BY STEPHANIE LONG
The living standards of the industrialised Northern countries owe a great deal to the massive flow of natural resources and work (either as slave or underpaid labour) from the countries which make up the Third World, the developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The recompense paid by Northern countries to Southern countries has never taken into account the social and environmental damage caused by this exploitation. In effect, the impoverished countries of the South have subsidised and are continuing to subsidise the rich countries of the North through the provision of raw materials, commodities and labour.
The current neo-liberalist economic system further entrenches this through the economic "development" mechanisms of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
These international financial institutions dictate global economic policies that maintain economic and political dominance of the developed world, through the debt and international trade mechanisms which have become better understood through the campaign to cancel external debt advocated by Jubilee and others.
The neo-liberalist paradigm interprets the social and environmental effects of gross exploitation of the South as economic opportunity rather than as problems that need to be solved.
Southern nations are told that their comparative advantage is cheap labour, materials and minimal environmental regulations, which will boost their economies provided they open domestic markets for international penetration (ie. allow foreign countries to exploit materials and labour in a manner that wouldn't be acceptable in their own countries).
Economic methods of international control are a contemporary colonisation by Western capitalist culture that maintains its power through free trade markets extending around the world. They have become the dominant means of relationship between nations and economies.
The concept of "ecological debt" is a radical critique of this economic trend, as it provides a rights-based ideology to international relations and holds the industrialised world accountable for the ecological and social damage they have caused world-wide.
It critiques the continuation of industrialised socio-cultural and economic lifestyles as gross over-consumption at the expense of the majority of the world's people and of biodiversity.
The concept of "ecological debt" also debunks myths of the supremacy of contemporary Western neo-liberal economics, through consistently raising awareness and calