critical question is the method in which the issuesare prioritized; given a choice of focusing on reproductive,minority, environmental, or labor issues, which set of issuesdoes the politician stress? These considerations becomeespecially important when only a few issues can be resolvedin any one individual’s favor (Coleman 1971, 1986). Thosewho succeed in advancing a subset of issues set priorities andbargain away votes on lower priority issues to garner supportfor concerns that they hold as vitally important. In such acase, ancillary issues falling below the highest priority levels,become bargaining chips — assets to give away — things toabdicate (Jenkins and Perrow 1977, 266). We refer to thoseherein in as “orphan issues” (Burns 1992).

Should such a “crunch time” occur — a situation inwhich a decision must be made among a number of endorsedissues — a pertinent political question becomes which issuethe candidate would choose. Consider that, for years, politi-cians have acquired both environmental and union votes byappearing to favor both positions. Only during crunch timesdo a politician’s priorities become clear. For example, WalterMondale and Paul Simon, both prominent former U.S. sena-tors from major union areas, campaigned as both pro-unionand pro-environment representatives. During times ofchoice, they almost invariably chose manufacturing indus-tries over the environment (Schneider 1987). They nonethe-less continued to garner the support of environmental groups,despite action inimical to those groups.

More recently, Al Gore, a candidate often identified asan “environmentalist,” lent support to a variety of measuresthat directly or indirectly led to environmental damage. Forexample, after writing that environmental concerns should bethe “central organizing principle” of social and politicalaction (Gore 1992), he was instrumental in the passage of theNorth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). WhileNAFTA contained minimal environmentally-friendly lan-guage, NAFTA’s priority was not the natural environmentand, in some ways, NAFTA was directly counter to environ-mental concerns (for a discussion, see Mayer and Hoch1993). In both examples, politicians continued to receive the

Burns and LeMoyne


support of environmentalists, despite not adhering to theirpolitical rhetoric, and in some cases, directly engaging inaction that had negative environmental consequences.

In Gore’s case, such actions led to a dilution of supportfrom some environmentalists, thereby giving life to an other-wise moribund Green Party candidacy of Ralph Nader. Yetthe overall effect was to divide and squander environmentalsupport, thereby facilitating the ascendance of a candidate(G.W. Bush) to be elected with virtually no engagement ofenvironmental concerns whatsoever.

These illustrations are not so much about any particularpolitician, as about a general phenomenon. During a crunchtime, when the candidate is forced to choose among endorsedissues, these orphan issues tend to be sacrificed. We term thisbehavior “crunch time prioritization,” and it is found in anumber of political contexts. There are three considerationsfor predicting when these crunch times prioritizations willoccur: (1) the power of a side relative to the opposition; (2)the scarcity of resources; and (3) the ability to assume themoral ‘high road’ in the bargain (which is, at least potential-ly, a function of the degree to which the opposition is suc-cessful in framing its priorities in terms of dominant culturalsymbols).

Taking the issue of power first, if one side (e.g., the“left”) has more power than the other side, it is able to enactmany policy changes in its favor, even those of lower priori-ty. In contrast, the opposition, by nature of possessing lesspower, must carefully choose amongst its priorities.2 Yeteven a powerful party or interest group must invest that powerin a concerted way, by adhering to a set of priorities, or itspower will be squandered through fights from within.

Closely parallel to the issue of power is the second con-sideration of scarcity. The social movement sector mustcompete with other sectors and industries for the resources ofthe population. At the individual level, for many or most con-stituents, the allocation of resources to basic needs, such asfood and shelter, has a considerably higher political prioritythan social movement issues. These social movements bene-fit from the satiation of these other wants, whereby, exceptduring crisis times, the social movement sector is a consider-ably lesser priority (McCarthy and Zald 1977, 1224).

This phenomenon is true at different levels of analysis,including at the societal level. During times of abundance,lower priority issues can be attended to because there aremyriad resources to circulate. An example of this process canbe illustrated by comparing core and peripheral countries inthe world system. The United States has a relative abundanceof resources, and its polity can consider both economic devel-opment and environmental protectionism, which manifestsitself through agencies such as the Environmental Protection

Agency (Paige 1998). In contrast, a peripheral country likethe Congo has much more limited resources and its citizensare thus more likely to see themselves as having to choosebetween the destruction of the rain forest or economic devel-opment. It is here that the rain forest has become an orphanissue while economic development is promoted despite theenvironmental costs (Whitefield 1998; Lanjouw 1999). Thisis not to imply that the choice is necessarily one that is posi-tive for the economy or the environment.

Because a politician typically comes to be associatedwith specific issues and continues to talk about advocating,orphan issues like the environment serve the additional pur-pose of continuing to energize a constituency to continue tosupport that politician, thereby adding to the politician’spower base. In fact, on many occasions, supporters of theenvironmental movement considered mobilizing resources alesser priority, because they believed that a politician wasaddressing their concerns. This would have a significant neg-ative impact on successes (Edelman 1971). Nonetheless, theissue’s constituents, barring some major recasting of theissue, continue to support that group in a less active way(Goffman 1959).

Ironically, to fulfill a political promise can serve to de-energize a politician’s power base because its constituentshave been satisfied and thus have no more impetus to vote forthe candidate. It becomes a ‘done deal’, and the constituentsadvance to the next issue that has replaced the one that hasbeen rectified. Ronald Reagan’s support by the pro-life lobbyis a case in point. This support helped Reagan to win by alandslide, claim a “mandate”, and in turn to pursue his prior-ity issues (arguably military growth and capital concentrationvia “supply side economics”). By continuing to discuss theidea of an anti-abortion amendment, he mollified his anti-abortion constituency sufficiently to garner their vote in thenext election; and by not producing on promises, he kept thisconstituency energized (Kelly 1993; Schulte and Thomma1996).

In juxtaposition, by delivering on promises made to aconstituency, the effect is to enervate constituent support,which tends to compromise the power base of a politicalactor. The decline of a power base is exacerbated by the pos-sibility of creating a backlash from opponents of a programby bringing that program to fruition. This backlash, in part,explains the expansion and contraction of the social move-ment sector in the 1960s and 1970s (Jenkins 1983), and istypical of social reform movements in liberal democraticregimes (Tarrow 1982). In the political context, loyalty isattributable to hope for the future rather than remunerationfor the past; this is especially true when utilities need to bemarshaled to achieve the next scarce item on the priority list.

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Crunch Time Prioritization and Free Riding

This continually energized base afforded by adherents toorphan issues has important political implications. It allowsfree riders, especially given the dichotomous way in whichissues tend to be framed in a two-party system, to parasitizetheir supporters (c.f. Olson 1965; Fain, Burns and Sartor1994). For example, abortion and union special interests areakin to parasites to the environmental movement whose con-stituents tend to vote for the “liberals,” “liberals” who aremore apt to support the abortion and union issues over theenvironment. The greater the amount of emotional energyabout a set of issues, the higher the stakes of this ironicaction.

In the U.S., Republicans tend to cede environmentalissues to Democrats, who in turn take the support of environ-mental groups (at least that of “light greens,” such as theSierra Club) for granted (Dreyfuss 1996). So environmentalissues compete for prioritization with other constituencieswho also have been ceded to the Democrats (e.g., unions,affirmative action, abortion rights, etc.) (McCarthy and Zald1977, 1224; Diamond and Newman 1992, 26). Thus, envi-ronmental concerns typically are not discussed in any realdepth, and instead, environmental rhetoric is used primarilyto energize a constituency (Music 1996).

Thus, it is not uncommon for Democrats to win an elec-tion with the support of environmental groups, but subse-quently to support other issues at the expense of environmen-tal ones (which regularly become orphan issues) (McCarthyand Zald 1977, 1224). Democrats lose, however, when someof their major constituencies no longer support them. Forexample, Jimmy Carter, who did take some pro-environmen-tal stands, lost his bid for re-election in a landslide whenunions broke rank (Kaplowitz 1998).

Yet this phenomenon is far from unique to the UnitedStates. In the case of France, the question of how closelyenvironmental movements should ally themselves with leftparties has caused serious breaches within the movementsthemselves. This in turn has undermined attempts to create acentral organizing apparatus, and has thwarted attempts attaking unified action in addressing environmental problems.The outcome has been a notable lack of success in affectingpolicy outcomes (Rucht 1989; Nullmeier and Schulz 1983).

In fact, it is not unusual for movements to try to co-optone another, thereby acquiring an additional following.Which group co-opts the other is typically a function ofwhich has the greater cultural capital (Burns and LeMoyne1999). Cultural capital allows groups to take the moral highroad because they can frame issues in the first place, andthereby largely define them.

This orphan issues effect is fractal in nature (or alterna-tively, can be seen as recursive, or nested), which is to saythat the process we have been discussing tends to operate,and at times even to replicate itself, on multiple levels. Theexamples given above have focused on one of many ways ofdichotomizing issues: right vs. left, and to model pro-envi-ronmental and pro-choice concerns as leftist movements.This admitted simplification is used for illustrative purposes.None of these issues, particularly environmental concerns,are monolithic; the priorities of the Earth First! movement,the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society are quitedifferent from one another, for instance. These differencesoften are rooted in fundamentally different value systems,such as those valuing nature for its own sake, as opposed tothose valuing nature in pragmatic terms (Light 1993).

It is important to recognize the fractal nature of thisprocess. A given organization, even a “single issue” lobby-ing group, still places priorities within the scope of its prima-ry issue. Factions within this group are likely to form, andpriorities are likely to develop around those factions. Eachfaction has its own sub-issues, which themselves are priori-tized. The sub-issues of lower priority are more likely tobecome orphan sub-issues during crunch times within theorganization.

Because the process we have been discussing is fractal,or recursive, resolution on one level affects the equilibrium ofdebate on other levels. This particular aspect of our theory isreminiscent of Simmel’s (1907/1978) “principle of emer-gence,” or Merton’s (1968) insight that what is functional onone level may well be dysfunctional on another. In ouranalysis, it is crucial to specify on what level or levels ofanalysis a given debate is taking place. On the internationallevel, for instance, battles over framing of environmentalissues often take place in terms of “North/South”dichotomies, such as whether the focus of the problem andtherefore the solution should be centered around populationcontrol or the reduction or equalization of consumption patterns (Grubb et al. 1993, 56).

These debates affect and are affected by discussionsinvolving other levels of the political process. For example,Grubb et al. (1993, 56-57) identify the

central tension . . . between perceived sovereignnational interest on the one hand, and internationalresponsibilities on the other . . . [for even] if sus-tainable development is now much more firmly root-ed as an important concept, on each specific issueat least some governments will have strong reasonsrelated to their national interests for resisting thedesires of the broader international community.

Regardless of level of analysis, it is not unreasonable toassume that social actors will attempt to maximize their self-interest. We can gain some insight into what that interest islikely to be by focusing more closely on the social composi-tion of specific movements.

The Social Composition of EnvironmentalMovements

A number of researchers have found differences in thecharacter and composition of national or international movements, and local environmental movements (e.g.,Freudenberg 1984; Freudenberg and Steinsapir 1992; Cableand Benson 1993; Mitchell et al. 1992; Dunlap and Mertig1992). National organizations, especially those considered“mainstream” (e.g., the National Audubon Society and theSierra Club), are typically comprised of non-minority mid-dle-class and upper-middle-class members who donatemoney to hire full-time lobbyists to represent their interests.This professional cadre typically are full-time employees ofthe organization that compensates them for their work(McCarthy and Zald 1977, 1227). In contrast, the con-stituents of local grass roots movements are often, though byno means uniformly, working-class and/or minority mem-bers, whereby their leadership tends to come from within,from people who have enough time to mobilize (Collin andCollin 1994).3

The actions of local movements have often been moresuccessful than national and international groups. This canbe attributed to the acuteness of local issues whereby theybecome priorities for the local citizenry. While these gainsare laudable, it is crucial to have additional and consistentsuccess on a more universal level. With some exceptions, inan ideal-typical sense, local movements tend to be reactiveagainst some identifiable opposition, while national andinternational movements tend to be more diffuse in focus(Lewis and Henkels 1996). As a result, universal, proactiveenvironmental intervention tends to be a priority amongnational and international movements, much more so thanamong local ones.

While environmentalism and ethnic or gender identitymovements are often assembled under a broad rubric of “newsocial movements” (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Garner 1996),there is a critical distinction between the two. For someonewhose ethnicity is central to his/her self-image, that personwill identify with, and internalize, an identity movementmore profoundly than will an environmentalist identify withhis/her movement (Marx and Useem 1971).

This is crucial to the understanding of many Third Worldenvironmental movements as well. While environmentalmovements in developed countries often are comprised of

people with committed beliefs, they seldom are made up ofpeople whose very identity is intertwined with the movementitself. Identity-based movements, including ones with anenvironmental component, tend to have a ready-made con-stituency, while many other environmental movements, par-ticularly global ones, do not. As Mostern (1994, 108-109)argues

[W]e must pay special attention to those identitieswhich retain their form from movement to move-ment — race and gender being the most obviousexamples — instead of pretending that identity issimply created anew all the time . . . in lumpingtogether “national movements” with the “anti-nuclear movement” Laclau and Mouffe fail to pro-vide a means of analysis which can explain the dif-ferences between those movements which transpar-ently rely on newly created identities and thosewhich rely on identities that have been shapedthroughout the lives of the participants and as aresult of centuries of struggle.

This phenomenon is crucial in a number of contexts.Consider the example of two movements that came intoprominence in the U.S. in the 1960s and largely overshad-owed environmentalism: the women’s and the civil rightsmovements.4 A number of participants were active in both ofthose movements (and perhaps others as well, such as theanti-war movement). Civil rights leaders, most notably M.L.King, Jr., were understandably concerned about this, primar-ily because of the very sorts of prioritization issues beingconsidered here (Friedland 1998).

Outsiders to a social movement are more apt to shifttheir allegiances from movement to movement, making lead-ers skeptical of the involvement of conscience constituents(e.g., men in the women’s movement, whites in the civilrights movement). These constituents tend to be ficklebecause they have wide-ranging political concerns (Marx andUseem 1971). The issue in this case becomes which move-ment is most salient to the participant, the civil rights move-ment or the women’s movement. This is an especially impor-tant question because social movements centered around solidarity on pre-existing or “natural” groups, and linkingvisions of change to the larger group culture are most effec-tive in reaching their goals (McCarthy and Zald 1977, 1232).

The eco-Marxist movement is another case in which pri-oritization questions are critical. One of the central tenets isthat capitalism and the attendant processes of capital accu-mulation, unchecked economic growth and the unequal dis-tribution of resources, are the primary causes of environmen-tal degradation. The policy prescription thus would involvesome Marxian regime for the expropriation of private pro-

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ductive property followed by a more equal redistribution ofresources. This in turn should lead to a more ecologicallysound way of living (O’Connor 1998; Foster 1999). Thissolution requires a series of leaps in faith, most particularlyin believing that environmental problems will be eradicatedonce capitalism is overthrown. Assuming someone is moti-vated both by Marxist and by ecological concerns, how istheir energy spent? In the short-run (which is likely to be ofinterminable duration), significant amounts of one’s energyare consumed by the Marxist movement, while ecologicalconcerns are left to be resolved at some later time. To makesense of how such a process occurs, we briefly examine theimportance of summarizing symbols (Burns 1999) in orga-nizing discourse.

Priorities and the Organization of Discourse

In discourse as in thought, ideas are organized aroundsymbols (Mead 1934; Duncan 1968). Ways in which peopleconstruct social problems are profoundly affected by the sym-bols they use in thinking and speaking about them (Ibarra andKitsuse 1993; Burke 1966). These symbolic constructions,which themselves go by various names such as “motifs”(Ibarra and Kitsuse 1993), “summary symbols” (Burns 1999),“frames” (Snow and Benford 1988, 1992; Snow et al. 1986;Williams 1995), or “ideographs” (McGee 1980), for example,are important to consider briefly here (for a more detailedoverview, see Burns 1999). Symbolic constructions tend tosimplify the problem into a few words that “encapsulate orhighlight some aspect of a social problem” (Ibarra andKitsuse 1993, 47). Examples of these given by Ibarra andKitsuse include: ‘epidemic,’ ‘menace,’ and ‘crisis.’ To asso-ciate a symbol of “crisis” with a situation, for example, is toimply a package of meanings (e.g., a dangerous situation thatrequires immediate attention and resources) that may go wellbeyond the reality of the situation itself. Put another way,many observations stem from association with the symbolsused in perceiving them (Burke 1966; McGee 1980).

As people negotiate their respective life worlds, some ofthese symbols have greater pragmatic value than others, andout of these pragmatic constraints, a set of priorities emerges.A symbol around which a wide array of information is orga-nized can be thought of as a “prioritizing summary symbol”(Burns and LeMoyne 1999), because it not only serves as adevice to organize information, it prioritizes it according tohow central or peripheral that information is, relative to thesymbol itself. Once a person labels oneself an “environmen-talist,” subsequent information is organized relative to thatself-perception, for example; yet that label must still competewith other labels, perhaps even more central to a person’s selfconcept.

Examples of key ideas around which much of currentday discourse is organized are concepts such as ‘equality’(Condit and Lucaites 1993) or ‘sustainability.’ These can bethought of as ‘prioritizing summary symbols’ because theyimply an accompanying package of thoughts, values, emo-tions or beliefs that accompany the terms themselves (Burns1999). Such symbols are important in thought and discoursebecause of the potential they have for collapsing a wide arrayof ideas into a relatively narrower symbol that enters, and isexchanged in, the common discourse. One may thus see thediscursive processes around the environment in terms ofhegemonic struggles (Gramsci 1971), in the sense thatthought and discussion about a given social or environmentalreality becomes organized around a set of simplifying ideas.Some of the most important struggles, then, are over whichsimplifying set of ideas will take precedence.

To examine this phenomenon more closely, we turnattention to a number of manifestations of one such battle.Because much of the prior analysis has been expressed interms of “frames” as the vehicle for prioritizing summarysymbols, we follow that convention here.

Priorities within Environmentalism

Broadly speaking, Hawkins (1993, Hannigan 1995, 51ff.) finds identifiable strains of environmental rhetoric, or“frames” in environmental movements around the globe, twoof which serve to frame the issues for present purposes: a“global managerialist” frame, which sees environmentalissues in technocratic terms, and addressable by politicalavenues, such as through legislation enacted at the nation-state or extra-national level, and through non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) which act as information and pressuregroups in this process; and a “redistributive development”frame, which places an emphasis on the inequity betweenricher and poorer nations as the central problem.

Environmental activists in developed nations tend toembrace the first while those in poorer countries tend to seeissues through the lenses of the latter. Environmental issuesthemselves are seen and communicated radically differentlyin different parts of the globe. Overlay this with the empiri-cal fact that social processes leading to environmental degra-dation tend to be quite different, both quantitatively and qual-itatively, in different tiers of the world system (Burns et al.1994, 1997; Kick et al. 1996). Both the material and the sym-bolic realities are thus very different in different parts of theworld.

Yet within a country, it is often the case that differentenvironmental movements set very different priorities than oneanother. This can have a debilitating outcome on how effec-tive they are likely to be in shaping outcomes (Rucht 1989).

Implications for the Framing ofEnvironmental Rhetoric

A common strategy in the presentation of rhetoric ingeneral, and of environmental rhetoric in particular is that of“frame extension” (Snow et al. 1986).5 This involves pre-senting environmental issues in terms of other existing com-munities of discourse, and in terms of the issues attendant tothose communities. It is here that social movement organi-zations often extend their boundaries to include interests thatare often negligible to their primary objectives. While oneobjective may well be to increase the number of participantsin the movement, there is the very real risk of losing the focusof the original issue or grievance; of becoming a foot soldierin the campaign for someone else’s issue (Snow et al. 1986,472-473).

Many of the very poorest people in the world tend to pre-ponderate in either remote, rural, ecologically fragile areas,or in concentrated urban areas (Homer-Dixon 1999, 78;Stonich 1989). Environmental issues, especially among ruralpeople, involve issues of access to environmental resources,many of which they see being hoarded or depleted for export.Agarwal (1986), in discussing the Chipko (“Tree Hugger”)movement in the foothills of the Himalayas, points out somekey differences between environmental movements in devel-oped and those in developing countries. In developing coun-tries, an emphasis tends to be on ensuring the natural liveli-hood of indigenous peoples, rather than to further the goals ofenvironmentalists from foreign countries.

There are other examples of this. In fact, Chico Mendesas an icon of environmentalists in the developed world, wasin fact president of a chapter of the Rural Workers Union inBrazil, and a leader of an indigenous movement in Brazil —one geared to ensuring a livelihood for rubber trappers(Shoumatoff 1990).

The irony is that, for many indigenous movements, thepoint is to keep Westerners out — to perform social closureas it were. For instance, indigenous groups from thePhilippines, Peru and Indonesia came to the United States inMay 2000 to warn shareholders of one of the world’s largestgold mining corporations that the company has damaged theenvironment and abused human rights. Catalino Corpuz, withthe Mining Communities Development Center based in thePhilippines, said he came to Denver to stop Newmont fromoperating in the Cordillera region of his country so that itdoes not pollute the environment as he says the company hasdone in Nevada, Indonesia, and Peru (Knight 2000).

Likewise, representatives of the Embera Katio indige-nous community in Colombia plan to travel to Canada, theUnited States and Norway, which are financing the Urra damproject, to demand that the flooding of their land be stopped.

According to Jimmy Pernia, spokesman for the 170 indige-nous men, women and children camping out on the groundsof the Environment Ministry in protest, “The national gov-ernment has failed us.” The spokesperson went on to say that“the only option left” was to urge officials in the countriestaking part in the project to do something to stop constructionof the dam (Llanos 1999). In this case, the prioritizationstrategy was clear within the movement itself, although thepriority might well be different among other environmentalgroups, particularly those with little or no connection withthat indigenous community.

At the risk of oversimplification, it is often the case thatthe “haves” of the world tend to subscribe to the first (“glob-al managerialist”) frame, and the “have-nots” (who prepon-derate in the Third World, but are in the developed world aswell), either real or socially constructed, tend to subscribe tothe second (“redistributive development”) frame. In thissense, the common stereotype in many developed countries,that environmentalism is largely a middle-class issue, may bepartially correct (Foreman 1998).

As Bahro (1984) points out, the working classes inWestern countries are the richest of the world’s “lowerclass(es).” Many people in developed countries, particularlyenvironmental Marxists, presume that equality issues arecoterminous with environmental ones. This is not necessari-ly the case. For example, one of the chief cultural artifacts ofthe globalization of American culture has been preservedland — the national park model (Nash 1982). While preser-vation is valued by westerners, it is often seen as a form ofimperialism in indigenous cultures and Third World coun-tries.

It bears noting that both sides of the celebrated preser-vation vs. conservation debates that have framed much of theenvironmental discourse in the United States (Oravec 1984)would fall under the first, or managerialist, frame. Whilethere has been no dearth of equality discussions in the U.S.,the ideas expressed in those discussions tend to be processeddifferently in the minds of people in the developed world thanthey do in developing countries.

Thus, environmental issues in many cases compete withother issues, such as those constructed around “equality,” forattention and prioritization in the developed world (for anextended discussion of how the symbolic power of the term“equality” has developed historically in the U.S., see Conditand Lucaites 1993). They are both seen as goods, but stillneed to find a place in the prioritized order that has room forfew priorities. There is sometimes a competition betweenequality issues and what many and probably most Northernenvironmentalists see as environmental issues, but the natureof the competition itself is quite different on the world stagethan it is within the North itself.

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Summary symbols for the environment often cometogether with those of equality in movements organizedaround ideas of “environmental justice.” Yet environmentaljustice movements, whether in developed or developingcountries, are fraught with prioritization battles of their own,both within the movement itself and relative to other move-ments. For example, in a review of environmental justice andrelated movements in the United States, Foreman (1998,15;also see Ostheimer and Ritt 1976), adduces a quote from aprominent black mayor of a U.S. city that . . . “the nation’sconcern with the environment has done what George Wallacewas unable to do: distract the nation from the human prob-lems of Black and Brown Americans.”6 Taylor (1992) arguesthat there is significant environmental concern among Blacksand other minorities, particularly in terms of environmentalthreats to public health in and around predominantly minori-ty communities. Possibilities for coalitions emerge in move-ments that have “environmental justice” as their prioritizingsummary symbol, but it is important to realize the complexi-ty of the issues involved, and to make a realistic assessmentof what priorities are likely to emerge from such a coalition.

Seen in this light, a crucial question becomes whichsummary symbol receives priority over the others, for thisbecomes the symbol around which other symbolic construc-tions are organized and interpreted (also see Gamson 1988).Put another way, is the summary symbol with the highest pri-ority the environment, markets, equality, or some other dis-tinct, but related symbol? In developed countries, it isarguably some combination of markets and equality (or moreprecisely, the axis of discussions pitting equality against thecoercive power of money) that trumps environmental discus-sions. On the world stage, environmental discourse oftencenters on issues of equity juxtaposed with those of sustain-ability.

While in time there may be a synthesis between thesetwo sets of prioritizing summary symbols, it most assuredlyhas not been developed yet. For the time being and indefinitefuture, they imply very different, sometimes competing,prioritization schemes. It is important to acknowledge, forexample, the power in the current day of discourses aroundissues of “equity” or “equality” (Condit and Lucaites 1993),and how those exchanges profoundly affect how people dis-cuss environmental issues and indeed, how they conceptual-ize them in the first place.

This is not to imply that anyone should necessarilyretreat from the conservation of what little of the world’sresources are left. Nor is it to relativize what arguably trulyis the universality of western environmentalism. It is, how-ever, crucial to consider that conservation efforts need to becoupled with realistic options for livelihood for the world’speople. There may well be a synthesis at some point, and

developing such a synthesis is itself a priority worth seriouseffort.

Environmental Movements and the Larger Culture

The ultimate success of environmental movements willdepend to a large degree on how they are perceived by, andintegrated into, the larger culture. Prioritization concerns arecrucial here as well.

As we stated at the beginning of this essay, large num-bers of people may endorse significant aspects of the “NewEnvironmental Paradigm” (Dunlap 1983, 1992), whichacknowledges that human beings are part of a finite planet,and that as such, there are constraints on what is practical oreven possible. Yet in spite of this endorsement, large num-bers of people still behave in accordance with the “HumanExemptionalism Paradigm” (Dunlap 1983), which assumesan infinite planet with few constraints. As LaPiere’s (1934)classic work underscored, there is often a wide disparitybetween reported attitudes and objective actions.

Pro-environmental attitude scales (Dunlap 1983, 1992;Inglehart 1990) may predict what party voters will alignthemselves with, but this does not necessarily translate intoenvironmentally friendly behavior (Dunlap 1991). Whilemultitudes claim to endorse “green” attitudes, the real ques-tions arise when there is a crunch time, where the difficultchoice between the environment and something else (e.g.,support for a favored position in the job queue) emerges. Acritical, though largely ignored, question, is thus how peopleprioritize environmental concerns, relative to other some-times very positive values. In other words, satiation of basicneeds aside (e.g., food and shelter), how can the environmen-tal movement become a higher political priority, in times thatare not crisis-driven?

The Montreal Protocol, which was an early attempt tostem the release of ozone depleting agents such as chloroflu-orocarbons and halons into the atmosphere, stands as onelimited counter-example of international success. A numberof actors from a wide array of institutions were involved,including businesses, such as the DuPont Corporation, whichsaw participation to be in its own business interests. In thiscase, the various sub-groups were able to move beyond thewin-lose mentality that, for example, recently contributed todebilitating discussions about national health care in the U.S.One key breakthrough was the emergence of a set of symbolsorganized around the idea of “acceptable alternatives” in lieuof the use of chlorofluorocarbons and vehicles for theirrelease, such as aerosol spray cans. As the idea of acceptablealternatives was developed, it became clear that a situationcould unfold in which all involved would benefit: citizens of

the planet by decreased chlorofluorocarbons, and businesseswho could open markets with safer acceptable alternatives.Rather than insisting on a priority that “Big Business” mustlose, environmentalists were able to stay focused on the morecentral priority of protecting the environment. In so doing,they came away with an agreement that has made a positivedifference in the world (for detailed discussions, seeMorrisette 1989; Benedick 1991).

Can Environmental Movements Be More Effective?

What lessons can we draw from the preceding discus-sion? Environmentalists must be more conscious of prioriti-zation strategies, and it is important to think through impli-cations of those strategies on a number of dimensions.

A crucial factor in movements’ successes often has beenthe ability for those movements to act in a concerted fashion.Some observers have even gone so far as to suggest thisshould manifest itself in a coordinated institutional structure.Rucht (1989), for example, finds that environmental move-ments in Germany have been more successful than those inFrance, largely because they have been able to forge ideolog-ical and institutional links among themselves, rather thanbecoming polarized and cutting off dialogue. They have beensuccessful in hearing out the various factions, and then settingpriorities that a critical mass of those factions feels a part of.

Because the media often stresses action over context(Jenkins 1983, 546), the environmental news that gets report-ed is often discrete (e.g., fires, accidents, etc) even thoughmuch environmental news tends to be continuous (e.g., defor-estation) (Palmer 1996). Therefore, what gets reported oftenare environmental events that can be staged (e.g., a news con-ference about some report about global warming), and ironi-cally may thus be removed from the actual reality of themovement. This approach is often more compelling to theaverage viewer, and it invites counter framing (e.g., a scien-tist uninvolved in environmentalism denies that the reportedevent, such as global warming, warrants any real social con-cern). As a result, viewers are left ignorant of both the caus-es and goals of environmental movements. Put another way,media coverage tends to prioritize news that is “novel” and“interesting”, often forcing movements to look either out-landish to secure coverage (which alienates much of the citi-zenry), or too conventional (which may be ignored by themedia) (Jenkins 1983). It is important for environmentaliststo understand this, and to prioritize and frame issues thatacknowledge this artifact of media coverage, while prioritiz-ing information in such a way as to convey the essentialinformation. This should be accomplished in conjunction

with various other mobilization strategies (Jenkins 1983,546), that we discuss further.

Politically, environmentalists would do well to advancethe discussion of green issues in much greater detail; orga-nizers who draw on the cultural symbols of the target popu-lations are more successful than those emphasizing abstractideologies (Brill 1971). Movements in general are success-ful when people oppose one another about the details, buttake the goals themselves (e.g., the planet should be a livableplace) as a given. As a practical step, it is important to re-engage the right as well as the left in the environmental con-versation. Environmentalists could facilitate this by takingadvantage of the multi-party (at least two) system character-istic of most polities. For example, environmentalists mightinitiate this process by encouraging pro-business (and verypossibly Republican, in the case of the U.S.) politicians tochampion various ideas concerning responsible environmen-tal usage, (e.g., in the areas of clean industry, recycling oreco-tourism — for counterpoint, see Rothman 1998). Thisstrategy would encourage the polity toward a point of bal-ance, so that in a two-party system, both sides would have tocompete for environmental support. From this would followa much more detailed set of public conversations about thenatural ecology. There is no a priori reason why the “envi-ronmental vote” should have been captured by one party oreven one side of the political spectrum.

The principle of prioritization is vitally important interms of markets as well. A key factor here is to measureenvironmental externalities as part of any sustainable eco-nomics, so that actual costs and benefits are considered moreclosely. Yet ironically, efforts in this direction may bestymied by the way many environmental issues are framed. Itis important to move beyond the sanctimoniously presented,and often alienating, dichotomy between business and theenvironment. Discourse and action need to promote busi-nesses that are sustainable, and measures must be developedaround that sustainability rather than around the global eco-nomic treadmill of GNP, etc. (Brown 1999; for discussions,see Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994).

For example, environmentalists could do considerablymore to promote the value of retreat and quiet (Schnaibergand Gould 1994). Noise pollution is a serious environmentalhazard that compromises the collective’s ability to thinkclearly and critically about solutions for the common good(Marcuse 1964). By way of solution, retreats in close prox-imity to residential areas could be promoted, in conjunctionwith the creation of neighborhood pathways that cultivatewalking over vehicle use.

Ironically, while environmentalists typically have anintuitive and profound understanding of how the tragedy ofthe commons works in the natural environment, there is a ten-

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dency to lose sight of that in terms of social movements.Environmentalists would do well to be wary of free riders,and thus to be sensitive to the co-optation strategies of othermovements, including those with whom there may seem to besome natural affinity. Thus, more pragmatism may be calledfor, with a much greater precision of inquiry in terms of whatoutcomes they are likely to gain or lose by a given allianceand its attendant prioritizations.

In a related vein, environmental movements must look athow various collectives, including social movements, havesuccessfully coped with the free rider phenomenon (Olson1965; Fain, Burns and Sartor 1994). One such way is toframe their priorities in moral and group solidarity terms, inwhich there is a fusion between personal and collective inter-ests. Therefore, solidarity and moral commitments are gen-erated to the broad population in whose name movements actand from whom their social legitimacy ultimately derives(Jenkins 1983, 536-537; Griffin 1992).

These suggestions are not mutually exclusive. Instead,there is a natural synergy among these levels — a synergythat could become a powerful force for social change.

Conclusion

Environmental movements can indeed be more effective.Environmentalists, perhaps more than most, should recognizethe importance of how the social world and its institutions areorganized, and work within the ecology of those organiza-tions. For ultimately, human institutions have a number ofproperties like the natural ecology itself.

While there are exceptions — for instance, Franklin D.Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States, in which onesocial program after another appeared in rapid-fire succes-sion — most politically mediated social changes arrive moreslowly. The dream of the society suddenly passing environ-mentally friendly laws and programs in an unmitigated andextended way is probably unrealistic in the short run. A farmore reasonable scenario is one in which hard-won gains areslowly accumulated. In such a situation, prioritizationschemes are crucially important, because those issues accord-ed secondary importance may not be acted upon at all.

Experience tells us that all of society’s problems will notbe solved simultaneously, and given this pragmatic reality,entertaining an otherwise utopic vision is ineffective andprobably even destructive (for a counter argument, seeHarvey 2000). In the realpolitik of the social world, thingscontinuously get prioritized, and effective interested partiesare able to influence those priorities. Many social move-ments (e.g., the Lesbian and Gay Rights movement, the

Women’s Movement) have made large gains through the poli-ty, and environmental movements would be shrewd to ana-lyze them, and implement successful strategies. The envi-ronmental movement must pay close attention to the prioriti-zation issues discussed in this essay, and react to them,because if they remain ignored, more pragmatically astutemovements will impose their own priorities, which rarely (ifever) have environmental concerns as the central organizingprinciple.

For the time being and foreseeable future, if environ-mental movements are to increase their successes, they needto keep their focus. It is tempting to use rhetorical strategiessuch as frame alignment to attempt to play to a wider audi-ence, when to do so increases the stakes of prioritization. Ifthat is to be done, environmentalists should understand moreprecisely how the process works. However the discourse isframed, it is still a social construction, and a means to an end.It is important to keep the end of a livable and sustainableplanet distinct from the discursive means of achieving thatend. Environmental movements would do well not to losesight of that distinction.

Endnotes

1. [email protected]. It is also the case that when a polity is closely divided and normal

coalition partners are lost, politicians will often support a new socialmovement, because the politician perceives this priority as less polit-ically risky (Tilly 1978, 213-214).

3. There are those who argue that citizens with more education will notonly give more money to social movements, but will also volunteertheir time (Morgan et al. 1975). This implies that the middle andupper classes also have the time to mobilize.

4. For an in depth comparative analysis of the women’s and the envi-ronmental movements see Rucht (1996).

5. Snow et al. (1986) identify four frame alignment processes — framebridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transfor-mation. Frame extension is the most appropriate process for our dis-cussion.

6. George Wallace ran for the U.S. Presidency as a third-party candidatein 1968. With racial segregation as a central part of his platform,Wallace carried five states.

Acknowledgments

Earlier aspects of this paper were presented at the Society for HumanEcology convention, Montreal, Quebec, and the American SociologicalAssociation convention, Washington, D.C. The authors gratefullyacknowledge Carol Burns, Sing Chew, Linda Kalof and anonymousreviewers at Human Ecology Review, who made helpful comments on anearlier draft.

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Burns and LeMoyne




Abstract

The issues of global environmental injustice and humanrights violations are the central focus of this article. Existingcross-national empirical data and case studies are utilized toassess and establish the patterns of transnational toxicwastes dumping, natural resource exploitation, and humanrights transgression. The bases of global environmentalinjustice are explored. Theoretically, dependency/world sys-tem, internal colonialism perspectives, economic contin-gency, and transnational environmental justice frameworksare used to analyze transnational toxic waste dumping, landappropriation and natural resource exploitation adverselyaffecting indigenous minorities in underdeveloped societies.With a particular focus on selected cases, available evidencesuggests that the poor, powerless indigenous minorities andmany environmental and civil rights activists face the dangerof environmental injustice and human rights abuse, especial-ly in less developed nations. Significant correlations werefound between social inequality, poverty, total external debts,demographic measures, health and solid wastes in the analy-sis of a cross-national data-set for developing nations. To fos-ter global environmental justice, this study suggests thatstronger international norms to protect human rights to asafe and sound environment are imperative; and it is arguedthat environmental injustice needs to be included as a com-ponent of human rights instruments. Other policy implica-tions of the analyses are also discussed.

Keywords: global environmental injustice, toxic wastedumping, environmental risks, human rights violations,indigenous minorities, inequality, environmental degrada-tion, grass-roots environmental activism, world system

Introduction

The issues of environmental injustice and human rightstransgressions at the local, state, national, and transnational

levels have attracted social scientists’ interest in recent years(Bullard 1990; Neff 1990; Nickel 1993; Nickel and Viola1994; Adeola 1994; Weinberg 1998). The major attributes ofthe world capitalist system shifting environmental pollutionand its negative impacts to poor communities both in the U.S.and Third World have been addressed by numerous scholars(Schnaiberg 1975; Buttel 1987; Bunker 1985; Clapp 1994;Stratton 1976; Moyers 1990; Bullard 1994; Adeola 2000a).The rights to a safe environment (RSE) have been empha-sized as an essential component of fundamental human rights(Dias 1999; Thorme 1991; Nickel 1993; Neff 1990; Boyleand Anderson 1998). In most cases, environmental degrada-tion leads to human rights transgressions and quite often,human rights abuse involves serious ecological disruptions.

In the U.S., the evolution and amalgamation of grass-roots civil rights and environmental justice movements havebeen especially instrumental in confronting the problems ofinequitable distribution of environmental hazards and associ-ated health effects caused by the activities of powerful corpo-rations and the state. Strong environmental movements, theNot-in-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome, and strong legisla-tive responses to hazardous waste disposal, have drasticallyincreased the costs of hazardous waste management, makingthe exports of industrial wastes quite attractive. As environ-mentalism and public opposition to waste siting increased inindustrialized countries, cross-national trade in hazardouswaste became a common practice in the 1970s and escalatedbetween the 1980s and the 1990s (Clapp 1994). The problemsassociated with toxic waste imports have been a major con-cern in many Third World countries from the 1980s to the pre-sent. Toxic waste dumping represents one of several activitiesthat involve serious human rights abuse, ecological disrup-tions, and environmental injustice. Other activities such asnatural resource exploitation by the state and MultinationalCorporations (MNCs), land acquisition, and large-scale eco-nomic development projects are rife with human rights abuse.Despite the prominence of these problems, there are severalsalient research questions yet to be resolved.

Environmental Injustice and Human Rights Abuse: The States, MNCs, and Repression of Minority Groups in the World System

Francis O. AdeolaDepartment of SociologyUniversity of New OrleansNew Orleans, LA 70148USA1

The specific questions addressed in this study are: (1) Towhat extent does hazardous waste dumping, diminution ofhabitats, appropriation of natural resources, and selectiveexposure of certain populations to environmental hazardsconstitute a violation of basic human rights? (2) Are environ-mental justice principles consistent or compatible with spe-cific articles of Human Rights Declarations? (3) Is there sub-stantial empirical evidence to support the claims of environ-mental injustice and ecologically-related human rights abuselocally and across nations? (4) What are the bases of globalenvironmental injustice; i.e., who are the major actors in theglobal political economy contributing to environmental injus-tice and related human rights abuse? (5) Are there significantlinks between MNCs’ activities and episodes of environmen-tal injustice and human rights transgression in the ThirdWorld? (6) What kind of relationships exists between socialinequity, world system variables, poverty, freedom, humanrights, and environmental degradation? These salient ques-tions will be addressed using existing empirical evidence andcase studies.

This article focuses on environmental injustice andhuman rights violations associated with cross-national toxicwaste dumping, natural resource exploitation, and the conse-quent degradation of the means of subsistence of indigenouspeople. The roles of the state and MNCs in suppressing therights of communal groups to a safe and sound environmentare examined. Furthermore, the alliance of states, elites, andMNCs in transnational hazardous waste schemes, naturalresource exploitation, and suppression of minority rights arediscussed. More specifically, the objectives of this study are:(1) To assess the general patterns and direction of flow oftoxic wastes between the industrialized and less-industrial-ized nations involving environmental injustice; (2) To offertheoretical and empirical analyses of transnational environ-mental inequity, natural resource exploitation, and humanrights repression; (3) To address how toxic waste dumping,natural resource exploitation, repression of indigenousminority groups, and other types of human rights abuse areconnected to MNCs activities in underdeveloped societies;(4) To explain the linkage between environmental justice andhuman rights; and (5) To identify the bases of global envi-ronmental injustice and offer potential remedies.

Following the introduction, the article proceeds in fourmajor components. In the first segment, the conceptualissues of environmental injustice and human rights violationsare discussed. The second part offers theoretical and empiri-cal explications of the variation in the North to South trafficof hazardous wastes as a major transnational environmentalinjustice issue. Also, theoretical discourse concerning theinfluence of stratification systems on environmental injusticeand human rights transgressions at the local and cross-nation-

al levels is presented. In the third part, selected cases of envi-ronmental injustice are presented to illustrate how humanrights violations and environmental injustice are closelyrelated. The strategies for achieving global environmentaljustice and the need for international codification of normspertaining to the rights of all people to clean air, water, and asafe and sound environment capable of sustaining life areoffered in the concluding section. The policy and theoreticalimplications are also discussed.

Background

Environmental injustice and human rights transgressionsare inextricably intertwined.2 For example, a strong positiverelationship between environmental degradation and humanrights violations has been noted in the literature suggestingthe presence of human rights abuse in most cases of environ-mental degradation (Dias 1999; Johnston 1994). Seizure ofcommunal lands, displacement of indigenous communities,natural resource exploitation, and toxic waste dumping con-note environmental injustice and human rights abuse. Inrecent years, assaults on the environment and human rightshave escalated to an unprecedented level in human history(see Amnesty International 1995; Donnelly 1998; Howard1995). Over the past two decades, the world has witnessed alarge number of cases involving ecological and human rightsproblems ranging from the military government extermina-tion of indigenous population in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, to eco-logical assaults and human rights violations in Africa, theBalkans, Latin America, Malaysia, and the Philippines,which all suggest the need to frame environmental rights as asignificant component of human rights issues.

Among the recent cases of environmental injustice andhuman rights violations in the Third World are: the murder ofWilson Pinheiro and Francisco “Chico” Mendes in theAmazon rain forest, the massacre of Father Nery Lito Saturand several others in the Philippines, and the public hangingof Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Movementfor the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) in November1995 in Nigeria. The subsequent detention, torture, andrepression of other members of MOSOP are among the mostcompelling cases of environmental and civil rights transgres-sion in developing nations monitored by Human RightsWatch (HRW 1999), Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC 1992), Amnesty International, and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). There have been sev-eral other cases of government agents especially in the ThirdWorld, adopting a policy of systematic genocide againstmembers of minority groups in order to appropriate theirlands and natural resources. The subjugation of indigenousminority groups extends to the subjugation of nature and the

Adeola


Adeola


consequent ecological degradation. Minority status, lowersocioeconomic status, powerlessness, and other conditions ofmarginalization constitute the major factors influencing theextent of environmental injustice and human rights repression(Adeola 1994, 2000b; Bullard 1990; Morrison 1976; Glazerand Glazer 1998).

In their analyses of resource induced conflicts, Gurr(1993), Homer-Dixon (1994), and Renner (1996) each pointsout that government uses of absolute power in post-colonialand post-revolutionary states involved policies directed atcommunal groups’ assimilation, repression of their indepen-dence, and usurpation of their resources, which often result inviolent conflict. The minority groups and indigenous peoplesthroughout the world face significant risks (see Gormley1976; Obibi 1995; Sachs 1996). Indigenous populations, eth-noclasses and other minorities, and their rights to land, nat-ural resources, clean air, good health, and environmental pro-tection are viewed by the dominant group as expendable forthe sake of national security, national unity, and economicdevelopment (see Johnston 1994, 11; Stavenhagen 1996;Lane and Rickson 1997). The global trends of industrializa-tion, economic expansion, and globalization resting onincreased exploitation of natural resources, have mostly beenat the expense of communal groups. Their natural resourcesand physical labor are being incorporated into the nationaland international webs of economic activities (Gurr 1993;Bunker 1985).

An examination of a wide range of regions from theAmazon Basin to northern Saskatchewan, to tropical rainforests of the Amazon, to the remote state of Borneo inMalaysia, to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, revealsthat the exploitation of natural resources, including energyproduction, timber harvesting, mineral extraction, oil explo-ration, hydro-electric and other mega-industrial projects byMNCs and host governments, has caused significant dam-ages. These damages include dislocation and decimation ofnumerous indigenous communities and their entire ways oflife (Gedicks 1993, 13; Stavenhagen 1996). In many devel-oping countries, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable andimpoverished communities, including subsistence peasants,fishing communities, hunters and gatherers, and nomadicgroups are generally the victims of environmental degrada-tion mostly caused by resource extractive operations ofMNCs in the name of global development. As indicated byRenner (1996, 55),

Their capacity to resist and defend their interests isextremely weak. These groups not only depend onmarginal lands for subsistence, but they are alsosocially, economically, and politically disenfran-chised. They are often too powerless to struggle for

the preservation of natural systems upon whichtheir livelihood and survival rest.

Currently, a significant number of indigenous groups inNorth America (Native Americans), Australia, Papua NewGuinea, Indonesia, Brazilian Amazon, Malaysia, and NigerDelta of Nigeria are facing a serious threat of massive envi-ronmental degradation by resource extraction operations ofMNCs supported by national governments. Recently, socialscientists have discussed how authoritarian governments, dic-tatorships, human rights violations, and other variants ofdespotism endemic in the Third World have obstructed thegrowth and proliferation of grassroots environmental justicemovements in the region (see Adeola 1998; Alario 1992).

As stated in a recent article by Adeola (2000a, 689),human rights violations, environmental inequity, and ecolog-ical imperialism cut across national boundaries. The fact thatresource exploitation, degradation, contamination, and undueimposition of associated risks on the poor are global in scopehas been well documented (Neff 1990; Bunker 1985; Hilz1992; Greenpeace 1994). In a similar vein, the transnationalnature of human rights issues has been acknowledged byDonnelly (1998), Smith (1997), and the United Nations(1988). The provisions of human rights are intended to pro-tect individuals and collectivity against abuses such as state-induced starvation, torture, violence and killings, and depri-vation of people’s means of sustenance (Howard 1995, 90;Donnelly 1998). Nevertheless, ecological imperialism,which implies wanton natural resource exploitation, degrada-tion, and inequitable distribution of associated environmentalhazards (or externalization of costs of production) by MNCsor other powerful foreign and local vested interests, remainsa serious threat to the “global community.” Since humanrights involve the assurance of people’s means of livelihoodand well being, any significant threats to environmental basesof livelihood implies a violation of fundamental humanrights.3

In recent years, increased global awareness of environ-mental and human rights problems has broadened the civil,political, and socioeconomic rights to encompass environ-mental dimension (Thorme 1991; Welch 1995; Wronka 1998;Dias 1999). However, the endorsement and adherence tosocioeconomic and environmental rights vary considerablyacross countries (see Howard 1995; Smith 1997; Sullivan1991). In his article “Not in Their Backyards Either,” Neff(1990) addresses the problems associated with transnationalcodification of norms and their enforcement, which typicallyinvolve multilateral or multinational agreements or treatiesunder the umbrella of the United Nations (UN). In the UN’sUniversal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, mostnations officially recognize civil rights — i.e., freedom from

slavery, servitude, torture or inhumane punishment, arbitraryarrest, and imprisonment; freedom of speech, faith, opinion,and expression; the right to life, security, justice, propertyownership; and freedom of assembly (Donnelly 1998;Wronka 1998). The latter set of rights is particularly ger-mane to environmental justice principles. Unfortunately,most of these principles are not adhered to in practice bymost countries, especially in the Third World (Alario 1992;United Nations 1992; Donelley 1998). Even in those coun-tries that uphold the principles, the poor and minority groups,especially in remote areas, remain disenfranchised and aremore susceptible to human rights abuse and environmentalinjustice. The following section presents theoretical perspec-tives on environmental injustice across and within nationsand some evidence on North to South flow of toxic wastes.

Cross-National Environmental Injustice:Theory and Evidence

Several theoretical explanations of North to South flowof hazardous wastes and natural resource degradation havebeen offered in the literature (Moyers 1990; Uva and Bloom1989; Bunker 1985; Clapp 1994; Hilz 1992; Asante-Duah,Kofi, Saccomanno and Shortreed 1992). Among these are theeconomic contingency and rational choice perspectives, thedependency/world system perspective, external and internalcolonialism models, and the transnational environmentalinjustice framework. Each of these perspectives is briefly dis-cussed in the following sections.

Economic Contingency Perspective (ECP)The economic contingency theory suggests that “needs”

and “goals” are prioritized by the individuals or collectivitiesdepending upon how critical these needs and goals are at aparticular point in time (Adeola 1998, 343). Partly derivedfrom Abraham Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs model,this perspective explains how individuals or groups may setpriorities based on the most pressing needs at a particularpoint in time. Thus, when faced with basic survival needs,environmental degradation and exposure to toxic wastes maytake lower priority or even be accepted as the necessaryopportunity costs (i.e., alternative foregone). For example, aresident of the infamous Smokey Mountain (a nine acres heapof burning wastes) in Manila, Philippines, once remarked, “Idon’t know which is worse — a clean home with no money,or an unclean life with money” (see Frank 1999, A1 and A8).Also, the case of a local man in Koko, Nigeria, who acceptedcash for the use of his residence as a toxic waste depot isanother excellent illustration of ECP’s assertion. (This lattercase is discussed more extensively later in this article).Therefore, poor people are most likely to discount toxic

exposure and future health concerns for immediate economicgratification. The behavior of the people at the top level ofthe “hierarchy of needs” is quite different from those at thebottom. While the latter are more concerned about meetingthe current most pressing survival needs at all costs, the for-mer are more concerned about meeting aesthetic, health, andquality of life needs in a clean environment and as such, theywould pay to avoid environmental risks. For the ECP, pover-ty and economic inequity are positive correlates of wastesand other anthropogenic environmental hazards.

The Rational Choice Perspective (RCP)The rational choice perspective (RCP), also derived from

neoclassical utilitarian economic theory, explains socialinteraction as akin to an economic transaction guided by theactor’s rational choices among alternative outcomes. In thisframework, actors have ends toward which their actions aredirected; thus, action is initiated only after the costs and ben-efits have been calculated or weighed (Coleman 1990; Zey1998). Most schemes of toxic waste exports and naturalresource exploitation are carefully planned with the potentialcosts and benefits predetermined by the MNCs and othervested interests. Ventures are implemented only when theyare considered cost-effective; i.e., when the benefits out-weigh the costs, at least in the short-run. Rational actors gen-erally operate under the constraints of resource scarcity,opportunity costs, institutional limitations, and availableinformation. To select the most preferred alternative outcomeis to choose the one that yields the most benefits. For RCP,economic aid guided by the “norms of reciprocity” mayencourage waste trade schemes between the core and non-core nations. Therefore, a positive correlation between eco-nomic aid per capita and volume of wastes (pollution) inThird World countries could be expected.

In the literature, the RCP has been criticized for not deal-ing with groups, collective behavior or social movement (seeColeman 1990, 13-44; Heath 1976, 7-8). Both the RCP andeconomic contingency frameworks remain controversial in theliterature (see Zey 1998; Johnson 1998; Green and Shapiro1994; Hernstein 1990). Given the nature of North-to-Southtoxic waste dumping characterized by inadequate or distortedinformation and limited knowledge among certain actors andunethical business practices accompanying such schemes,RCP is inadequate in explaining transnational toxic wastetrade, natural resource exploitation, and environmentalinequity. For a better understanding of the nature and dynam-ics of environmental inequity, social injustice, and the con-comitant human rights transgression at the cross-nationallevel, other paradigms are called for. In the following seg-ments, the dependency/world systems, environmental justice,and internal colonialism theoretical perspectives are presented.

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The Dependency/World System PerspectiveThe dependency/world system perspective offers a theo-

retical explanation of the global stratification system and itsimplications for the dominant and subordinate states. In itsclassical formulation, the term “dependency” refers to a con-dition or state in which the economy of certain countries (i.e.,non-OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment], Third World, underdeveloped countries) isconditioned or influenced by the development and expansionof another economy to which the former is subjected (DosSantos 1970; Frank 1967; Amin 1997; Cardoso and Faletto1979; Chase-Dunn 1975).4 The “world systems” connoteintersocietal networks in which the interactions (e.g., trade,resource extraction, warfare, information, etc.) are essentialfor the reproduction of the internal structures of the compos-ite units and significantly affect changes occurring in theselocal structures (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chase-Dunn1998; Amin 1990). The condition of environmental injusticeis directly linked to the global stratification system in whichthe dominant states are able to shift or impose environmentalhazards and other externalities on the weaker states. The factthat Third World societies are powerless and disadvantageddue to their weak, subordinate position in the world systemhas been discussed by Wallerstein (1979), Bornschier andChase-Dunn (1985), Bunker (1985), and other dependen-cy/world system theorists. Since they are passive, powerlessor negligible actors in global environmental policy formula-tion and implementation, environmental burdens are continu-ously channeled to the Third World with a path of least or noresistance. Among several factors that make the current pat-tern of toxic waste dumping quite prevalent and attractive toMNCs are: weak or non-existing national environmental pol-icy and standards in many developing countries, ineffectiveenvironmental laws and inadequate sanctions against pol-luters, a lack of adequate environmental law enforcementagents, bribery and corruption, and poverty or desperation toaccept pollution for cash in many poor countries.Unfortunately, the short-term economic gains by both MNCsand the hosts generally overshadow the long-term adverseenvironmental and public health consequences.

Unequal exchange between the “core” and “periphery”has been the rule rather than exception. The “core” is gener-ally described as a region of a world system (including themost powerful advanced industrialized nations) that domi-nates the system and the “periphery” refers to a region of thesystem consisting of weak and poor countries that are subor-dinated by the core (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997). Accordingto Chase-Dunn (1998, 39), the core-periphery relationshipcame into existence through extra-economic plunder, con-quest, colonialism and neocolonialism, and is maintained bythe operation of political-military dominance and economic

competition in the capitalist world economy. As a conse-quence of poverty and subordinate status, peripheral coun-tries are forced or conditioned to accept inferior commoditiesand hazardous wastes in exchange for their extractive miner-al and agricultural products (Adeola 2000a). Chase-Dunn(1975) contends that exploitation of the underdevelopedeconomies by the core countries occurs through the processof decapitalization, resource depletion, unequal exchange,and subordination to external controls in a capitalist worldsystem. Thus, for a number of researchers, Third Worldresource plunder, environmental degradation, human rightsabuse, and growing resistance are directly linked to globalcapitalism, maldevelopment, internal and external colonial-ism, and MNCs’ operations (see Guha 1990; Broad andCavanagh 1993; Gedicks 1993; Pulido 1996; Renner 1996;Amin 1990, 1997). From the dependency/world system per-spective, the MNCs contribute significantly to environmentalinequity and human rights violations in the periphery.

In the Health of the Planet (HOP) survey conducted in 24industrial and less developed countries by Dunlap, Gallup andGallup (1993), the respondents were asked “how much doyou think Multinational Companies operating in developingcountries contribute to environmental problems — would yousay a great deal, fair amount, not very much, or not at all?”An overwhelming majority of the respondents (in samples of770 to 4,984) identified the MNCs as a major culprit con-tributing a great deal to a fair amount of environmental prob-lems in developing countries (see Dunlap et al. 1993, 57).Similarly, Wimberly (1990, 76) indicates that MNCs distortdevelopment in the Third World by retarding economicgrowth, promoting economic injustice, obstructing domesticpolitical processes that may be contrary to core economic orideological interests; and they also distort development bydiverting land from sustainable production for domestic needsand by displacing poor farmers and indigenous landholderswho have little or no alternative means of livelihood (Renner1996; Amin 1997). The operations of MNCs in underdevel-oped nations involve the use of hazardous materials, extrac-tion of natural resource base, environmental degradation, andthe spread of toxic materials, emissions of noxious gases,which pose immediate and long-term health risks to the mass-es (Moyers 1990; Baram 1994). Harper (1996, 373) recentlydescribed the environmental impacts of MNCs as:

At their outrageous worst, MNCs have promotedand sold pharmaceutical, pesticides, baby formu-las, and contraceptives already banned or restrict-ed as unsafe in their home country in the ThirdWorld. . . . They have brokered the internationalsale of solid and toxic wastes to poor nations. . . .Shipments of toxic industrial and medical wastes

arrive in African nations from most Europeannations and in central America, the Caribbean,Latin America, and Africa from the U.S. MNCshave orchestrated the cutting of rainforests inIndonesia and Malaysia. Similar to ecologicaldegradation, ecocide, and genocide associatedwith Multinational Oil Companies in Nigeria,Texaco made a real mess in the Ecuadorian rain-forests, where it dominated the nation’s oil industryfor over 20 years. (Emphasis added).

Incidentally, the MNCs have also imported fruits, vegetables,and other agricultural products grown in the Third World withheavy doses of banned pesticides for American consumers,thus completing the circle of toxins (Moyers 1990; Weir andSchapiro 1981).

It must be acknowledged, however, that there are bothinternal and external actors subjecting the poor and indige-nous populations to social and environmental injustice, as anumber of cases will later demonstrate. Within the depen-dency school, the struggles among local classes, ethnic andother interest groups are seen as shaped and conditioned bythe country’s relation to the advanced industrial societies ofthe “core” (Evans and Stevens 1988, 745). The extent ofimmiseration, natural capital expropriation, pollution andecological degradation can be attributed to the collaborationbetween external imperialism and corrupt domestic elites. Inmost post-colonial societies, a legacy of classical colonialismpersists in the form of internal colonialism, especially in theareas of resource exploitation, material allocation, and distri-bution of power among various sub-national groups.Following the world-system/classic colonial model, the core-periphery statuses are reproduced within a nation. Typically,the core exploits the resources of the periphery and maintainseconomic and political control (Blauner 1972).

The core-periphery model is taking a new meaning withthe currently unfolding process of globalization accentuatingthe power of MNCs while diminishing the power of states’control of international movements of resources and capital.Ethnic fragmentation, primordial allegiance, and new resis-tance movements are among the products of this process ofsocial transformation. According to Amin (1997, 4-5), thenew world system under globalization regime is maintainedby the core’s technological monopoly, domination and con-trol of global financial markets, monopolistic access to theplanet’s natural resources (in which the risks of recklessexploitation and degradation have become worldwide), mediaand communication monopolies, and monopolies overweapons of mass destruction. Thus, globalization seems tohave produced a new hierarchy in the world system, moreunequal than ever before and further subordinating the

peripheries. From the dependency/world system perspective,foreign direct investment, external debts, and inequity areasserted as positive correlates of environmental degradation.

The Internal Colonialism Theoretical ModelColonialism as a process of economic and sociopolitical

domination and exploitation of nations by other more power-ful nations has a long standing in human history. Contrary toclassic colonialism, internal colonialism is a condition inwhich both the dominant group and subordinate groups co-exist as natives of the same society (see Blauner 1969).Furthermore, the dominant group represents a numericalmajority, as is the case in the U.S. Blauner (1972, 84) iden-tifies the basic elements of the colonization process as: (1)Colonization originates with a forced, involuntary entry; (2)the colonizing power implements a policy that constraints,transforms, or destroys indigenous culture — including itsvalues, orientations, beliefs, tradition, ways of life, andmodes of subsistence; (3) the members of the subordinate orcolonized group are typically governed or ruled by represen-tatives of the dominant power; and (4) the colonized have theexperience of being controlled and manipulated by outsiderswho employ either a supremacist or a paternalistic ideologyto maintain the system of dominant-subordinate relations.

A modified version of internal colonialism framework asoriginally formulated by Blauner (1969), in conjunction withthe dependency school’s emphasis on the development ofunderdevelopment (Frank 1967), would aid in understandingthe relationship between the state, MNCs, dominant “core”ethnic groups, and peripheral indigenous tribes. The originof internal colonialism in a country such as Nigeria involvedthe skillful, strategic pursuit of political dominance by thenumerical majority following the independence in the 1960s.As explained by Naanen (1995, 49), the political powergained by the numerical majority ethnic groups in Nigeria(including the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo), has beenused hitherto to appropriate and transfer resources from theperiphery to develop the core areas especially in the North,while creating immiseration and increased inequality amongthe subordinated resource-dependent ethnic communities inthe periphery.

Focusing on the case of Nigeria, the three critical ele-ments of internal colonialism in the country include: (1) anethnic-centered political dominance, tactically employed tocontrol and exploit the natural resource (wealth) of minoritycommunities for the benefit of the dominant ethnic groups;(2) the alliance of the core ethnic groups, multinational oilcompanies, political elites, the military, and the governmentwhich generally represses the opportunity structures for theminorities; and (3) massive ecological disruptions and thesubsequent destruction of the basic modes of subsistence of

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the resource-dependent communities of indigenous minoritygroups. The unique cases of selected minority groups are dis-cussed in more detail later in this paper to show the patternsof injustice, waste dumping, ecocide, and human rights vio-lations including politicide in different regions of the ThirdWorld. However, before presenting selected case studies, it isapropos to discuss the evidence on transnational environmen-tal injustice.

Reviewing the Evidence ConcerningTransnational Environmental Injustice

As an unfortunate aspect of globalization, the relativeease of transnational movements of operations, capital, andresources has extended the problems of inequitable distribu-tion of environmental hazards and associated risks from thelocal to global arena. As mentioned earlier, the patterns ofdistribution of hazardous wastes, toxic agents includinglethal agricultural chemicals banned in the U.S. (e.g., pesti-cides such as DDT), herbicides, polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs), asbestos, and other hazardous products follow thepaths of least resistance from advanced industrial states of theNorth to underdeveloped societies of the South (Weir andSchapiro 1981; Pearson 1987; Uva and Bloom 1989; Moyers1990; Asante-Duah et al. 1992; Hilz 1992; Greenpeace 1994;Frey 1994-95). The withdrawal and over-consumption ofnatural resources of the South are carried out both implicitlyand explicitly by the core nations of the North, with theUnited States accounting for the lion’s share (Caldwell 1990;Schnaiberg and Gould 1994). According to recent empiricaldata, the United States generates 85% of the world’s haz-ardous wastes and EC countries generate about 10% of theworld total. In general, advanced industrial nations produced95% of the world’s hazardous wastes and the internationaltoxic waste trade has been facilitated by the new global eco-nomic system (UNDP 1998).

Many underdeveloped countries of the South are used asa reservoir of garbage, toxic wastes, DDT, and hazardousproducts generated in advanced industrial nations (Hilz 1992;Greenpeace 1994; Weir and Shapiro 1981; Scherr 1987).Annually, more than 50 percent of the officially acknowl-edged volume of exported hazardous waste is channeled toless developed nations. The number of countries involved inexport and import schemes, volume of trade, and propertiesof materials involved are often difficult to establish due tocovert and criminal nature of the transactions (USGAO1993). Among the litany of commonly exported hazardouswastes are: acids, asbestos, automobile scrap, computer/elec-tronic scrap, banned pesticides and agro-chemicals, hospitalwaste, dioxins containing wastes from fossil fuel electricpower stations, scrap tires, scrap PVCs, mercury waste, lead-

acid batteries, and metallic and galvanic sludges, all known tobe lethal (see Greenpeace 1994). A typical approach ofexporting toxic wastes to developing countries has been tofalsify the labels. Some have been disguised as constructionmaterials, fertilizer, and humanitarian assistance (Clapp1994; Harper 1996). As mentioned earlier, the number ofThird World countries that have imported, been targeted orproposed for hazardous waste imports increased significantlybetween the 1980s and 1990s, when most of these countrieswere experiencing severe economic hardships. Even duringthe period of improved economic conditions, many obsoleteindustrial products and hazardous materials such as PCBs,asbestos, polychlorinated dioxins, and pesticides such asDDT, and heptachlor restricted or completely banned for usein the United States are sold in Third World nations.Incidentally, CO2 emissions co-vary with increased haz-ardous waste dumping in the majority of non-OECD coun-tries included in this study (both the trend in CO2 from 1980to 1996 and bivariate correlation analysis are presented in the subsequent section of this paper). This pattern of traderepresents a major aspect of transnational environmentalinjustice.

Environmental injustice transcends the waste tradeacross nations. As Dorsey (1998-99, 100) suggests, environ-mental injustices are apparent in several cases includingexposure of people of color (ethnic and racial minorities) toradiation from nuclear testing, chemical contamination, andnumerous adverse health conditions. Epidemiological find-ings suggest that negative health consequences of exposure toa wide range of these conditions may encompass immunedeficiency, neurological disorder, reproductive dysfunctions,cancer, and abnormal behavior (Adeola 1994, 2000b; WRI etal. 1998-99, 55). The most infamous incidents of pesticidepoisonings involved the banned pesticide exported from theU.S. to Egypt in the 1970s. The use of this product was linkedto illnesses and deaths among the people and over 1,000deaths of water buffalo. Mass poisoning has also been foundin Ecuador, Iraq, and in several African countries (Scherr1987, 131).

As aforementioned, stringent laws concerning hazardouswastes were introduced and enforced in the U.S. in the pastthree decades, forcing many companies to seek hazardouswaste depots in underdeveloped nations.5 For instance, theU.S. Congress enacted the Resource Conservation andRecovery Act (RCRA) to regulate hazardous wastes withinthe U.S. (PL. 94-580, 42 U.S.C. 6901 et. seq). The 1984Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) to the actadded a new section to govern exports of hazardous wastes(P.L. 98-616, 245a, 42 U.S.C. 6938), which established a pro-gram through which EPA monitors the export activities ofU.S. hazardous waste generators and others and enforces

export regulations (USGAO 1993). The growing concernsabout transboundary shipments of hazardous waste, and glob-al awareness of the actual and potential effects of hazardouswaste on the environment and public health in importingcountries, have triggered negotiation of an internationaltreaty. Even though concerted efforts have been launched toaddress environmental injustice issues in the United States,similar efforts to curtail the exports of hazardous materialsfrom the core countries to periphery nations are grossly inad-equate.

The Basel Convention on the control of transboundarymovements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, wasdeveloped in response to the demands from developing coun-tries for the international community to curb or regulate inter-national trade of hazardous wastes.6 At the international andregional level, there have been several agreements to restrictthe transboundary movements of wastes. The BamakoConvention signed by the members of Organization ofAfrican Unity (OAU) and the Lome Convention signed by theEuropean Union (EU) and 69 African, Caribbean, and Pacificcountries are cases in point.

Despite the global concerns about hazardous wastedumping, some officials of the World Bank have supportedthe idea of exporting more polluting industries from the corenations to underdeveloped countries for profit. They contendthat, in order to maximize the overall economic efficiency, agiven amount of health-impairing pollution should be done inthose countries with the lowest cost and low wages.According to Lawrence Summers (1992), a World Bank offi-cial, human lives in the Third World are of lesser value rela-tive to human lives in the core nations (Foster 1995, 101).The economic efficiency argument for hazardous wasteexports is rather myopic. On a global scale and on the longrun, hazardous waste trade may turn out to be very disastrousor inefficient for both the exporting and receiving nations.The public health and ecological costs of these schemes typ-ically far outweigh the short-term economic gains (Adeola1996; Moyers 1990; Weir and Schapiro 1981).

Environmental injustice and environmental racism arereflected in the policy and practices of most core countries’institutions toward periphery nations. Institutionalized dis-crimination is apparent in the World Bank’s policies and offi-cial behavior toward the non-core countries. Basically, insti-tutionalized discrimination refers to the policies of the domi-nant institutions in the core and the behavior of individualswho control these institutions and implement policies that areintentionally designed to have adverse impacts on non-corenations in the world system. Feagin and Feagin (1996)defined a direct institutionalized discrimination as any orga-nizationally prescribed or community-prescribed action thatby design or intention has a differential and negative impact

on members of subordinate groups (distinctively identifiedeither by race, ethnicity, tribe, culture, or nationality). Tocombat the problems of environmental racism and injustice,the multinational and multicultural People of ColorEnvironmental Leadership Summit was convened inWashington, D.C., in October 1991, to proclaim the princi-ples of environmental justice.7 One of the principles specifi-cally states that governmental acts of environmental injusticerepresent a violation of international law, the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights, and the U.N. Convention onGenocide.

Empirical Evidence on Hazardous Waste Trade Schemesand Some Correlates of Solid Wastes and CO2 Emissions

In this section, multiple data sources and methods areemployed to address the research questions and relationshipsasserted by the theoretical perspectives presented.Descriptive data on exports of hazardous wastes from OECDto non-OECD countries were obtained from the Greenpeace(1994). The data for the 24 countries (shown in Table 2) weresupplemented with other secondary data sources includingthe World Bank (1999-2000) and UNDP (1998). Data onpoverty, inequity, MNCs’ influence, and human rights wereobtained from the UN (1988, 1998), the World Bank (1998-99), the World Resources Institute, UN and World Bank(1998-99), Amnesty International (1995), the Freedom House(1990), and Johnson and Sheehy (1990) of the HeritageFoundation. Data from these latter sources are used forbivariate correlation analysis of 16 variables suggested by thetheoretical perspectives reviewed for a sample of 124 devel-oping nations.8 Methodological triangulation encompassinga description of hazardous waste trade schemes, comparativecross-national analysis, bivariate correlation analysis of theo-retically specified variables, and case studies is used to meetthe objectives of this study. Both in the empirical and casestudies, countries are selected based on data availability. Thecase studies offer better insights about the conflicts betweenMNCs, the nation states, and indigenous groups overresource exploitation, ecocide, waste dumping, and associat-ed environmental injustice and human rights abuse. Thedescriptive account is presented first, followed by correlationanalysis, and the selected qualitative case studies.

Hazardous Waste Dumping SchemesEmpirical evidence compiled by the NGOs indicates that

annually, millions of tons of hazardous wastes are channeledby MNCs based in core advanced industrial countries tounderdeveloped nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, andCaribbean (Greenpeace 1994; Asante-Duah et al. 1992; Frey1994-95; Uva and Bloom 1989; Hilz 1992). During the 1989to 1994 period, more than 2.6 million metric tons of haz-

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ardous wastes were exported from the OECD countries tonon-OECD countries mostly located in the Third World(Greenpeace 1994). As shown in Table 1, OECD generated248,041 per thousand metric tons from 1989 to 1994. Atleast 413 hazardous waste exports schemes originating fromOECD to non-OECD countries in Africa, East and SoutheastAsia, Latin America, Middle East, and Pacific, have beenreported for the period.

Over the past decade, there have been about 300 docu-mented cases of hazardous wastes dumping in EasternEurope, 239 in Asia, 148 in Latin America, and 30 in Africa(cf. Sachs 1996, 144). Specific cases include dioxin-ladenindustrial wastes exported from Philadelphia to Guinea andHaiti in 1987; radioactive milk exported to Jamaica by EC in1978; more than 10,000 tons of radioactive wastes, PCBs(polychlorinated biphenyls), and other toxic elements export-ed by Italian firms to the town of Koko in Nigeria; and sev-eral other similar cases involving a systematic dumping ofhazardous wastes to these regions (the case of Koko is dis-cussed in more detail later in this article). Within the pastdecade, several Third World nations including Argentina,Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Guinea, Haiti, Lebanon,Mexico, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela,and Zimbabwe have been targeted for toxic waste dumping

(Hilz 1992, 17; Greenpeace 1994). Table 2 presents a list ofselected countries targeted for toxic waste dumping schemesincluding the type and quantity of waste proposed to be deliv-ered by companies based in the U.S., U.K., or other devel-oped OECD countries. Environmental injustice and humanrights transgression are pervasive in all of these cases. Thetable also presents selected environmental health indicatorsfor the countries. It shows the gap in life expectancy betweeneach toxic waste receiving country and exporting countries’average (indexed at 100, see UNDP 1998, 150-1). Increasedtoxic waste dumping and CO2 emissions are directly relatedto poor quality of life and adverse heath conditions in thesecountries as will be demonstrated in the subsequent analysis.With the exception of Guatemala, Jamaica, and Nigeria, CO2emission increased from 1980 to 1996 for all non-OECD(developing) countries included in the table.

In Table 3, bivariate correlations between volume ofsolid wastes (measured in thousands of tons), carbon dioxideemission per capita, and selected domestic and world systemsocioeconomic, demographic, and human rights variables arereported for a sample of 124 developing nations. Pearson cor-relation coefficients are calculated for sixteen variablesgrouped into five broad categories including environmentalpollution factors, domestic and international economic fac-

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Table 1. Hazardous waste export schemes by OECD country and receiving non-OECD region (Third World), 1989-1994.

Receiving Non-OECD RegionVolume of

Exporting WasteOECD Generated South South Middle LatinCountry (1000 tons) Africa Pacific East Asia East Asia Asia East America Total

Australia 426 0 0 13 13 6 0 0 32Austria 550 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 4Belgium 776 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 2Canada 5,896 0 0 28 4 5 0 0 37Denmark 250 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2Finland 559 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2France 7,000 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1Germany 9,100 1 0 1 9 4 0 9 24Italy 2,708 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 4Japan n.a. 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 4Luxembourg 180 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Netherlands 1,520 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1New Zealand 110 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2Norway 500 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 2Spain 1,708 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Sweden 440 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0Switzerland 854 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 4UK 1,844 6 0 20 31 15 11 15 98USA 213,620 8 8 31 24 14 0 109 194

TOTALS 248,041 22 11 94 84 44 14 144 413

Sources/Adapted from: 1) UNDP, Human development report, 1998, and 2) The Greenpeace, Database of Hazardous Waste Trade Export Schemes from OECD tonon-OECD countries (1989-1994).

tors, social inequality and poverty, human rights measures,and demographic and health measures respectively. The indi-cators for domestic economic condition are per capita GrossDomestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP)growth rate, 1980-1990, both in U.S. dollars. Three worldsystem economic indicators used are total external debts in1990, average foreign direct investment, 1981-1985, and eco-nomic aid per capita. The three indicators of human rightsused include the number of human rights convention signedand ratified by each country, political rights index (Arat1991), and freedom status measured on a scale of 1 (mostfree) to 7 (not free). Gini index serves as a measure of socialinequality, and percent of people on less than $1.00/dayincome measures poverty. For demographic and health fac-tors, population size, percent population change are thedemographic measures and crude death rate and infant mor-tality rates constitute the health measures.

The three columns showing Pearson correlation coeffi-cients among these variables and their level of significanceare displayed in Table 3. Consistent with the ECP’s assertion

that poverty and inequality are positively related to hazardouswaste and other environmental hazards, total external debts (r= .510, p < .01) Gini index (r = .271, p < .01), and poverty (r= .298, p < .01) are significant positive correlates of solidwastes and CO2 emission per capita respectively. For theRCP, a significant correlation between economic aid per capi-ta and solid wastes (r = .588, p < .01) is confirmed. Also ofinterest are the inverse correlations found between humanrights measures and solid wastes or CO2 emissions per capi-ta. These suggest that those nations with higher human rightsprotection standards and practices are most likely to havestringent policies and measures to minimize hazardous waste,especially in their backyards. Thus, freedom status (r = -.204, p < .05), human rights conventions entered (r = -.405,p < .01), and political rights index (r = -.167, p < .10) are significant inverse correlates of wastes.

From the dependency/world system perspective, MNCs’influence as measured by average FDI only has a small posi-tive association with both solid wastes and CO2 emission percapita (r = .178, p <. 05 for the latter). As already mentioned,

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Table 2. Life expectancy gaps,1 transnational toxic waste schemes, and CO2 emission in selected developing countries, 1980-1996

LEXP Place CO2 Emissions (million)Gaps of (metric tons) (Per capita)

Country 1995 Proposed Toxic Waste Types 1989-1994 Origin 1980 1996 1980 1996

Argentina 2 10,000 tons/month (sewage sludge) U.S. 107.5 129.9 3.8 3.7Bangladesh 23 60,000 tons/month (municipal waste) U.S. 7.6 23.0 0.1 0.2Belize 0 10,000 tons/month (sewage sludge) U.S. n.a. n.a. n.a 1.9Brazil 10 Unspecified volume of industrial waste U.S. 183.4 273.4 1.5 1.7Colombia 51 million tons/month (incinerator ash) U.S./U.K. 39.8 65.3 1.4 1.7Costa Rica 0 200,000 tons/year of incinerator ash & 4 million coal ash U.S. 2.5 4.7 1.1 1.4Dominican Republic 5 1 million/year U.S. 6.4 12.9 1.1 1.6EquatorialGuinea 34 240,000 tons of radioactive waste

& 1 million tons of incinerator ash/yea U.S. 0.9 1.1 0.2 0.3Guatemala 13 245 tons lead slag & 1 million tons of ash U.S. 4.5 6.8 0.7 0.7Indonesia 14 20,843 kg. of toxic ash & 6.4 million of toxic ash/year MNC 94.6 245.1 0.6 1.2Jamaica 0 1 million tons (incinerator ash) & 3,600 tons of (garbage/day) MNC 8.4 10.1 4.0 4.0Mexico 3 34 barrels of toxic chemicals & 6,500 drums of toxics U.S. 251.6 348.1 3.7 3.8Morocco 11 2,000 metric tons of toxic waste/yr. U.K. 15.9 27.9 0.8 1.0Namibia 25 7 million tons/yr. (nuclear wastes, sludge, and plastics) U.S. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.Nicaragua 9 200,000 tons of incinerator ash/mo. & 1,700 tons of toxic ash/day U.S. 17.6 29.8 5.6 8.0Nigeria 31 Unspecified volume U.K. 68.1 83.3 1.0 0.7Panama 1 30 million tons/yr. (incinerator ash) U.S. 3.5 6.7 1.8 2.5Papua New Guinea 23 600,000 metric tons/mo. (toxic waste) MNC 1.8 2.4 0.6 0.5Paraguay 7 200,000 tons/mo. U.S. 1.5 3.7 0.5 0.7Philippines 9 Unspecified volume(of battery/plastic) MNC 36.5 63.2 0.8 0.9Sri Lanka 2 Over 245 tons/yr. MNC 3.4 7.1 0.2 0.4Thailand 6 Several hundreds tons of uranium,

thorium, & 13,000 tons of toxic waste U.S. 40.0 205.4 0.9 3.4Uruguay 2 Unspecified volume of industrial wastes MNC 5.8 5.6 2.0 1.7Venezuela 2 40,000 tons of sewage sludge/year MNC 89.6 144.5 5.9 6.5

Sources: UNDP, Human Development Report, 1998; The Greenpeace, Database on Hazardous Waste Trade Export Schemes from OECD to non-OECD Countries,1989-1994; The World Bank, World Development Report, 1999-2000. 1Note: All figures are expressed in relation to the North (Core) average, which is indexed toequal 100. LEXP = Life expectancy.

total external debt is among the world system variables witha significant correlation with environmental degradation.Table 3 confirms significant correlations of .510 and .554 (p< .01 respectively) between external debts and solid wastesand CO2 emissions. For the demographic and health mea-sures, infant mortality rates (r = .900, p < 01), crude deathrates (r = .896, p < .01), percent population change (r = .819,p < .01), and population size (r = .629, p < .01) are strong cor-relates of both solid wastes and carbon dioxide emissions asexpected. In column 3 of the table, the finding concerning therelationship between inequality and freedom is consistentwith the extant literature. Also consistent with the literatureare the relationships found between freedom (or liberty) andper capita GNP growth rate, per capita GDP, and average FDI.

The internal colonialism theoretical model can be betterunderstood using the qualitative case study approach.

However, cases presented will also support some of the con-tentions of ECP, RCP, and dependency/world system per-spectives. In the following section, specific cases of transna-tional environmental injustice, genocidal imperialism, stateoppression, and collective local responses to these forces arepresented.

Cases Of Environmental Injustice And Human RightsViolations

While there are numerous cases of transnational envi-ronmental injustice across the globe, three prominent casesare selected for the purpose of illustration in this study.Specifically, the cases of toxic waste dumping in Koko andoil-induced conflicts between the state, multinational corpo-rations, and indigenous Ogonis in Nigeria, and the plights ofresource-dependent tribes in Malaysia are discussed respec-tively. Cases were selected on the bases of availability ofmaterials on the extent of environmental injustice, humanrights violation, and conflicts involving indigenous groups,states, and MNCs over natural resources, environmentalexploitation, and hazardous waste dumping issues.

The Case of Koko, Nigeria. The case of a small town ofKoko, Nigeria, gained an international spotlight in 1988when it became exposed as a dumping ground for toxicwastes generated and exported by two Italian firms.Consistent with economic contingency perspective, this caseillustrates that poverty is often a critical factor enticing peo-ple into accepting hazardous wastes for cash. In 1987, thetwo Italian Multinational Corporations—Ecomar and JellyWax enticed a Nigerian businessman, Sunday Nana, intosigning an agreement to use his residential property locatedin Koko, Nigeria, for the storage of 18,000 drums of haz-ardous wastes disguised as building materials and alliedchemicals for about $100 a month (Greenpeace 1994).8 Thisoffer was too attractive to be rejected, especially in a countrywith a per capita Gross National Product of less than $300.

Upon media exposure of this case, Nigerian authoritieslater discovered that the illegal toxic wastes included a widerange of lethal substances including polychlorinatedbiphenyls (PCBs), dioxin, methyl melamine, dimethylformaldehyde, and asbestos fibers (Greenpeace 1993; Frey1994-95; Ihonvbere 1994-95). Over 100 employees of theNigerian Port Authority were assigned to remove the wastes,which have been deposited for several months prior to thediscovery, thus contaminating the soil, water, and air in thevicinity of the dump. Even though the government providedthe workers with protective devices, the wastes were moretoxic than many had suspected. The exposure suffered by theworkers, the residents of Koko including the host, led tosevere adverse health consequences including burns, nausea,paralysis, premature births and deaths including the death of

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Table 3. Correlations of solid wastes, CO2 emissions with selected measures of inequality, human rights, and socio-demographic variables in developing countriesVariables Solid Wastes in CO2 Emission

million metric tons per capita Freedom statusCorrelation coeff Correlation coeff Correlation coeff

Environmental Pollution Factors:Solid waste .— .902*** -.204**

CO2 emission per capita .902*** .— -.085

Local and Global Economic Factors:Per capita GDP -.158* -.155* .472***

Per capita GNP growth rate, 1980-90 .022 -.006 .301***

Economic aid per capita, 1990 .588*** .568*** -.157

Total external debts, 1990 .510*** .554*** .083

Ave. foreign direct investment, 1981-85 .144 .178* .258***

Social Inequality and Poverty Factors:Gini index .271*** .284*** .224**

Poverty, % people on less than $1/day .298*** .305*** .186**

Human Rights Measures:Human rights convention entered -.405*** -.387*** -.115

Political rights index, 1990 -.167* -.061 .972***

Freedom status, 1990 -.204** -.085 .—

Demographic and Health Measures:Population size, 1990 .629*** .664*** -.190**

% Population change,1990-1995 .819*** .805*** -.054

Crude death rate, 1990 .896*** .858*** -.091

Infant mortality rate, 1990 .900*** .864*** -.113

#Note: N = 124 nations, ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .10 significance (2-tailed).

Sunday Nana, the host. Other health hazards associated withthe dump include birth defects, brain damage, cancer, stuntedgrowth, and other pathological conditions.

Through international politics and diplomacy, thesewastes were removed and sent back to Italy. However, for theresidents of Koko, the damage has already been done. Inaddition to adverse health consequences, Koko became stig-matized as a toxic place to be avoided. The vernacular of ref-erence to this town included any combination of the terms:“toxic,” “hazardous,” “sick,” “poisonous,” “radioactive,”“dreadful,” “corrosive,” and “dangerous.” As noted byIhonvbere (1994-95, 211):

The public started avoiding Koko town. Commercialvehicles would not stop at the intersection leading to thetown, and private car owners would hold their breath andwind up their windows as they approach the town. Tradersstayed away from the community market and visitors to Kokowere avoided like plague. The only bank in the town closedits offices, and non-indigenes fled the town.

Thus, there were anxiety, feelings of destitution, isola-tion, anger, and rejection among the local residents. Theadverse social and psychological impacts of Ecomar andJelly Wax’s dumping on Koko still linger even years after theincidence. Although the role of Italian MNCs as the culpritseems glaring, the underlying problems, especially in Nigeriaat that time included government corruption, bribery, ineffi-ciency, and abuse of power by military and public officials atthe expense of the poor innocent people.

The role of the media was pivotal in galvanizing publicresponse to Koko’s contamination episode. Among theresponses, public rallies and protests were launched demand-ing immediate evacuation of the toxic wastes, free medicalscreening and treatment of the potential victims, while reject-ing any idea to evacuate or relocate the population of Koko.Several grassroots anti-toxic groups developed includingKoko Defense Group and People United to Save Koko amongothers organized to promote environmental justice in theregion. In this case, the community contamination episodereflects mostly environmental injustice (undue imposition oftoxic wastes and associated adverse health effects on inno-cent people). Other than jeopardizing the health and qualityof life of the residents, there were little evidence of flagrantviolation of other human rights articles unlike the other casesreviewed below.

The Case of Ogoni in Nigeria: MOSOP, Ecocide andPoliticides. Social change induced by political protest,demonstration, civil disobedience, and rebellion by commu-nal minority groups has attracted scholarly interest in recent years (Harff and Gurr 1989; Gurr 1993; Homer-Dixon1994; Lindstrom and Moore 1995). Pervasive conflicts char-

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acterize several resource-dependent communities. Lane andRickson (1997) suggest that an enduring dilemma in localitywhere development is dependent on resource extraction isthat powerless indigenous communities tend to suffer most ofthe social, economic, and environmental costs while enjoyinglittle or no benefits. The Niger Delta region in Nigeria hashistorically been the site of major conflicts between thenative population, multinational oil corporations, and theNigerian government military and police forces, often result-ing in serious human rights violations including killings andmassive environmental degradation. The Ogoni people repre-sent one of many diverse minority ethnic groups in the NigerDelta, marginalized by the dominant tribal groups of Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba as aforementioned. Located withinthe Delta, Ogoniland consists of about 404 square miles ofwetlands and mangrove forest naturally endowed with richcrude oil reserve and biodiversity. This area is home toindigenous Ogoni tribe with a population size estimated atabout 500,000 people who are mostly dependent upon sub-sistence farming and fishing.

The provisions of the Nigerian Constitution stipulatesthat: All minerals, mineral oils and natural gas in, under orupon any land in Nigeria or in under or upon the territorialwaters and the Exclusive Economic Zone of Nigeria shall vestin Government of the Federation. Therefore, the federal gov-ernment has the absolute claim over minerals or any preciousmetals discovered within its jurisdiction. The naturalresources in Ogoniland under the control of the government,contribute immensely to the overall economic viability ofNigeria. For instance, the first and largest oil field was devel-oped in Ogoniland and by 1972, there were six oil fieldsyielding a combined output of more than 200,000 barrels perday. Furthermore, Nigeria’s major fertilizer plant, two oilrefineries, a large petrochemical plant, and other oil servicingenterprises are located in Ogoni. However, most of the eco-nomic benefits from the oil extraction activities in Ogonilandare not shared by the Ogoni people and the perception of rel-ative deprivation has ignited frequent conflicts in the NigerDelta area. According to the Sierra Club’s press release andofficial correspondence from Stephen Mills, Sierra Club’sHuman Rights and Environmental Campaign Director, RoyalDutch Shell and other associated Multinational OilCorporations [MNOCs] (e.g., Agip Corp., Chevron Corp., Elf,and Mobil) have taken over 30 billion dollars from Ogonilandleaving behind ecological ruins, destitution, environmentallyinduced illnesses, and pre-mature deaths or shorter lifeexpectancy among the people. Despite the magnitude of oiland petrochemical withdrawal activities in the area, there is adeplorable underdevelopment as reflected in the absence ofbasic infrastructures such as good roads, electricity, pipe-borne water, hospitals, and schools (Welch 1995; HRW 1999).

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While the MNOCs and the military government arereaping the benefits of the oil and gas refinery activities, theentire ecological landscape of Ogoniland has been laid towaste by oil spills, hazardous waste dumping, decimation ofaquatic species, and emissions of noxious gases. Eventhough the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA)has the authority to enforce the Environmental ImpactAssessment (EIA) Act (Decree No. 86 of 1992), EIA or acomprehensive social Impact Assessment (SIA) has not beenconducted in Ogoni up-to-date. Consequently, there is littlepublicly available empirical data on the extent of environ-mental degradation and the impact of oil production on thearea. The only environmental survey conducted by theMNOCs and NGOs, for the region has been criticized for alack of validity and scientific rigor (Human Rights Watch1999). Nevertheless, the survey identified the major environ-mental and social problems associated with oil production inthe area as: land degradation, oil pollution, air pollution,noise and light pollution, degradation and depletion of waterand coastal resources, loss of biodiversity, health problemsamong the resident population, low agricultural production,socioeconomic problems, lack of regulations, and a lack ofcommunity participation (HRW 1999). Thus, this case raisesan important question as to what extent the rights to a safe,clean, healthy ecologically-balanced environment needed toensure subsistence, a life of dignity, and good health of theOgonis have been violated by the MNOCs and the state. Thefact that Ogoniland and its people suffer the “double jeop-ardy” of neocolonialism and internal/indigenous colonialismwas initially expressed by the late Ken Saro-Wiwa (1998,331-32) as:

I looked at Ogoni and found that the entire placewas now a wasteland; and that we are the victims ofan ecological war that is very serious and uncon-ventional. It is unconventional because no bonesare broken, no one is maimed. People are notalarmed because they can’t see what is happening.But human beings are at risk, plants and animals areat risk. The air and water are poisoned . . . Eventhough we come from the richest part of Nigeria —a place endowed with fertile land, with water andclean vegetation, oil and gas, I’m seeing soldiers,bandits, actually coming to take away these anddevelop their own home while pretending that theyare running Nigeria. Oil has brought nothing butdisaster to Ogoni people (added emphasis in italics).

These remarks were made prior to the subsequent violentconflicts, arrests, detention, bloodshed, genocide, and politi-cide that took place in Ogoniland.

The plight of the Ogoni people has been described as acase of genocide being perpetrated by both the MNOCs andmilitary government against local citizens in Nigeria at theclose of the twentieth century (Naanen 1995, 66). As aresponse to human and environmental rights abuse, continu-ous economic deprivation, social and political disenfran-chisement, the Movement for the Survival of the OgoniPeople was formed in 1990. According to Rahman (1991,73), a self-conscious people, who are poor and oppressed canprogressively change their environment by using their ownpraxis. The MOSOP was organized to promote the people’sconsciousness, empowerment through cultivation of knowl-edge, resource mobilization, and collective efforts to bringabout change in their disadvantaged position. The movementwas designed to use non-violent strategies similar to the CivilRights movement of the 1960s in the United States (Adeola2000a, 699).

By 1990, under the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa,MOSOP drafted the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) which seeksto secure a reasonable share of the oil revenues fromOgoniland, reduction in environmental degradation by oilproducing MNCs, and greater political autonomy to partici-pate in the affairs of the Republic as a distinct and separateentity (The Guardian 1995, 11).9 Acting both as the founder,Publicity Secretary, and President, Saro-Wiwa brought thehuman rights and environmental injustice concerns of theMOSOP into international prominence. Ogoni people’s casewas presented before the United Nations Commission onHuman Rights in Geneva in 1992, and in 1993, Ogonibecame a registered member of the Unrepresented Nationsand Peoples Organization (UNPO) based in Hague. TheInternational Federation for the Rights of Ethnic, Linguistic,Religious, and Other Minorities based in New York alsobecame interested in the Ogoni case. Many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), international humanrights organizations, and environmental activist groups weresympathetic and supportive of the MOSOP’s objectives.

As Obibi (1995, 11) reported in the Guardian, with thespirit of MOSOP in Ogoni, everyone appears emancipated,well informed, self-conscious, and deeply committed toachieving the aims of the OBR. Even the illiterates and semi-literates became aware of how oil wells are being depleted inthe area, how aquatic life has become extinct, how oilspillage is pushing the people to the brink of extinction, howthe nights have been turned into days through continuous gasflaring, and how Royal Dutch Shell Company, Chevron, andother MNOCs have degraded the environment. Ken Saro-Wiwa criticized the Nigerian military government for perpe-trating socioeconomic hardship, ecocide, social and environ-mental injustice. Internal colonialism involving the transfer

against the Amnesty International and UNPO for providingthe MOSOP leadership with a false sense of security. Morespecifically, Orage (1998, 48) charged that the AmnestyInternational declaration of Ken Saro-Wiwa as a prisoner ofconscience without a proper investigation of the nature of aseries of violent conflicts masterminded by the militantbranch of MOSOP was grossly irresponsible.

The problems of gross human rights violation and mas-sive pollution continue in the entire Niger Delta despite thedeath of General Sani Abacha, the military dictator, andrecent transition to democratic regime in Nigeria. Accordingto a recent report by Human Rights Watch (1999), militarycrackdown in Bayelsa and Delta states in December 1998 andJanuary 1999 led to the killings of more than 100 people, thetorture and inhuman treatment of several individuals, andarbitrary arrests and detention of many others. Meanwhile,MNOCs are continuing their non-sustainable, environmental-ly destructive oil production and gas flaring activities in theregion with the support of security forces. Thus for theMOSOP, a luta continua (i.e., the struggle continues) in theDelta region.

Deforestation and Assault on Indigenous People inMalaysia. Among the indigenous population of Malaysia,the Penan tribe of Borneo rainforest confronts radical socialand cultural changes imposed by the government and multi-national corporations. As a hunter-gatherer society, the Penanpeople are completely dependent on the rainforest for theirhabitat, food, shelter, medicine, customs and culture.However, with the encroachment of logging industry generat-ing over 2 billion dollars in foreign exchange, communalforests traditionally belonging to the Penan and other indige-nous groups are being usurped and exploited by the state andmultinational business interests. The environmentalists andindigenous rights activists have warned that the last remainsof the ancient Borneo rainforest are being decimated threetimes faster than the Amazon rainforest. Evidence suggeststhat the communal forests of indigenous tribes have beenreduced from approximately 30,300 hectares in 1968 to lessthan 5,000 hectares (HRW and NRDC, 1992). This repre-sents a tragedy for the future generations of the Penan tribe.The process of forest and land usurpation generally involvesthe use of “common law” to override the “Native CustomaryLaw” of indigenous people.

Similar to the case of Ogonis, the resource-dependentindigenous people of Malaysia — the Penan and Sarawakhave had a series of conflicts with the state and federalauthorities as well as with multinational corporations over theissue of logging and decimation of their habitats. The prob-lems of business and government encroachment on tribal

of oil resources from the Niger Delta to feed areas of thecountry most favored by the government was found unjustand unacceptable. According to Saro-Wiwa (1991, 2102):

The current structure of Nigeria spells the death-knell of the Ogoni and other delta minorities andtheir environment. Solving none of our traditionalproblems, it merely intensifies the murderous strug-gle for power at the center by the dominant ethnicgroups and is an invitation to chaos. What werequire is a loose federation or a confederation ofegalitarian ethnic interdependence. The federatingethnic groups should hold a National Conferencenow to resolve the basis of their union and install aninterim government in which the military will haveno role.

A challenge to the legitimacy of military government by theMOSOPís prominent leadership was taken seriously by thegovernment which quickly responded by promulgating aTreason and Treasonable Offenses Decree of 1993. Thisdecree criminalizes any protests or demonstrations demand-ing a separation or autonomy by any ethnic or tribal groupsas a capital offense against the nation. Specifically, it pro-vides that any person who utters any word, displays anythingor publishes material which is capable of breaking up Nigeriaor part thereof; causing violence or a community or sectionthereof to engage in violence against that community oragainst another community, is guilty of treason and liable onconviction to be sentenced to death. This decree sets thestage for the subsequent arrest and hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists. The decree legitimizesthe use of absolute violence as the means of controllingminority group’s rebellion.

Other major events occurred on January 4, 1993, whenMOSOP staged a large scale protest attended by approxi-mately 300,000 participants demonstrating against RoyalDutch oil MNC and Nigerian military government. The sub-sequent event involving a riot of May, 1994, in which fourprominent Ogoni leaders were massacred has the denoue-ment of a series of violent confrontations leading to thearrest, incarceration, and public execution by hanging ofprominent members of MOSOP including Ken Saro-Wiwa onNovember, 10, 1995. However, the trial of civilians by a spe-cial military tribunal and the execution raised serious con-cerns among the international community about human rightsviolation, especially pertaining to the right to a fair and justtrial, freedom from torture, genocide, and inhumane treat-ment as provided for under the UN declaration. Nevertheless,some criticisms have been leveled against the internationalcommunity for a lack of adequate response to the crisis and

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Basel Convention, the unilateral legislative responses in theU.S., and other regional agreements discussed in this paper.10

Thus, evidence supports the transnational environmentalinjustice hypothesis concerning the unidirectional pattern oftoxic waste flow from the OECD to non-OECD countries. Asmentioned earlier, environmental justice activists have lev-eled the charges of “environmental racism,” “garbage imperi-alism,” and “toxic terrorism” against MNCs and governmentagencies with disregard to the environment, human health,and human rights (Uva and Bloom 1989; Bullard 1990; Hilz1992; Frey 1994-95; Adeola 1996; Glazer and Glazer 1998).

Implicitly, any deprivation of individuals or groups ofthe rights to clean air, water, land and healthy environmentinvolves a serious human rights violation incompatible witharticles 3, 17, and 25 of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration.Clearly, the protection of human rights is a necessary pre-condition to achieving global environmental justice and eco-logical protection. According to Amnesty International(1995), human rights violations have increased substantiallyover the past decade in almost every category it monitors.Similarly, environmental degradation has increased to anunprecedented level in human history. In several parts of theworld, minorities suffer various types of discrimination,injustice, environmental and human rights abuses. Theindigenous minorities such as the Ogoni people, the Penanpeople of Borneo, Malaysia, the Irian Jaya people ofIndonesia, Native Americans, and many other communalgroups around the world continue to bear disproportionateburdens of ecological withdrawals, pollution, and contamina-tion of their environment, natural resources, and modes ofsubsistence. The economic contingency, rational choice,dependency/world system, internal colonialism, and environ-mental injustice/human rights theoretical frameworks havebeen used in this article to analyze the plights of minorities,toxic waste flow, and natural resource exploitation.Undoubtedly, the MNCs, other international business ven-tures, authoritarian governments, and corrupt local leaderswho benefit from ecologically disruptive activities representthe critical elements promoting environmental injustice, eco-logical imperialism, and human rights transgression both inthe core and non-core societies.

Even though grassroots environmental and civil rightsactivism are not found wanting in remote areas of the ThirdWorld, the efficacy of grassroots social movements under arepressive authoritarian regime is extremely low as demon-strated by the cases presented in this study (also see Alario1992 for the cases of Brazil and Chile). In response to thefirst two major questions posed at the outset, it has beenshown that a disproportionate exposure of powerless groupsto environmental hazards and deprivation of such groups tonatural bases of livelihood constitute a serious violation of

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lands and excessive logging and deforestation have attractedthe attention of the HRW and NRDC (1992, 45) who identi-fied the adverse impacts of these activities as:

The voracious timber export industry has already causedland erosion, water contamination, the extinction of wildlifeand plant species and the annihilation of indigenous cultures.Consistent with the internal colonialism model, the state andfederal government benefit economically from logging at theexpense of peripheral indigenous people whose habitats andways of life are being destroyed.

Much like the opposition of the Ogonis in Rivers State,Nigeria and rubber tappers in Brazilian Amazon rainforest,the indigenous tribes of Malaysia have engaged in non-vio-lent (peaceful) protests involving human blockades obstruct-ing logging roads. Approximately 500 indigenous peoplehave been arrested, detained, and subjected to all kinds ofhuman rights abuse including starvation, torture, police bru-tality, intimidation, harassment, and killings. Other types ofhuman rights violations such as censorship and false accusa-tion of environmental activists have been reported (HRW andNRDC 1992; Amnesty International 1995). Once again,human rights transgression and environmental injustice areclosely interrelated.

Conclusions

A growing number of environmentalists, civil rightsactivists, and environmental organizations are vehementlyemphasizing the need for codification of the rights to a safeand sound environment at all levels (Nickel 1993; Gormley1976; Thorme 1991; Boyle and Anderson 1998; Dias 1999).The rights to a safe and healthy environment have been rec-ognized in the United States and other advanced industrialstates due largely to the proliferation of grassroots activism(e.g., NIMBY [Not in My Backyard], anti-toxic waste move-ment, environmental justice movement, etc.), vigorous envi-ronmental information campaigns, growing public aware-ness, efforts of various environmental organizations, mediaexposure of environmental disasters, and strong legislativeand political responses. The rising cost of hazardous wastedisposal and increased sensitivity to LULUs and other toxicwaste Storage, Treatment, and Disposal Facilities (STDFs)have encouraged MNCs to venture into the interiors of ThirdWorld countries where they can avoid visibility, stringentregulations, liability, and environmental pollution account-ability. Historically, MNCs have been attracted to the ThirdWorld by the availability of cheap raw materials and laborand lack of regulations.

Available empirical evidence suggests that the pattern ofNorth-to-South or “most resistance” to “least resistance”flow of hazardous wastes remains unabated, despite the

basic human rights. Extermination and repression of thesegroups by the security forces are even more compellingaspects of human rights abuse. It has been shown in this studythat environmental justice principles are couched in theHuman Rights Declaration and its Conventions (also seeBoyle and Anderson 1998). The poor nations and impover-ished communities are essentially the havens for dirty andhazardous wastes industry as argued by the dependency/world system perspective. Positive and significant correla-tions between poverty, inequality, and wastes and CO2 emis-sion per capita have been shown in this study to support theassertion of the ECP. Evidence of environmental injusticeacross nations is mounting and the health effects of exposureto environmental hazards are critical, especially in light ofstrong correlations shown between infant mortality rates,crude death rates and solid wastes or CO2 emissions per capi-ta in the correlation analysis (see Table 3). Substantial evi-dence exists to buttress the contention that environmentalinjustice exists in many faces at the local and cross-nationallevels (USGAO 1983). For the other question, it is reasonableto conclude that global inequality of power and wealth, insti-tutionalized discrimination at various levels, racism, neocolo-nialism and internal colonialism, unethical international busi-ness practices, authoritarian government, and corrupt localleaders are the bases of global environmental injustice andhuman rights transgression. Both the empirical analysis andcase studies reviewed support this conclusion. MNCs’ activi-ties are inseparable from several cases of environmentalinjustice and human rights repression including genocide inthe Third World.

Unfortunately, most of the practices involving environ-mental and human rights violations are not consideredperemptory norms (jus cogens), i.e., norms universallyaccepted, recognized and enforced by the international com-munity. As indicated by Magnarella (1995, 169), the list ofuniversally recognized human rights under the principle ofjus cogens or universal jurisdiction is rather narrow includinggenocide, torture, slavery, apartheid, hijacking, attacks oninternationally protected persons, war crimes and crimesagainst humanity. The nature of environmental injustice andassociated human rights abuse carried out in remote regionsof society, make the true account of such events to the inter-national community quite problematic. The lack of reliabledata on the volumes and characteristics of wastes traffickingacross nations has limited systematic statistical analysis up-to-date (Greenpeace 1994; USGAO 1993).

In order to ameliorate environmental injustice, ecocide(unlawful killings of species), politicide (unlawful killing ofpolitical opposition), and violations of basic human rights tosafe and sound environment, the cooperation of the NGOs,international human rights and environmental groups, MNCs,

the United Nations, the World Bank, national and local gov-ernments is sine-qua-non. Furthermore, there is a need todevelop a systematic close monitoring of environmental andhuman rights records of MNCs operating in non-core nationsand companies with dismal environmental and human rightsrecords should be sanctioned through higher environmentaltax, fines or prohibition. Economic sanctions involving heavytaxes and fines on MNCs with dismal environmental recordsand tax credits or environmental subsidies for companieswith environmentally sustainable practices are particularlyattractive policy options to combat cross-national environ-mental degradation and toxic wastes dumping. There is aneed to develop a mechanism to enforce the EIA and SIA ofthe activities of multinational oil companies operating in theinteriors of Third World countries. The “polluter pays” prin-ciple needs to be extended worldwide and there is a criticalneed for the establishment of a “Global Superfund” under theumbrella of the U.N.

To achieve global environmental justice, the same envi-ronmental standards applicable in core industrialized coun-tries should be extended to other nations without bias. Infact, similar stringent environmental standards required ofMNCs within the core nations should also apply to their oper-ations in non-core nations. The issues of equitable distribu-tion of resources, power, and opportunities among the coreand periphery, as well as socio-political integration areimportant challenges to be confronted at both the domesticand world system levels if environmental justice is to beachieved. Most importantly, adequate reparation should bemade available to the victims of toxic waste dumping, defor-estation, and environmental contamination due to extractive,exploitative activities of MNCs and the state. Althoughwhether the goals of environmental justice and respect forhuman rights to safe and sound environment are achievablecross-nationally remains an important question yet to beresolved, therefore, future research is strongly encouragedalong this line of enquiry. Clearly, a better understanding ofthe dynamics of global environmental injustice and humanrights problems remains a challenge to future research.

Endnotes

1. Francis O. Adeola is an Associate Professor of Sociology and theDirector of the Environmental Social Science Research Institute atthe University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana. A versionof this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-SouthSociological Association, Jackson, Mississippi (November 3-6,1999). Please address correspondence to: Francis O. Adeola,Department of Sociology, University of New Orleans, New Orleans,LA 70148, USA; E-mail: [email protected].

2. Any argument concerning the link between human rights violationand environmental injustice is tantamount to a “chicken or egg”

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debate. The two concepts are extremely intertwined and as such,environmental injustice represents a subset of human rights violation.Thus, when used as separate concepts, a strong positive correlationshould be expected between the two concepts.

3. Articles 3, 17, and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsare particularly germane to global environmental justice. In Article 3,everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security; Article 17 stipu-lates that everyone has the right to own property and no one shall bearbitrarily deprived of his/her property; and in Article 25, everyonehas the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of him/herself and his/her family, including food, clothing,housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the rightto security (see Wronka 1998, 15-20). A draft of the U.N. Declarationon Human Rights and the Environment stipulates that: (i) All personshave the right to a secure, healthy, and ecologically sound environ-ment; (ii) All persons are entitled to be free from discriminationregarding actions and decisions that affect the environment; (iii) Allpersons have the right to an environment adequate to meet equitablythe needs of present generations without impairing the similar rightof future generations; (iv) All persons have the right to freedom frompollution and environmental degradation that threaten life, health,livelihood, and well-being within, across, or outside national bound-aries; (v) All persons have the right to information concerning theenvironment; and (vi) All persons have the right to participate inplanning and decision making activities that impact the environment(Dias 1999, 400-401).

4. The classical dependency theory asserts that the development of thecore nations took place at the expense of non-core peripheral nationsthrough the appropriation of natural resources, exploitation of labor,and unequal exchange in the world system (see Amin 1990; Frank1967; Dos Santos 1970). However, Cardoso and Faletto (1979) andother dependency theorists emphasize a condition of dependentdevelopment whereby some developing countries may benefit as aresult of their ties to MNCs and other core interests. Recent cases ofdebt peonage, dwindling foreign aids, inappropriate technologytransfers, and the growing economic gaps between the core andperiphery nations seriously undermine this latter perspective (seeChase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Chase-Dunn 1998).

5. The 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is a“cradle to grave” regulation of all aspects of hazardous wastes. It pro-vides standards for the treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardouswastes. The EPA is authorized to seek civil and criminal penalties ofsubstantial magnitude for any RCRA violation. The 1980Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, andLiability Act (CERCLA), further provides the EPA legal mechanismsto assign financial responsibility for hazardous waste cleanups toresponsible parties in the U.S. (Plater et al. 1992, 251-54).

6. In March 1989, representatives of 117 nations convened in Basel,Switzerland to work out a treaty on the export of toxic waste. Thesubstance of the Basel Convention is that waste exporters must noti-fy and receive permissions from waste importers prior to any ship-ment. The treaty also calls for signing nations to accurately label allinternational waste shipments, to prohibit waste shipments to nationsthat have banned them, and to try to reduce such exports to a mini-mum. Among several loopholes, this treaty does not address wasteexports intended for recycling (see Moyers 1990, 13). Hence, thou-

sands of tons of toxic waste are disguised as recyclable waste acrossseveral international borders. In subsequent amendments, a total banon hazardous waste trade has been agreed upon by OECD memberstates (with the exception of the United States, Australia, Canada, andNew Zealand).

7. At the First People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit con-vened in Washington, D.C., 17 guiding principles for merging civilrights and environmental activism were adopted. Prominent amongthese are: (1) Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of MotherEarth, ecological unity, and the interdependence of all species, andthe right to be free from ecological destruction; (2) Environmentaljustice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing and theextraction, production and disposal of toxic/hazardous wastes andpoisons that threaten the fundamental rights to clean air, land, water,and food; (3) Environmental justice considers governmental acts ofenvironmental injustice a violation of international law, the UniversalDeclaration on Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention onGenocide; (4) Environmental justice opposes the destructive opera-tions of MNCs; and (5) Environmental justice opposes military occu-pation, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures andother life forms. For all the Principles, see United Church of ChristCommission for Racial Justice, collection of papers presented at theNational People of Color Environmental Summit, Washington, D.C.,(October 24-27), 1991.

8. List of countries is in Appendix. Countries are included based on theclassification of developing countries by UNDP and the World Bank.

9. See the Trade Environment Database (TED) at: http://www.ameri-can.edu/projects/mandala/TED/NIGERIA.HTML

10. As indicated by Orage (1998, 45-6), the objective of MOSOP as amass movement was to serve as a vehicle to achieve the aims andobjectives of the OBR which includes, but not limited to: (1) Politicalcontrol of Ogoni affairs by Ogoni people; (2) Control and use of afair proportion of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development;and (3) Protection of Ogoni environment and ecology from furtherdegradation.

11. See the U.S.G.A.O, 1993. Hazardous Waste Exports: Data Qualityand Collection Problems Weaken EPA Enforcement Activities.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sherry Cable, three anonymous reviewers, andthe editor of the journal for helpful comments and suggestions on an earli-er draft of this article. However, the views, interpretations, conclusions,ambiguity, credits or limitations in the text belong to the author.

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Appendix 1. List of countries in the correlation analysis

1. Afghanistan 2. Algeria 3. Angola 4. Antigua/Barbuda5. Argentina 6. Bahamas 7. Bahrain 8. Bangladesh9. Barbados 10. Belize 11. Benin 12. Bhutan

13. Bolivia 14. Botswana 15. Brazil 16. Brunnei Darussalem17. Burkina Faso 18. Burundi 19. Cambodia 20. Cameroon21. Cape Verde 22. Central Africa Rep 23. Chad 24. Chile25. China 26. Colombia 27. Comoros 28. Congo29. Costa Rica 30. Cote d’Ivoire 31. Cuba 32. Dem. Rep. of Korea33. Djibuti 34. Dominica 35. Dominican Rep. 36. Ecuador37. Egypt 38. El Savador 39. Eq. Guinea 40. Ethiopia41. Fiji 42. Gabon 43. Gambia 44. Ghana45. Greneda 46. Guatemala 47. Guinea 48. Guinea Bissau49. Guyana 50. Haiti 51. Honduras 52. Hong Kong53. India 54. Indonesia 55. Iraq 56. Iran57. Israel 58. Jamaica 59. Jordan 60. Kenya61. Kuwait 62. Lao People’s Rep. 63. Lebanon 64. Lesotho65. Liberia 66. Libya 67. Madagascar 68. Malawi69. Malaysia 70. Maldives 71. Mali 72. Mauritania73. Mauritius 74. Mexico 75. Mongolia 76. Morocco77. Mozambique 78. Myanmar 79. Namibia 80. Nepal81. Nicaragua 82. Niger 83. Nigeria 84. Oman85. Pakistan 86. Panama 87. Papua New Guinea 88. Paraguay89. Peru 90. Philippines 91. Qatar 92. Rep. of Korea93. Rwanda 94. Saint Lucia 95. Samoa 96. Sao Tome Principe97. Saudi Arabia 98. Senegal 99. Seychelles 100. Sierra Leone

101. Singapore 102. Solomon Islands 103. Somalia 104. South Africa105. Sri Lanka 106. Sudan 107. Suriname 108. Swaziland109. Syrian Arab Rep. 110. Thailand 111. Togo 112. Trinidad Tobago113. Tunisia 114. Turkey 115. UAE 116. Tanzania117. Uganda 118. Uruguay 119. Vanuatu 120. Venezuela121. Viet Nam 122. Zaire 123. Zambia 124. Zimbabwe

Human Ecology Forum

60 Human Ecology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2001© Society for Human Ecology

Abstract

The role of food has changed from a local product thatconnects people with each other, and with nature, to simplybeing a global commodity. The potential consequencesinclude difficulties in identifying our food, and perceiving ourown identity. We are now distant from our food sources andincreasingly distant from each other. This distance can bespatial, temporal, and psychological. One result is that manycitizens place low priority on agriculture and food systems,lack insight and concern about resources and the naturalenvironment, and have a short-term focus on immediate com-forts at the expense of long-term sustainability. To search foralternatives, a visioning workshop brought together peoplewith different roles in the food system, and we identified con-cerns with the current situation and created a shared visionfor future interconnections in the food system in HedmarkCounty, Norway.

Keywords: visionary thinking, regional food systems,sustainable food systems, ecological agriculture, organicfarming

Introduction

Hedmark County is on the east side of Lake Mjøsa insoutheast Norway, a region with flat to rolling topographywhere agriculture has been important for many centuries. Thesoil is among the best in the country, and most agriculturaland horticultural crops that can be grown in Norway arefound here. Low, forested ridges crown the agricultural areas.Grain production as part of integrated crop and animal hus-

bandry was of great importance in Hedmark up to about1880, when increasing amounts of grain were imported fromthe USA and the areas around the Black Sea. In 1851-55,110,000 tons were imported yearly, and the annual importhad increased to 410,000 tons in the period 1911-15.Improved transport conditions, including the development ofthe railroad, increased the local grain crisis. The weakenedeconomy of grain production forced the farmers in Hedmarkto increase their production of milk and meat during the lastpart of the 19th century (Søberg 1982).

Animal husbandry has been greatly reduced in Hedmarksince the early 1960s. The change was due to a governmentalpolicy, linked to economic incentives to increase grain pro-duction in the best agricultural areas and to increase animalhusbandry in the valley and mountain farms of Norway. As aresult, the southern part of the Hedmark region is now domi-nated by monoculture grain cropping, and animal husbandryis almost non-existent.

Agricultural production has become industrialized andspecialized in the region. The recent changes are illustratedby animal numbers and crop hectares in Hedmark Countyfrom 1929 to present (Table 1). Most livestock numbersdeclined, especially during the change in government policyand incentives just prior to 1969. The only category thatincreased was swine production, a sector not affected by gov-ernment programs. Grassland, pasture, and root crops alsodeclined, while cereal area increased dramatically. In thesouth part of the Hedmark region, over 64% of the totalacreage was used for grain cropping in 1979.

Before the industrial revolution near the end of the 18thcentury, most farmers did not depend on a market to bringtheir products to the consumer. Historically, food acquisition

Future Interconnections Among Ecological Farmers,Processors, Marketers, and Consumers in Hedmark County, Norway: Creating Shared Vision

Geir LiebleinDepartment of Horticulture and Crop SciencesEcological Agriculture Program, Agricultural University of Norway, NORWAY1

Charles A. FrancisDepartment of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0910, USA2

Hanne TorjusenThe National Institute for Consumer Research, P.O. Box 173, N-1325 Lysaker, NORWAY3

Lieblein, Francis and Torjusen


required a continuous interaction between people and theenvironment, and food represented a tight connectionbetween people and nature. Food also enabled communica-tion among people in the local community, since most trans-actions happened there. Food consumed in a communitydepended largely on what was produced in diversified, localagroecosystems (Harris 1969). As a result, the diets weredetermined by season, by location, and by tradition. Throughindustrialization and specialization of agriculture in eachregion, the situation changed. Less of what was produced wassold on the farm or close to the farm. Local, and then region-al, traders became important actors. In Norway, farmersestablished cooperatives, first in the dairy sector and later forsupplies of machinery and feed, as well as sale of meat,grains, and other products.

Looking at the food system in the Hedmark region in the1950s, we find a relatively diversified agriculture with inte-grated animal and crop production. The food system wascharacterized by many small and medium sized actors. Thefarmers’ co-ops had not yet been centralized, and they weresupplemented by many small, private companies. Severallocal butchers were active in addition to farm-based slaughter(until 1995), every community had its own dairy, and the co-ops for potatoes and vegetables were supplemented by localintermediaries who transported the produce to the markets inOslo (130 km travel distance). Food distribution to con-sumers largely took place through a large number of private-ly owned food-stores, and it was customary for many to buytheir winter supply of potatoes and vegetables directly fromthe farm.

In the late fifties and early sixties the Norwegian gov-ernment launched an agricultural policy that essentiallyenforced a regional specialization of farm production. Grainproduction was increased, through economic incentives, inthe best agricultural areas, including Hedmark. One conse-quence was that the number of farm animals was greatlyreduced on most farms through conversion to solely plantproduction. Animal production was moved to the valley andmountain farms of Norway. Today, those regions specializedin milk production import an average of 40% of their feedconcentrate needs from other areas such as Hedmark thathave specialized in grains.

As a result the Hedmark region is now dominated bymonoculture grain cropping, and cattle husbandry is almostnon-present. Agricultural production has been industrializedand specialized in the region. A parallel process has takenplace in the processing and distribution activities. The manybutchers and dairies are now reduced to a few, large units. In1950, there were 11 slaughterhouses in the county, and in theyear 2000 only two. In 1950, there were 18 dairies in thecounty, as compared to seven in the year 2000. The largeunits have systematically replaced local food assortment withnational brands. On the distribution side, four large super-market chains control 95% of the market in Norway (Borchand Straete 1999). One consequence is an increased distancebetween farmer and consumer.

Parallel to what is found in Hedmark county today, thefood system in many industrialized countries is characterizedby different types and degrees of distance. Spatial distancefrom soil to table results in an increasing proportion ofresources needed to process and move agricultural products.Regions with great spatial distances in their food systemsalso tend to have a large ecological footprint, defined as the“ecological load” imposed by a given population on nature(Wackernagel and Rees 1996). Temporal distance, due topreservation and storage of foods, contributes to increasedspatial and dependency distance between farmers and con-sumers. This may result in changes concerning our knowl-edge about and trust in what we are eating. As consumers,we have become increasingly dependent on intermediary sys-tems. Our confidence is to a lesser extent attributed directlyto the farmer or the butcher or the baker because in mostcases, we don’t know them. Instead, we trust abstract sys-tems to provide us with relevant knowledge and good qualityfoods (Giddens 1990). A broad consequence of theseincreasing distances might be a psychological detachmentfrom our sources of food, creating a distance of mind.

As people become more distant from their food supply— in time, space, and understanding — other changes in per-ceptions of food may emerge. We now have vast amounts ofinformation about the components and nutritional value of

Table 1. Animal inventories and crop areas in Hedmark County,1929-1999.

Animal Husbandry (numbers of animals in 1000s)1929 1939 1969 1979 1989 1999

Horses 16 17 3

All cattle 103 131 64 57 55 58

Milk cows 63 78 29 24 20 18

Sheep 66 76 98 11

Goats 15 9 6 2

Pigs 35 46 64 61 123 160

Plant production (hectares)1949 1959 1979 1989 1999

Grassland, harvested 50700 37600 25100 28200 29400

Pasture 16200 12400 5100 4500 4000

Green fodder 2900 2000 3300 4000

Root crops 1800 1400 300

Cereal grains 22500 36600 59000 61400 60000

Potatoes 7200 6800 3500 4600 4900

food, including the recent explosion of nutritional informa-tion on the Internet. However, this information is scattered,and lacks context and linkages to individual experiences.Many choices based on vast amounts of scattered informationare part of life in modern society according to Beck (1992)and Giddens (1991). According to these sociologists, takingexpert knowledge into account and conducting risk analysesare part of living in a modern society. As consumers, we areexpected to process a lot of information. There is no longerany given authority among experts — we have to choosewhich experts to believe in. Making informed choices is amajor challenge, and the consumer as “chooser” is one aspectof contemporary consumerism (Gabriel and Lang 1995).Issues of trust become essential, and the conception of “safefood” can be seen as a social construction (Busch 1997).According to Fischler (1980), we have developed a modernfood that lacks origin or history, that is without identity.Food “comes from a global everywhere, yet from nowherethat people know in particular” (Kloppenburg, Hendricksonand Stevenson 1996). Trade and the delocalization of foodhave generally had positive effects on food availability inindustrialized countries while having negative consequencesin developing countries (Pelto and Pelto 1985). In today’sfood system, there is little concern about the nature and mag-nitude of the fossil fuel subsidies (that will eventually dryout) needed to increase levels of food availability and con-sumption (Douglas 1984). Questioning of the industrializedand profit-targeted food system and issues of re-linking foodand ecology were brought forth in the seventies (Lappé 1971;Lappé and Collins 1977; Gussow 1978). But today, there isstill generally little information or incentive to keep a broadsustainability focus related to food (Torjusen and Vittersø1998). Norwegian consumers experience lack of informationabout environmental and ethical implications of the produc-tion and distribution of the food they are buying, and manyconsider themselves as uninformed about environmentallysound food choices (Torjusen, Nyberg and Wandel 1999). Assuch, many authors are questioning the ecological and social sustainability of the globally based food system(Kloppenburg and Lezberg 1996; Dahlberg 1993; Stevenson1998).

However, not all consumers care about where their foodcomes from or how it is produced. In a survey in Hedmark(based on the findings of the visioning seminar) 42% of therespondents were not interested in the source of their food,whereas 45% stated that they were interested in knowingabout food sources (Torjusen, Nyberg and Wandel 1999).

The known negative social and environmental problemsof industrialized agriculture have stimulated the developmentof alternatives. During the 1970s and the 1980s, much atten-tion was given to environmental problems resulting from

these farming systems. Loud calls were made to reduce fos-sil fuel-based technologies, reintegrate components of theproduction system, and produce safer and healthier food inethically defensible and environmentally sound ways.Ecological (or organic) agriculture developed as an importantcomponent of the counter force of the industrializationprocess (Østergaard and Lieblein 1994). In Hedmark, as inthe rest of Norway, the number of organic farms hasincreased sharply during the 1990s. In contrast, little haschanged in the rest of the food system in Hedmark during thepast several years. A few health food stores and farm outletshave been established, but this development has been slow.

Within this context, we planned a seminar to bringtogether people representing the key sectors involved in thefood system — ecological farmers, processors, retailers, andconsumers — to look at current challenges and futureoptions. The main questions asked were: (1) What charac-terizes a desired food system in the future? (2) How do weimprove the human relations in the food system? (3) Howcan we reduce the distances between components of the foodsystem? In addition we were interested in reflecting on theprocess to be used in the seminar through the following ques-tions: (1) What is the potential of visionary thinking for deal-ing with complex issues? (2) Can visionary thinking help usdiscover new possibilities?

A visioning seminar was organized in Hedmark toexplore these questions, and a subsequent evaluationexplored the impacts and consequences of the event.

Preparations for the Vision Seminar

Agricultural and nutritional scientists, farmers, agricul-tural advisors, local government representatives, and con-sumers — eight people in all — met in December 1995 for atwo-day vision seminar on an ecological farm in Stange inthe southeast part of Norway. Selection of participants wasmade to represent (1) different sectors of the food system, (2)local authorities in the region, and (3) practice and research,as well as food production and consumption. Each partici-pant was expected to come with an open mind and an interestin ecological agriculture and food system alternatives.

Selection of seminar participants was also based on ourexperience that it is necessary to bring together people fromdifferent backgrounds when the agenda contains complexissues. We considered keeping the number of people rela-tively low essential to foster close communication and a highdegree of openness and confidence in the seminar. This isespecially important when participants do not know eachother beforehand. The eight participants in the seminarincluded three ecological farmers, one of whom was also aretailer of ecologically produced food; two representatives of



local government, one of whom was the agricultural officerof the region; two nutritional scientists from the University ofOslo; and one agricultural scientist from the AgriculturalUniversity of Norway. The agricultural scientist planned theseminar in cooperation with a facilitator, experienced andskilled in visions thinking. Two days’ planning of the designof the seminar resulted in the program schedule shown inTable 2.

In preparation for the seminar, the eight participantswere sent a letter of invitation several weeks prior to themeeting, informing them that the explicit goal of the seminarwas to develop a vision of a food system for the year 2005.They were alerted to the program that included visionarythinking, practice in imagery, clarification of the problem,creating shared visions, and moving from visions to actionplanning (Donaldson 1994; Parker 1990). The participantswere also encouraged to reflect on the process and give feed-back. Figure 1 shows the problem situation and specific chal-lenges that were established as a point of departure for theseminar.

Our experiences were that traditional workshops withlong presentations do not give room for the necessary cre-ativity needed for this challenge. We were interested in

exploring whether visions thinking could help us break out ofold thought patterns and discover new possibilities.

In accordance with Parker (1990) we saw visions as“powerful mental images of what we want to create in thefuture. They reflect what we care about the most, and are har-monious with our values and sense of purpose. Visions are theproduct of the head and the heart working together.” Accordingto Senge (1990), a shared vision is, at its simplest level, theanswer to the question, “What do we want to create?”

The concept in this seminar was to envision how to movefrom the current situation to a future wanted situation, and todetermine the actions needed to make that change. Throughinterviews three years later, we evaluated its effects on thepeople who were involved, and summarized a series ofactions that were taken as a result of the seminar activities.

Process and Outcomes of the Visioning Seminar

The preparations, introduction, and initial activities werekey elements in the process of the vision seminar. Even whenprepared ahead, the participants clearly experienced frustra-tion when going beyond the familiarity of prior experienceswith structured programs and linear discussion of topics toengage in visionary thinking in an open-ended planning envi-ronment where they had to take charge of setting the ongoingand flexible seminar agenda and decide on further activities.Starting with a familiar topic, the current state of the foodsystem, eased the frustration somewhat.



Table 2. Seminar schedule for visioning seminar, Stange, Norway,December 1995.

Time Activity

Opening First day Get to know each other1100 - 1230 Prerequisites to succeed - Introduction by facilitator

1230 - 1330 Lunch

1330 - 1530 Introduction to visions thinking - By facilitator• Why visions• What do we mean with visions?• What can stop us from visionary thinking?• Guided imagery

1530 - 1550 Break

1550 - 1750 Clarifying the problem formulation• Focus for a vision• Develop a shared picture of the present situation

1830 Dinner

Evening Continued dialogue to find focus for vision

Second day Vision 2005

0900 - 1200 • Move to the year 2005 and spend the time to open up for new possibilities

1200 - 1300 Lunch

1300 - 1500 Making the different parts of the vision more concrete

1500 - 1530 From vision to action - what will the next steps be

1530 - 1600 Reflecting on the seminar• What are the potentials of the methods and the ways of

working that were used in the seminar?

Figure 1. Relational diagram with current disconnects and distancesbetween different players in the food system.

Mapping the Current SituationTo ensure a sound foundation and establish the current

reality before visioning the future, we started as one groupmapping the present situation of the food system in theHedmark region, especially in relation to ecological foodproduction (Figure 2). Although the group’s interest focusedon ecological production and foods, most topics in the figureare common to all food systems.

Based on this overview of the present situation, weexplored the most desired focus for the visioning process: Isdistance in time, distance in space, distance in mind or per-spective, or some combination of these factors the best start-ing point for visioning about future food systems? It was achallenge for the group to further refine the visioningprocess, and to sort out which were goals and which weremeans. A trained facilitator was useful to help maintainfocus. The process revealed a complex and multi-facetedfood system, even on the local level, with many actors andvaried activities.

Describing the Ideal ConsumerTo begin to clarify the goals, we developed a ‘mini-

vision’ on the first day using key elements in visioning: iden-tification and personifying. First we asked, what will thefuture ideal consumer look like? We identified ourselveswith a 42-year old mother of small children, and focused onher role in today’s food system. In two sub-groups, weexplored her relationship to food and agriculture. She is like-

ly to be unsure about the relationship between food andhealth, with a belief that food should be cheap. She experi-ences time as limited, has little knowledge concerning originand production methods of the food she buys, and is exposedto many conflicting messages about food value, nutrition, andhealth. The two groups further envisioned an ideal consumerin the year 2005. Results illustrate the diversity and richnessof our discussions (Figures 3a and 3b) and describe an idealconsumer in a situation where many of the current problemsin our food system have been overcome.

Distance in Space — Describing an Improved FutureSituation

To further capture our vision, we went on to explorephysical distances in the food system, discussing the conse-quences of a food system built around the concept and goalof close proximity. From the discussion on spatial relation-ships between producers and others in the system, we foundthat current settlement patterns with increasing concentrationof people in cities formed obstacles for creating closeness tothe farm. Other challenges included distant production, long



Figure 2. Current food system in the Hedmark region.

Figure 3a. Results of Group 1 visioning about the ideal consumer in2005.

Figure 3b. Results of Group 2 visioning about the ideal consumer in2005.

transportation distances, and demand for varied dietsthroughout the year. A new type of settlement structure aswell as dietary and economical changes would be required torealize the desired outcomes shown in Figure 4. Close prox-imity potentially has a number of positive nutritional andsocial consequences.

Distance in Time — Searching for Efficiency and FoodQuality

To add another dimension to our vision, the group con-sidered the issue of time. Starting with the assumption thattime is important in the food system and a shorter span oftime from harvest to consumption is desirable, there are obvi-ous questions of seasonality of production in any one place,fragility of products, and time-consuming distances betweensites of production and consumption. We identified factorsand consequences of shorter timespans that includedimproved food quality, reduced losses and energy costs intransport and packaging, and improved consumer confidencerelated to food and food system issues.

Distance in Mind — Establishing Connections with FoodAfter exploring closeness in space and time, we expand-

ed the visioning to describe how shared goals and interestsamong different actors in the food system could result in areduced distance in mind. In some ways, close proximity ofinformation and understanding could substitute for distances.For example, it is possible for a consumer to fully understandthe food system and the impacts of production in a distant siteif relevant information is available, including direct commu-

nication with the producer through the Internet, and a contin-ual process of information exchange. This would not solvetransportation costs or other complexities of a distant source,but would reduce distance of mind. Key relational aspectsand values in an improved future food system include under-standing people and production practices, acceptance andloyalty of these partners, and a feeling of believing in theoverall food system. They all deal with the value relation-ships between producer and consumer, and between con-sumer and food.

Creative Problem FormulationBased on this visioning of the conceptual distances in

space, time, and mind, the group continued with a round ofcreative problem formulation. The goal of this process wasto identify key questions that would have to be answered forthe successful implementation of any visions toward a sus-tainable future food system. Some of these practical ques-tions included finding out how to (1) reduce the number ofsteps between production and consumption, (2) developlocally based processing to supply a local market. (3) createloyalty and markets for local brands and local producers, (4)design and develop rational, resource-efficient forms oftransportation, (5) use existing facilities and capacities in theprocessing industry, (6) strengthen marketing of ecologicallyproduced food and influence consumption, (7) make agricul-ture more visible to reduce the distance of mind, (8) improvecommunication between farmers and consumers, (9) cooper-ate with schools to increase their interest in locally producedfood, (10) develop local diversity within ecological con-straints, and (11) establish contact with people with similarintentions in other areas.

The group concluded this session with several issues stillunresolved. There were positive images of the consciousconsumer, but frustration with the limited possibilities forconsumers to link with production. There was an apprecia-tion of how farmers would want to participate in such a localfood system, but we were perplexed by the challenges of seri-ous short-term costs of structural changes in the current sys-tem. Farmers and consumers may want to participate, but atthe same time they may be discouraged by not clearly seeinghow to proceed. From the discussion, the group concludedthat one approach to reducing distances in space, time, andmind was to consider ecological agriculture as a unifyingtheme that would pull the pieces together and provide solu-tions to many of the issues raised above. To guide furthervisioning, the following expression was formulated:Ecological agriculture nourishes the whole human being.Figure 5 emphasizes the need for relationships between pro-ducers and consumers. It further shows how ecological agri-culture could provide a conceptual meeting place where the



Figure 4. Temporal distance — conceptualizing the reduced distancesand consequences in an ideal food system.

groups would come together to clarify both common interestsand disagreements as basis for working towards commongoals. This is both a conceptual and a physical comingtogether and requires further elaboration to move from visionto reality.

Operationalizing the Ideas:A Farmers’ Sales House

Rather than proceeding further with the visioningprocess, the group decided to focus on concrete means toobtain the desired future situation. Important criteria werethat any new measures should decrease distance in time,space, and mind, in order to be viable and sustainable. Basedon the ideas that came up, the group decided to work furtherwith the concept of a multipurpose farmers’ sales house andeducational center. To envision what the house might looklike, the group went through the following guided imagery:“Imagine that we leave the room where we now sit. We walkout into a field outside of the farm. Out in the field we findan air-balloon waiting. We get into the balloon, and it takesoff. We can see the farm under us as the balloon lifts. Wethen fly with the balloon, admiring the beautiful landscapeunder us, and we fly until we are right above the farmers’sales house, where we notice a lot of activities. We thenremove the roof of the sales house, so that we can see rightinto it. Now, what do we see there? What does the houselook like? What kinds of activities take place?”

After the imagery, the individuals spent a few minutescollecting their thoughts and images. Then two groups wereformed and each developed a common picture of the saleshouse. The image developed by one of the groups is shownin Figure 6.

This imagined sales house is located close to urbanareas. It both demonstrates the total range of foods produced

in the area, and serves as a sales outlet for local farm prod-ucts. Maps provide information about where the food comesfrom and where processing is located. There is space for dis-plays and educational activities. The house becomes aninformation center, connected with local producers as well asother sources of information through the Internet. Youth playa high profile role in the planning and demonstration pro-grams, to inspire future generations of food citizens(Stevenson 1998), whether in the role as consumer, farmer orperson performing other functions in the food system.Through the activities in the house, it should be possible todecrease the distance between producers and consumers, forall those consumers who do not have direct contact withfarms and farmers. There are directions for finding otherlocal farm sales outlets and small business in the immediatearea as well as information on distant production sites, suchas for tropical crops.

The information on agriculture in the region alsoinvolves natural resource conservation, recycling, culturallandscape issues including landscape ecology, and otherissues of local importance that require community consensusand serious communication and action. It could become thenew cultural gathering point for each unique local communi-ty and interest group, supplementing or gradually replacingthe vacuous conformity and extractive process fostered by aglobal marketplace.



Figure 5. Ecological agriculture as a bridge between food producers andconsumers in a local context.

Figure 6. The farmers’ sales house as a place for marketing food as wellas educating people and bringing key local groups together.

Reflections on the Results of the Visioning Seminar

The participants saw reduced distance in mind betweenactors in different sectors as a key property of a future want-ed food system. Increased awareness and knowledge abouthow the food system works, and one’s own place within it,will lead to a number of benefits — both on a personal and asocietal level. When there is mental closeness in the foodsystem, “there are no hidden areas,” as one of the participantsexpressed it. Transparency also was seen as a key character-istic. Greater involvement and care about the environmentand other people in the food system can be achieved throughdirect, personal contact and commitment, or indirectly byincreased availability of a broader set of information.Information about the food system will be important, but notsufficient to establish transparency, understanding and close-ness of mind. Such information needs to be complementedby individual experiences concerning the food system,including its people.

The envisioned farmers’ sales house can be viewed as ametaphor for a meeting place for the different actors in thefood system, where the café and stage in particular representpossibilities for such direct experiences. As an educationalcenter, the sales house can play an important role in connect-ing the next generation of children to their food supply andtheir natural environment. Here, consumers can meet direct-ly with farmers who produce and sell them food. They willlearn about their life styles, and generally establish an identi-ty with where and how food is produced. And equally impor-tant, farmers can meet those who eat the food they produce,and learn about how it is perceived and appreciated and whatconsumers are concerned with. Common thinking to explorethe components and functioning of a sustainable food systemcould occur at such a meeting place. Sustainability involvesecological, economical and social issues. It is further anintentional term: What do we want to sustain, and whodecides? As such, this meeting place could become a proto-type for a new food community for the future, where peopleall see themselves as part of something larger and on whichthey depend for their sustenance and security.

The properties of a future wanted food system describedin the visioning process are closely interconnected. Trans-parency, which provides a culture of open information andexperience, is crucial for establishing closeness of mind. It isinteresting, but not surprising, that this form of distance wasemphasized by the seminar participants. Both in a pioneerphase and for long-term flexibility and sustenance of goodsolutions in the food system, closeness of mind is of particu-lar importance.

We regard ecological agriculture as an interesting basisfor developing sustainable food systems, because of itsemphasis on locally available, renewable resources as well asits goal to strengthen the intimate bonds between people andnature. What the seminar participants focused on related toreduced distance in mind and could be interpreted as a callfor greater relational competencies in the food system. Theguiding expression of “nourishing the whole human being,”as one important contribution of ecological agriculture inmoving the food system in a more sustainable direction, cap-tures this focus on human relations and understanding. Ithighlights the potential of ecological agriculture as an inte-grating force for closer connections between the elements ofthe food system, both in terms of the natural and social envi-ronment. In this we agree with Stevenson (1998) who pro-poses relational competencies as a crucial element in devel-oping sustainable food systems for the future.

Relational diversity will also be an important attribute ofthe envisioned food system. Where the food systems of thepast were characterized by lack of choice, the possibilities forproximity and closeness in the future sustainable food systemwill be characterized by a multiplicity of choices, and sever-al networks that are interconnected in larger food systems.But key activities will be regionally based, making it possibleto compose the larger part of the diet from local food sourcesand to meet other actors in the food system. Reduced dis-tance in terms of space and understanding will therefore com-plement each other. In the vision seminar, the sales housewas suggested as one way of reducing the different forms ofdistance. In the case of trading local produce, the reductionof physical and mental distance will be part of the sameprocess. The Internet opens up potential for understandingand mental or emotional closeness where reduced physicaldistance is not possible or favorable. Trade and long-distancetransportation are part of a good solution, but only with athorough understanding of the different aspects of the distantfood systems with which the local system is linked. “Fairtrade” arrangements are examples of the introduction of abroader set of premises for long distance import.

Reflections on the Visioning Process

The theoretical difference between conventional vision-ing as practiced in corporations and educational institutionsover the past several centuries and the approach used in thisseminar is the source and scope of that vision. While manysuccessful businesses and respected universities have grownfrom the singular vision and autocratic leadership of a giftedand powerful individual, the concept of shared vision is a newapproach (Senge 1990). In contrast, shared vision works by



“heightening everyone’s genuine sense of influence and own-ership of their organization” (Parker 1990). The fact that thisapproach has been adopted by many organizations in both pri-vate and public sectors attests to its potential for success. Asstated by Milbrath (1989) in discussing future sustainability,

any society, but especially a new society, must firstexist in the minds of the people. Every society mostfundamentally exists as a set of mental constructsthat takes many years to develop. Those images arethoroughly entrenched in our psyches, leading mostof us to believe that our present society is so solid-ly fixed that we have no hope of changing it.

The shared visioning process challenges those imagesand sets the stage for change. Visionary thinking, as a meansto exercise food citizenship, builds relational competenciesand create shared visions, and can as such be an importantcontribution to what Busch (2000) calls networks of democ-racy. He envisions a democratic society where there is roomfor both individual autonomy and the defining and reachingfor the common good in a manner that embeds moral respon-sibility in the networks rather than in either individuals orstructures.

The importance of shared visioning to bridge betweenprofessions and disciplines was apparent during the work-shop. In accordance with Parker (1990) and Senge (1990),we found that trying to develop a shared vision brings peopletogether. It unites and provides a link among diverse peopleand their activities. The key to establishing such linkageswas that visioning led to focusing on creating common goals,transcending the limitations of being primarily associatedwith different roles in the food system, or moving beyondexclusive discussions within one particular discipline.Tapping into each person’s inner capacities for creating andcommunicating images of a future desired situation opensnew potentials for collective vision. Visioning provides anopportunity for those who seek meaning in transdisciplinaryand transprofessional interactions. It has been our experiencethat every individual has the capacity to vision, but success inthis way of working demands that people meet with openminds. Many academics and others are anxious to lecture ontheir specialties. It was important that the participants did notfocus on transferring to others what they already knew, butrather focused on cooperation and communication to open upfor new possibilities. We further found that there were nostrict recipes, methods, or processes for how to make a visionthinking session successful. There can always be alternative,and even better, ways of bringing innovation into a situation.It is difficult to say beforehand what will work and what willnot in a given session, although there is some predictive valuefrom past experiences. We also found that fear of failure and

lack of trust in one’s own creative capacity can be major chal-lenges to success in a visioning session.

We found that visions for a food system transcend the“Great Wall” between the social and the natural sciences(Morin 1973) as basis for interdisciplinary cooperation.Lévi-Strauss (1968) argues that food must not only be goodto eat, but also good to think. As such, our statement “eco-logical agriculture nourishes the whole human being” encom-passes both natural and human aspects of food. As ametaphor and a means to guide further thinking, it wasimportant that such an expression could nourish and encour-age “rich pictures” of a desired future situation. Some of theways this expression opened up for thinking about food were:

• Food as something having an intrinsic value, not mere-ly being attributed economic value in the “commoditysphere,” as discussed by Lien and Doving (1996),where value is dependent on exchangeability of thefood item

• Food as mediator of relations, both with local commu-nity and distant people and places. As such, food maybe a mediator for what Kloppenburg et al. (1996) callthe process of becoming native to a place

• Food as means to influence the community at large, in-cluding deciding what relations we want to be a part of

• Food as a means to create positive physical and emo-tional images of oneself, also discussed by Fischler(1988)

The guiding statement further recognizes our physicalbody as well as cultural community. It highlights the empha-sis on reduced distance in mind in developing future foodsystems. Even if consumers don’t live on a farm, or experi-ence direct contact with farmers, they can develop increasedunderstanding of where they are in the food system.Consumers can then envision where food comes from andhow it is produced, helping them to re-identify with this cru-cial component of their well-being.

In many parts of society and in certain contexts, foodwill continue to be seen only as “commodity” and “source ofnutrients,” or as the way that agriculture in a disconnectedway contributes to society. Yet, when successful alternativesare demonstrated, more people will become attracted to theoptions that show the natural environment as a source of foodand resources, a place for recreation, and an essential part ofhuman ecology as a multifunctional natural landscape.

The farmers’ sales house is one potential and practicalapproach to reducing distance in space and time. This facil-ity embodies the means for direct communication betweenproducers and consumers, and brings the urban consumerinto close proximity with the source of food, both throughreflection and concrete experience. At such a meeting place,



food can bring people together and wider communication canbe nurtured. The sales house is an obvious place for farmersto market their products, keeping much of the added valuethat would otherwise leave the farm and the local landscapeand community. Moreover, the activities at the sales houselead to reduced distance in mind. People from different partsof the food system may discover common needs and valuesand can work toward a more desirable, interdependent futurefor their families and region.

Practical Impacts of the Seminar

Three years after the seminar we found that few concretesteps had been taken to realize the farmers’ sales house,which was the key operationalizing idea emerging from thevisions seminar. However, a number of later activities wereclearly inspired by the visioning process. Among these werethe following:

Consumer SurveyThe visioning activities spurred our interest in knowing

more about consumers in a total system perspective. If morelocally based food systems are to be developed, then con-sumers must participate in the process. Compared to con-ventional farmers, ecological farmers are more interested inusing locally available resources and meeting local fooddemands. Knowledge about consumers’ perceptions of eco-logical food, and their attitudes, interests and values concern-ing ethical, social and environmental issues related to thefood system, are important when exploring the potential fordeveloping locally based food systems. Whether there aredifferences in attitudes between ecological and conventionalconsumers and how close to reality our vision about the idealecological consumer was were among our questions. A con-sumer survey was completed in the region where the visionseminar took place (Torjusen et al. 1999, 2001).

Nordic PhD CoursesStimulated by the outcomes of the visioning seminar and

greater awareness of consumers’ roles in the food system, weplanned and implemented residential, one-week Nordic PhDcourses on ecological agriculture and food systems in 1996and 1997. Students from several countries participating inthe courses examined material flows and communicationamong farmers, processors, retailers, and consumers in theregion (e.g., Lieblein 1997).

Education at the Swedish University of AgriculturalSciences (SLU)

Visions thinking was introduced at SLU as part of anMSc-level course, “Resource-preserving agricultural produc-

tion from nature-conservation and societal perspectives.”According to evaluations, the visioning activities were themost highly valued part of this course, and the students espe-cially mentioned how visioning enabled them to turn thefragments of their course project work into a concrete whole.

New Nordic MSc-curriculum in AgroecologyIn a new Nordic MSc-curriculum in agroecology, food-

systems have found a key place along with visions thinking.In a prototype of this course in 1999, students were intro-duced to visions thinking as part of action learning. Theirfocus was the challenge of turning an abandoned school in anearby region into a community center and a “pulsating lung”for education and development of sustainable agriculture andfood systems in that region. After being introduced to vision-ing, the students were able to facilitate a visioning sessionwith board members of the community center. These stu-dents were also highly positive about visioning as part oftheir education in ecological agriculture and agroecology.

These are four examples of what we might call the cas-cading effects of visionary thinking. During visioning thewhole person and personality is involved. When a vision iscaptured, people seek creative ways to move towards thefuture wanted situation, often taking other concrete steps thanthose that were planned during the initial visions session.One outcome is that the process now has become integral toour education programs.

Visioning also directly influences the participants.During the reflection session at the end of the Stange seminarreported here, several expressed that they had learned just asmuch about themselves as about food systems issues duringthe visioning process. This was not unexpected, since thevisioning process aims at involving the whole human being— with the head and heart working together. Three yearsafter the seminar several of the participants still had clearmemories about the activities, although not that much actionhad taken place in realizing a farmers’ sales house in theregion. We see this as evidence of the powerful effect of cre-ating shared vision, also bearing in mind that the whole sem-inar took place over a period of only about 30 hours. Theexperience also illustrates the frustration of not achievingimmediate goals in a short time frame. Visions thinking toexplore our future wanted food systems must be seen in along-term perspective, and our evaluation of the processshould include awareness of the cascading effect of visioningand non-expected outcomes. The challenge is to maintainand further develop visions for future food systems.

There will always be pressures and a tendency to reduce,limit, or shorten visions, in order to reduce the tensionbetween the present and the future wanted situation, withsuch conclusions as: “It was just an escape. There is too far



to go. We can do nothing.” These are common expressions offrustration at the lack of implementation. Many of us whoparticipated in the seminar still carry the vision, and searchfor the small steps that can be taken to move towards moresustainable interconnections. Our experience is that ecologi-cal agriculture provides a framework within which this couldhappen. Ecological agriculture can be a unifying theme, anarena for communication between farmers, processors, mar-keters and consumers or food citizens, if it can be viewed ina food system context.

Endnotes

1. [email protected]. [email protected]. [email protected]

Acknowledgements

We thank Wenche Barth Eide, Sissel Gjestvang, Jorn Haugen, TorunnKornstad, Morten Ingvaldsen, and Trygve Sund for participating with us inthe seminar. We are grateful to Marjorie Parker for planning contributionsand great facilitation of the seminar. Financial support from the NorwegianResearch Council was essential for the success of the seminar.

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Gabriel, Y. and T. Lang. 1995. The Unmanageable Consumer:Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentations. London: SagePublications.

Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: PolityPress.

Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the lateModern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Gussow, J. D. 1978. The Feeding Web: Issues in Nutritional Ecology. PaloAlto, California: Bull Publishing Co. Inc.

Harris, D. R. 1969. Agricultural systems, ecosystems and the origins ofagriculture. In P. J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbledy (eds.), TheDomestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals. Chicago, Ill:Aldine.

Kloppenburg Jr., J., Hendrickson and G. W. Stevenson. 1996. Coming intothe foodshed. Agriculture and Human Values 13 (3), 33-43.

Kloppenburg Jr., J. and S. Lezberg. 1996. Getting it straight before we eatourselves to death: From food system to foodshed in the 21st centu-ry. Society & Natural Resources 9, 93-96.

Lappé, F. M. 1971. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books.Lappé, F. M. and J. Collins. 1977. Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity.

Institute for Food and Development Policy. Boston: HoughtonMifflin Company.

Lévi-Strauss, C. 1968. L’origine des manières de table. Mythologiques IV.Paris: Plon.

Lieblein, G. (ed.). 1997. From Farming Systems to Food Systems. ThirdNordic Postgraduate Course in Ecological Agriculture. Norway:Department of Horticultural and Crop Sciences, AgriculturalUniversity of Norway (NLH).

Lien, M. E. and R. Døving. 1996. Grønnsaker som mat og handelsvare.(Vegetables as food and commodities). SIFO-report no. 2-1996.,Lysaker, Norway: National Institute for Consumer Research. ISBN82-7063-314-3.

Milbrath, L. W. 1989. Envisioning a Sustainable Society: Learning OurWay Out. Preface, xi. Albany, New York: State University of NewYork Press.

Morin, E. 1973. Le Paradigme perdu: la nature humaine. Paris: Èditions duSeuil.

Parker, M. 1990. Creating Shared Vision. Oak Park, Illinois: DIALOGInternational Ltd.

Pelto, G. H. and P. J. Pelto. 1985. Diet and delocalization: Dietary changessince 1750. In R. I. Rotberg and T. K. Rabb (eds.), Hunger andHistory, 309-330. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Torjusen, H. and G. Vittersø. 1998. Baerekraftig matforbruk.Begrepsdrøftinger, menyeksempel og kostnadsberegninger.(Sustainable Food Consumption). SIFO report no. 11-1998. Lysaker,Norway: National Institute for Consumer Research. ISBN 82-7063-346-1.



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Torjusen, H., A. Nyberg and M. Wandel. 1999. Økologisk produsert mat:Forbrukernes vurderinger og bruksmønster (Organically ProducedFood: Consumers’ Perceptions and Dietary Choices). SIFO report no.5-1999. Lysaker, Norway: National Institute for Consumer Research.ISBN 82-7063-354-2.

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Østergaard, E. and G. Lieblein. 1994. Converting to ecological agriculturein practice and research. Proceedings from the Conference,Converting to Organic Agriculture. St Michel, Finland. NJF-reportnr.93. 128-135.



The Ecological Indian: Myth and History

By Shepard Krech IIINew York: W.W. Norton, 1999ISBN 0-393-04755-5

Reviewed by Dean R. SnowThe Pennsylvania State UniversityDepartment of Anthropology

Shepard Krech has once again taken on the dragon ofcontradiction. It is right there in the title, embedded in thecontradictions of myth and history. But it is more than thatsimple dichotomy, for there are contradictory definitions ofmyth, and contradictory definitions of history too. Indeedecology has led him into a vast maze of contradictions thatwould dishearten most serious scholars, particularly in thesedays of simplistic political correctness.

Krech staked out his position twenty years ago with hispublication of Indians, Animals, and the Fur Trade: ACritique of Keepers of the Game. That book, an edited vol-ume to which I contributed, was a corrective critique ofCalvin Martin’s Keepers of the Game: Indian-AnimalRelationships and the Fur Trade. Martin’s book assumed anideological premise for documented overkill of northern fur-bearing populations, an assumption that reveals what is per-haps the most difficult contradiction ecologists have to dealwith.

Evolution is mindless, the feature of it most detested bycreationists. Evolutionary ecology also has a largely if notentirely mindless process as its subject. But when humanbeings are added to the mix even the soberest ecologists seemto find it difficult to avoid issues of agency and ideology.Worse for the scientists is the popular tendency to ascribenearly all patterns of human action to conscious intent, a ten-dency that makes any discussion of ecology ripe for politicalrhetoric or romantic excess.

Readers of this journal know that all humans find them-selves embedded in ecological systems, although they mayperceive that embeddedness differently, and those differencesare in turn determined in part by cultural tradition. Whetheror not a particular person or population behaves in an eco-logically responsible manner is a value judgment, one typi-cally made by an outside observer. Outside observers whocredit themselves with the wisdom to make such judgmentssometimes do so with more formidable scientific skills, or(perhaps more often) just the enviable benefit of hindsight.

People make ecological choices all the time, and they aretypically constrained by resource availability and the imme-diacy of need. Modern individuals, those of us who have theleisure to write or read commentaries like this one, are typi-

cally so far removed from critical choices that they (we) can-not accurately assess the effects of specific choices. Is eatingan apple a good or bad thing in the grand scheme? Nobodyknows. Such a question might be easier to answer in a sim-pler society, but even here there are many variables that areboth important and difficult to measure. For example, shoulda hunter seek to kill a single buffalo or stampede the wholeherd off a cliff. The choice depends upon the hunter’s assess-ment of many variables, including (1) the size of the groupsthat needs to be fed, (2) their desperation, (3) the effective-ness of his hunting technology, (4) the effectiveness of foodpreservation techniques, (5) the hunter’s perception of theconsequences of the two options on future hunting prospects,and so forth. Even in modern society most choices are madein the context of our perceptions of medium term conse-quences at best. We know that oil supplies are finite, but wealso know from experience that being too cautious in theshort term can make us look like fools when unexpected newtechnology makes the whole oil problem obsolete. It is agood thing that the city fathers of preautomobile New Yorkdid not invest too much in the long-term problem of horsemanure disposal.

Krech starts by carefully distinguishing between ecolo-gy and environmentalism, a distinction for which there areunfortunately many deaf ears. He also distinguishes usefullybetween conservation and preservation. That done, he turnsto a sober discussion of Pleistocene extinctions, which nei-ther condemns nor absolves Paleoindians. He then turns to adiscussion of the Hohokam, and the collapse of their irriga-tion systems as a consequence of unintended consequences.One can detect in these examples the basic anthropologicalprinciple that no matter what people do it seems like a goodidea at the time. It is a principle often overwhelmed by thepolitics of blame placing.

His chapter on Eden addresses North American (north ofMesoamerica) population size in 1492. Published estimatesrange from 500,000 to 18 million. They are most often basedon questionable extrapolations from very fragmentary docu-mentary sources. In the hands of polemicists the low esti-mates have served to trivialize American Indians while thehigh ones have served to exaggerate the effects of post-con-tact decline. When combined with the notion of Indians asexemplary natural ecologists the high numbers also exagger-ate the lightness with which they supposedly lived in theirenvironments.

In my own work I have used known pre-epidemic popu-lation densities by ecological zone to project the overall 1492population densities of America north of Mexico. That leadsto an aggregate 1492 population of roughly 3.4 million, anumber consistent with the empirical findings of archaeolo-gists. Krech more simply splits the difference between the

Contemporary Human Ecology


extreme estimates to come up with 4-7 million, the low endof which is close enough.

Krech turns to hard-nosed empiricism with chapters onfire, buffalo, deer, and beaver. Here his marshalling of facts istruly amazing. One comes away knowing that much of the1492 landscape of North America was modified by humans.One also appreciates another set of contradictions. The short-term intents of individual decisions do not often add up torational consequences, and for good reason. What sense doesit make for one group to conserve a resource if a competinggroup does not? Why worry about killing too many caribouall at once when the children are starving?

Northern hunters and fishermen turned to managingtheir resources only when state-level political systems gavethem the necessary control over long-term consequences.Restrictions on hunting make sense only if they apply toeveryone over the long term. The image of Iron Eyes Codywith a tear on his cheek assisted in that process, but modernIndian political imagery contradicts (even mocks) the authen-tic past here as much as clan tartans do in Scotland. Indiansturn out to be human beings more or less like the rest of us.

The evidence is undeniable. Indians participated in thecommercialization of deer hunting, which led to drasticdepletion of deer populations in some regions. When con-fronted by rapacious Euro-American competitors on theGreat Plains they played their own role in the near extinctionof bison. Of course things changed dramatically in the twen-tieth century. Through it all ideology changed too, in order torationalize the decisions of the moment. When competing fordwindling resources American Indians often expressed theview that animal populations were capable of reincarnationso long as they had supernatural assistance. Their nineteenthcentury solution to the decline of the bison herds was theGhost Dance, not conservation. Only when they acquired thecapacity to manage resource exploitation did understandingof reproduction and adaptation resurface as tools for conser-vation. Witness modern Chippewa fish management.

The bottom line is that much of what modern Americansthink they know about ecology and the American Indians isfirmly rooted in shallow current ideology. Shepard Krech haschallenged his readers to look beyond this comfortable butsuperficial and ultimately ephemeral understanding, and todeal honestly with the contradictions they encounter. Ourminds are capable of understanding the past, even if theprocesses that got us all to the present were largely mindless.

Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature

By John Bellamy FosterNew York: Monthly Review Press, 2000ISBN 1-58367-012-2

Reviewed by J. Christopher Kovats-BernatMuhlenberg CollegeDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology

Few serious scholars of Karl Marx would deny that hiswork is pervaded throughout with an awareness of the impactof laboring-humanity upon nature. How else might he havedelivered his critique of the transformation of land into capi-tal, of colonial endeavors, of the degradation of the soil, andof the agrarian question without consideration of the ecologywithin which each issue is framed? In The Economic andPhilosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx states the case ratherbluntly when he argues that “[t]he worker can create nothingwithout nature, without the sensuous external world. It is thematerial on which his labor is realized, in which it is active,from which and by means of which it produces — [I]t alsoprovides the means of life in the more restricted sense, i.e.,the means for the physical subsistence of the worker him-self”. Elsewhere, Marx identifies labor itself as a process inwhich Man of his own accord “starts, regulates, and controlsthe material reactions between himself and Nature” (CapitalI, Chapter 7).

The obvious awareness that Marx harbored of the impactof human labor on the environment is not really the subject ofMarx’s Ecology; rather, at issue is the extent to which Marx’sanalysis of the interrelationship between labor, humanity, andthe natural world was informed by ecological sensitivity. ForJohn Bellamy Foster, Marx’s concern with the environmentwas not a mere afterthought to his economic critiques, butrather was derivative of a profound understanding of the rela-tionship between the scientific revolution and the nineteenth-century environment achieved via a materialist conception ofnature. This alone is not a new idea. Paul Burkett suggestedthe political-economic underpinning for Marx’s ecologicalthought in his Marx and Nature: A Red and GreenPerspective (1999), a work that Foster cites in his Preface asfundamental to his own. What is new, bold, and intriguingabout Foster’s latest treatment are its two fundamental (andcontentious) arguments: that ecology was central to Marx’swork, and that contemporary Green theory is intrinsicallyhobbled by its inability to achieve a deeper understanding ofhumanity’s alienation from the earth, due to its failure to tran-scend idealism and the false dichotomization of Man versusNature. Marx’s Ecology is less a reinterpretation of Marxist

CONTEMPORARY HUMAN ECOLOGY


socio-ecology, and more a complete reconstruction of it fromits very roots.

What is attractive about Foster’s endeavor is his logical,methodical, and thorough treatment of the development ofmaterialism as an ideology, beginning with a clear elucida-tion of its most general claim that the origins and develop-ment of all things is wholly dependent upon both nature anda certain level of physical reality (“matter”) that is both inde-pendent of and prior to thought. As a complex worldview,philosophical materialism is regarded here as ontological(asserting the dependence of social reality upon physical real-ity), epistemological (asserting the independent existence andcausal activity of at least some of the objects of scientificthought), and practical (asserting the organic role of humanagency in the reproduction and transformation of socialforms).

It is from this fundamental framework for understandingmaterialism that Foster begins in the first chapter the ratherHerculean task of tracing its development, passage, transfor-mation, and relationship to ecological concerns through 2000years of philosophical thought and scientific interpretation.He begins with the philosophy of the Athenian citizenEpicurus (who was the subject of Marx’s doctoral disserta-tion) and attempts to construct a virtually unbroken evolutionof materialist and ecological thought from the teachings ofthe other Greek atomists, through the works of ThomasHariot, Francis Bacon, John Evelyn, Isaac Newton, and final-ly Charles Darwin and Marx himself.

If there is a weakness in Foster’s analysis, it lies in thisfirst chapter, where at times he seems to retrofit contempo-rary ecological thought onto the works of thinkers fromantiquity. Why should we suppose that the Epicurean philos-ophy of nature “tended toward an ecological worldview” sim-ply because it originated with the principle of conservation(which was wholly and exclusively consumed with the expul-sion of divine explanations of natural phenomena)? Whypoint to Lucretius’ presumption that human beings are notradically distinct from animals, and to his mere allusions to“air pollution due to mining” and “to the lessening of har-vests through the degradation of the soil” as evidence of realecological thought in any contemporary sense, as Foster sug-gests? Their observations derive from a materialist vantage,to be sure; but in the absence of any greater discussion con-cerning how these environmental realities impact the humanor social condition or the fate of nature, they remain just that— simple observations.

The real strength of Marx’s Ecology, and its greatestvalue to contemporary ecological thought, begins to emergein Foster’s arguments concerning the materialist conceptionof history. Herein lies a powerful deconstruction ofMalthusian population theory that highlights the refutations

Malthus makes to his own claims when he is forced to con-cede that there are occasions in which food productionincreases geometrically to match a geometric rise in popula-tion (as happened in North America during his time). Fostergoes on to introduce a sharp and specific critique of Malthusbeyond his unsupportable premise of arithmetical food ratios,as did Marx as early as 1844. The “preventative” and “posi-tive” checks on population growth that Malthus suggests(perhaps as a downplay of the logical inconsistencies of histheory) lead to his claim that the “progressive increase inpauperism” meant that the poor ought not be entitled to eventhe smallest relief; so his support for the abolition of the PoorLaws of England makes perfect sense. Malthusian theory ispredicated upon the assumption that the privileged classesexercise greater “moral restraint” in procreation as a result ofunequal and uncertain property relations, and therefore har-mony between population growth and food supply is moreefficiently attained in those societies built upon materialinequality. As a result, Foster situates Malthusian theory asthe social philosophy of the bourgeoisie, the proletariannotion, and rationalization for the construction of the work-houses.

Given this, Foster maintains that Malthus’ proposedsolution to the problem of the rural poor was their disposses-sion from the land and their conversion to proletarian wage-laborers; and so his response to the issue of hunger and des-titution in Ireland in 1817 was to suggest the removal of thepeasantry from the land, and their displacement into manu-facturing towns. Marx would observe the effects of suchthinking in 1844 when he constructs an alternative vision ofthe European proletariat: “The Irishman no longer knows anyneed now but the need to eat, and indeed only the need to eatpotatoes — and scabby potatoes at that, the worst kind ofpotatoes. But in each of their industrial towns England andFrance have already a little Ireland” (The Economic andPhilosophic Manuscripts of 1844).

Throughout Marx’s Ecology, Foster returns time andagain to the antagonism between town and country that is fos-tered by the capitalist system. The book’s most compellingand indeed its most critical chapter deals with the “metabo-lism” (Stoffwechsel) between humanity and nature — theprocess by which humans mediate their relationships to theearth. What is interesting here is Foster’s dialectical analysisof the development of Marx’s critique of capitalist agriculturefrom his sharp criticism of Malthus’ arithmetical approach tofood yields, to the introduction of Justus von Liebig’s soilchemistry — an event that prompted Marx to consider seri-ously the conditions that underlie a sustainable human rela-tionship to nature. Foster argues that from 1830-1880, thegrowth of the fertilizer industry and the development of soilchemistry launched a “second agricultural revolution” close-



ly linked to the demand for increased soil fertility to supportcapitalist agriculture. After this, the fundamental disruptionin the metabolic relationship between humans and the earth ischaracterized by the dual exploitation of worker and soil:“[A]ll progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in theart, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil; allprogress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given timeis a progress toward ruining the more long-lasting sources ofthat fertility” (Capital I, Chapter 15). Herein lies the verycrux of Foster’s argument — that Marx’s view of capitalistagriculture, and of the metabolic rift in the relationshipbetween humanity and the soil, leads logically to the widerconcept of ecological sustainability.

Foster bolsters his claims in later chapters by suggestingthe further dialectical development of this ecologically-mind-ed materialism in the works of Charles Darwin and the eth-nologist Lewis Henry Morgan. Though Foster correctly citesthe influence that Malthus had on Darwin’s work concerningnatural selection, he is careful (and prudent) to point out thatDarwin’s intellectual debt to him is rather limited, though theeffect that Darwin’s articulation of Malthusian metaphors hadon the reception to his doctrines is noteworthy. Darwin’sreluctant adoption of the term “survival of the fittest” (firstcoined by Herbert Spencer with respect to the evolution ofsocieties) in the 1869 edition of On the Origin of the Speciescontributed even further to Malthusian interpretations of histheories. Now emerges the specter of social Darwinism, jus-tifying the biological and social superiority of the bour-geoisie, and validating the legitimacy of the law of “mightmakes right”. By the time Lewis Henry Morgan publishesAncient Society in 1877, expounding a materialist social evo-lutionary theory, ethnological speculation has alreadyemerged as an ally to the ecological-materialist cause.

Foster argues convincingly in his last chapter that thereis an ecological-materialist bent to Morgan’s delineation ofsociety into varying stages of development from Savagery toBarbarism to Civilization; stages essentially marked off bydevelopments in subsistence strategies and cast in largelyecological-materialist terms of societies’ metabolic relation-ships to the earth. But anthropologists will take issue withsome of Foster’s claims in this chapter, especially his curious,non sequitur contention that Morgan’s evolutionary schemeof Savagery-Barbarism-Civilization is still in general use inanthropology today, though with the terminology altered toreflect the negative connotations of the original categories.His argument that “Savagery” is today equated with hunter-gatherer societies and that “Barbarism” is now equated withhorticulture reflects his unawareness that most ethnologistsabandoned the mainstream use of this social evolutionarymodel almost forty years ago, and many others long beforethat.

The tasks undertaken by Marx’s Ecology are titanicones. Foster argues that Marx’s politico-economic philoso-phy finds its roots in ancient Greek thought, is transformedinto a dialectical synthesis through its relationship to politi-cal economy, socialism, the scientific revolution, and nine-teenth-century ethnology, and is finally forged into an eco-logically-oriented materialism. His scholarship on all of thesematters is exhaustive and truly beyond reproach. The readershould however take Foster’s promise to rectify this eco-materialism with contemporary Green theory (he states thisgoal rather clearly in the Introduction) with a grain of salt; histreatment of developments in socio-ecological thought sincethe mid-twentieth-century is both brief and disappointing.But despite its rather insignificant faults, Marx’s Ecology is acompelling, thought-provoking read that effectively andauthoritatively pries open a space in the rather over-publishedrealm of Marxist theory for a debate concerning the relation-ship between materialism and ecology. It should offer a cata-lyst to a serious reconsideration of the common assumptionthat Marx’s work has little to offer ecological discourse,beyond novel and sporadic secondary observations of theenvironmental effects of capitalist development.

Spaces of Hope

By David HarveyBerkeley: University of California Press, 2000ISBN: 0-520-22577-5 (cloth)ISBN: 0-520-22578-3 (paper)

Reviewed by Terri LeMoyneDepartment of Sociology, Anthropology, and GeographyUniversity of Tennessee, ChattanoogaChattanooga, TN 37403

The global landscape is characterized by a stratificationsystem where unemployment, alienation and despair for themasses is juxtaposed with enormous power and wealth forelites. As a result, there has been a deterioration in our con-fidence to create a better future for the world. David Harveyaddresses these issues in his book, Spaces of Hope. Heattempts to inspire an array of future possibilities by revivingutopian vision. To that end, he focuses on two levels ofanalysis: globalization and the body. His task is to metathe-oretically synthesize these discourses in a theory he callsDialectical Utopianism.

Harvey draws on the writings of Karl Marx, highlightingMarx’s often ignored ideas on geography. Harvey argues thata more politically sophisticated theory emerges by under-



scoring and updating Marx’s geography to more accuratelyexplain the long-standing domination of the bourgeoisie overworkers. He uses the city of Baltimore, Maryland as his casestudy.

At the macrospatial level of analysis, Harvey considerstwo questions: (1) Why has globalization entered our dis-course (as opposed to the concepts of imperialism or colo-nialism), and (2) How is globalization used politically byelites? In addressing the first question, Harvey traces the useof the globalization to the broad geographical reorganizationof capital. Through territorialization, de-territorialization,and re-territorialization national boundaries have lost most oftheir meaning. In addition, many other factors, including theloss of American hegemony, the immediacy of technologytransfers, hyper-urbanization, environmental degradation,corporate mergers, fragmentation of production, etc, havealso facilitated and accelerated this process. As a result, wenow find ourselves in a global economy that has coupled 19thcentury capitalist values with the 21st century trend of draw-ing everyone into the path of capital.

In addition, globalization is both a political project and autopian vision forged by American elites since World War II.Harvey prefers substituting the term globalization withuneven development, because this allows a revitalized social-ist avant-garde to seek uneven conditions of opportunity forpolitical organizing and action. Socialists could then con-centrate on various worldwide anti-capitalist movements, andimplement Marxian traditions to uncover commonalitieswithin worldwide multiplicities and differences.

To accomplish this task, Harvey cautions us that we mustfocus on interactions and relations between actors and agentsacross and within scales. In this way, socialism could thenconnect issues that appear to be unrelated (e.g., AIDS, theenvironment, etc.), and ascertain class issues within anti-cap-italist concerns. To fully execute this project, Marxian con-cepts that are conducive to forging alternative visions shouldbe preserved, while lesser Marxian constructs must be aban-doned. For example, by focusing on multiple scales, social-ism would no longer be concerned with the unsuccessful cre-ation of a unified, homogenous socialist person. Instead,human rights could be reformulated using the more suitableMarxian idea of species-being.

At the microspatial level, Harvey implements a dialecti-cal approach to the body. The body is not a privileged site foremancipation, but is a relational entity, that is created,defined, sustained, and dissolved in space and time. In addi-tion, spatiotemporality defined at the global level intersectswith bodies that function at the micro level. As such, bodiesactively create alternative systems, and act to connect eman-cipatory politics. Capitalists promote false consciousness byperpetuating the belief that there is no alternative to the free

market, thus censoring contradictory belief systems. It istherefore imperative that we view the body as embeddedwithin these various socio-ecological processes, and bodypolitics must focus on escaping a capitalism that coerces andconstrains the actor.

By way of slowly assembling his argument for dialecti-cal utopianism, Harvey casts a critical eye at past utopiansolutions, illustrating their tendency to deteriorate intoauthoritarianism and totalitarianism. Harvey is also dis-paraging of degenerate utopias (e.g., Disneyland, shoppingmalls) that perpetuate consumer culture over more productivesocial critique. But more cogent to his thesis, he advancesAdam Smith’s capitalism as a utopia whereby human desireand needs can be harnessed by the hidden hand of the market.This utopian vision does not spontaneously occur, but isauthorized by the state and all of its institutions. Throughtime, the free market has become reified, and we mustacknowledge that we have both created and legitimized it,and we can then devise a more egalitarian, alternative vision.

As a solution, Harvey calls for constructing an explicit-ly spaciotemporal utopianism that uses the free market as astarting point for alternative visions. Harvey sees dialecticalutopianism as rooted in our present, while simultaneouslypointing toward different paths for human uneven geograph-ical developments. He stresses the importance of a collectivewillingness to transcend the socio-ecological forms imposedby uncontrolled capital accumulation, class privilege, andinequalities of political-economic power, through humanimagination.

Harvey argues that despite their oppression, actors areendowed with imagination. This is the same imagination thatis employed today in the perpetuation of capital, and it mustbe harnessed and used differently through dialectical andintellectual inquiry. It is here that we use our species-being,by working out our responsibilities to ourselves, each other,and nature. These alternatives entail discursive regimes, sys-tems of knowledge, and ways of thinking that combine todefine novel types of imagery and modes of action.

In addition, we are all engaged in the web of life.Harvey prefers this metaphor to the more traditional conceptof linearity. This allows for our embeddedness in an on-going dialectical process whereby individuals and collectivi-ties affect the world through their actions. This metaphor isa sensitizing concept allowing us to better understand theconsequences of our actions, various unanticipated conse-quences, and self-and socially created barriers.

Harvey calls for an insurgent politics that occurs withinvarious theaters. These theaters involve thoughts and prac-tices at various levels of analysis, whereby advances in onetheater must be accomplished in remaining theaters — other-wise any advances will degenerate. No one theater is privi-



leged over any other, although some of us may be moreexpert in any given theater. Therefore, there must be collab-orative and coordinating actions in all theaters.

David Harvey challenges us as global citizens to be asfearless and brazen as capitalists have been. We cannot pas-sively accept our current social problems, but must be willingto advance into the unknown, forging new directions andspaces. By way of illustration, Harvey paints his vision ofwhat the new future might bring. Harvey’s intention is not toconvince us to reproduce his vision, but merely to demon-strate conceivable alternatives. In fact, what emerges is a cul-mination of options, choices, and human potential.

This is an important book and should be of interest to allhuman ecologists. It is one of those rare academic contribu-tions that is both creative and optimistic, in a time of over-whelming postmodern cynicism. Reading Spaces of Hopereminded me of the promise held by the social sciences; apromise that we often too readily dismiss.

Briefly Noted

Edited and Compiled by William S. AbruzziDepartment of Sociology and AnthropologyMuhlenberg CollegeAllentown, PA 18104

River of Lakes, A Journey on Florida’s St. Johns Riverby Bill BellevilleUniversity of Georgia Press: Athens, GA, 2000ISBN 0-8203-2156-7 (paper)

First explored by naturalist William Bartram in the1760’s, the St. Johns River stretches 310 miles alongFlorida’s east coast, making it the longest river in the state.The first “highway” through the once wild interior of Florida,the St. Johns may appear ordinary, but within its banks aresome of the most fascinating natural phenomena and historicmysteries in the state. The river, no longer the commercialresource it once was, is now largely ignored by Florida’s res-idents and visitors alike.

In the first contemporary book about this AmericanHeritage River, Bill Belleville describes his journey down thelength of the St. Johns, kayaking, boating, hiking its river-banks, diving its spring, and exploring its underwater caves.He rediscovers the natural Florida and establishes his con-nection with a place once loved for its untamed beauty.Belleville involves scientists, environmentalists, fishermen,cave divers, and folk historians in his journey, soliciting theircompanionship and their expertise. River of Lakes weaves

together the biological, cultural, anthropological, archaeolog-ical, and ecological aspects of the St. Johns, capturing theessence of its remarkable history and intrinsic value as a nat-ural wonder.

Earth, Air, Fire and Water: Humanistic Studies of theEnvironmentedited by Jill Ker Conway, Kenneth Keniston, and Leo MarxUniversity of Massachusetts Press: Amherst, MA, 1999ISBN I-55849-220-8 (cloth); ISBN I-55849-221-6 (paper)

Written in a clear, accessible style with a general audi-ence in mind, the essays in this volume offer fresh approach-es to thinking about environmental issues.

When we consider the forms of environmental declinemost urgently in need of attention-eroding soils, shrinkingforests, expanding deserts, acid rain, ozone depletion, air pol-lution, poisoned water supplies, the loss of biological diver-sity — it may seem logical that scientists should be the peo-ple mobilized to tackle these problems. Yet to devise effec-tive solutions for today’s environmental threats, we must sit-uate them within their larger historical, societal, and culturalsettings. Amelioration requires not just scientific knowledgebut also changes based on law and public policy, on institu-tional structures and practices, on habits of consumption, andon countless other facets of daily life.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water seeks to redirect our thinkingabout environmental issues by locating them in the behaviorof human beings — in the institutions, beliefs, and practicesthat mediate between people and that obscure the beautifulnonhuman world we refer to as “nature.” The book openswith a section on the elements and the ways humans haveunderstood them in the past. There follows a section devot-ed to social institutions and the ways in which we can learnfrom current and past efforts to study the interaction betweenpeople and nature. The concluding section analyzes the cul-ture of modernity and how the human imagination haschanged in response to the arrival of modern technology.

Saving the Gray Whale: People, Politics, andConservation in Baja, Californiaby Serge DedinaThe University of Arizona Press: Tucson, AZ, 2000 ISBN 0-8165-1845-9 (cloth); ISBN 0-8165-1846-7 (paper)

The center of heated controversy and the darling of eco-tourists, gray whales migrate yearly along the coastline fromAlaska to Baja, California. At one of the southern points intheir route, the San Ignacio Lagoon, the place where the





whales mate, where mothers and their young seem at play,and where the best whale-watching in the world takes place,a saltworks may be built by Mitsubishi and the government ofMexico. The future of the whales may be in jeopardy.

This corporate move is so controversial that it hasbrought together celebrities like Pierce Brosnan, activists likeRobert Kennedy, Jr., and scientists like Stephen J. Gould, inprotest. Now, like-minded money managers are boycottinginvestments in Mitsubishi in an attempt to force the companyto reverse its plans.

Saving the Gray Whale discusses the international poli-tics of gray whale conservation as well as the local angle. Ageographer who has spent twenty years exploring the back-roads and surfing the coastline of Baja, California, and wholived in a trailer on the San Ignacio Lagoon, Dedina inter-viewed fishermen, tour operators, and politicians to uncoverbehind-the-scenes information about the struggle to protectthe gray whale.

Nature and Culture in the Andesby Daniel W. GadeUniversity of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI, 1999ISBN 0-299-16120-X (cloth); ISBN 0-299-16124-2 (paper)

Nature and Culture in the Andes reveals the intimate andunexpected relationships of plants, animals, and people inwestern South America. Throughout his quest to understandthis geographically diverse region, Daniel Gade integrates theimagination of an expert geographer with the research skillsof a natural and cultural historian. He presents a holisticvision of the Andes, and of the world, that broadens the per-spective achieved solely by objective scientific methods ofinquiry.

In a series of essays that illustrate the convergence ofnature and culture, Gade demonstrates how traditional scien-tific preconceptions have hindered critical thinking. He sug-gests looking beyond the obvious to see the true complexityof ecological relationships. He shows, for example, thathighland Incas, who were thought to be incapable of func-tioning in the jungle, have in fact cultivated coca in warmforested valleys for generations; that agriculture and humanactivity, as well as climate, have contributed to the absence oftrees in the Andes; and that llamas and alpacas are not — aspopular knowledge has long maintained — sources of milkfor Andean people.

Environmental Crime: The Criminal Justice System’sRole in Protecting the Environmentby Yingyi Situ and David EmmonsSage Publications, 2000ISBN 0-7619-0036-5 (cloth); ISBN 0-7619-0037-2 (paper)

We and our environment are at risk. Air, water, and soilpollution; hazardous waste; global warming; acid rain; andreduction of the ozone layer threaten the natural environmentand endanger people’s health. Within the last decade, envi-ronmental violations have been defined as crimes with viola-tors viewed and prosecuted as criminals who face criminalsanctions if convicted. This accessibly written book exam-ines the accelerating criminalization of environmentalwrongdoing.

Designed as a textbook for environmental crime andenvironmental law courses at the undergraduate or beginninggraduate levels, Environmental Crime is comprehensive, log-ically organized, and highly accessible. It explores thenature, causes, investigation, prosecution, and prevention ofenvironmental crime. Special emphasis is placed on thehuman, economic, social, and psychological impacts of envi-ronmental crime by corporations; criminal organizations; thegovernment; and individuals. Examples throughout the bookcite issues relevant not only to North America but the world.A final chapter is devoted to global environmental law, and areview of promising approaches used by other nations infighting environmental crime.

Information For Contributors To Human Ecology Review

Human Ecology Review is a semiannual journal thatpublishes peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research on allaspects of human-environment interactions (Researchin Human Ecology).Human Ecology Review is indexed orabstracted in Environment Abstracts, EnvironmentalKnowledgebase,Environmental Periodicals Bibliography,Linguistic and Language Behavior Abstracts, SocialPlanning and Policy Abstracts, and SociologicalAbstracts. The journal also publishes essays, discussionpapers, dialogue, and commentary on special topicsrelevant to human ecology (Human Ecology Forum),book reviews (Contemporary Human Ecology), and let-ters, announcements, and other items of interest(Human Ecology Bulletin). See the inside front cover forsubmission information to the Forum, Contemporary,and Bulletin sections.

Submission GuidelinesFour copies of the manuscript must be submitted forreview. Manuscripts should be typed (in English), double-spaced on one side of 81/2” x 11” white paper, using atleast 1” margins. All manuscripts receive double-blindpeer review. The Editor will make the final decisionwhether to accept, not accept, or request revision ofthe paper. Manuscripts will be reviewed with the clearunderstanding that the paper has not been previouslypublished and is not under consideration for publicationelsewhere. Any figure, table, or more than 50 runningwords of text from previously published material must beaccompanied in the final submission for publication bya written permission to publish by the copyright holder.Once the manuscript has been accepted for publica-tion in Human Ecology Review, a copyright form will besent to the corresponding author as the acting agent forany coauthors. The author must provide three copies ofthe accepted manuscript and a copy of the documenton a 3-1/2” pc-compatible disk. Page proofs will be sentto the corresponding author.

Manuscript OrganizationTitle page containing the title of the manuscript,authors’ names, affiliations, and mailing addresses;Abstract (150 words or less with 3 to 5 key words); text(free of any information that could identify the author);

Endnotes; Acknowledgments; References; Tables andFigures. The entire manuscript should be free of anyunderlining or boldface type; use italics only for empha-sis and in references (see below). Headings should becentered with initial capitalization only, subheadingsshould be flush left.

Tables and FiguresTables should be clear and concise, and should be ableto “stand alone” i.e., complete headings and footnotesshould be used to clarify entries. Figures should be ofprofessional quality and ready for publication. Figuresthat are not available on disk will be scanned electron-ically for final production. To have clear, precise repro-duction, all figures should be original proofs.Photographs must be glossy prints. All tables and figuresshould be referred to in the text and notation should bemade in the manuscript indicating approximatelywhere each should be placed.

ReferencesCitation of references in the text should follow this for-mat: Henry (1998, 42) or (Henry and Wright 1997) or(Henry et al. 1996, 22-24) or (Henry 1995, 1998; Wright1994). The list of references should be arranged alpha-betically by author. All authors of a work must be listed.

Sample References

Schoenfeld, A. C., R. F. Meier and R. J. Griffin. 1979.Constructing a social problem: The press and the envi-ronment. Social Problems 27, 38-61.

Cohen, J. 1995. How Many People Can the EarthSupport? New York: W. W. North.

Altman, I. and S. Low (eds.). 1992. Place Attachment.New York: Plenum.

Varner, G. 1995. Can animal rights activists be environ-mentalists? In C. Pierce and D. VanDeVeer (eds.),People, Penguins, and Plastic Trees, 2nd Edition, 254-273.Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Send manuscript submissions to:Dr. Linda Kalof, Editor, Human Ecology Review

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason UniversityFairfax, VA 22030 USA

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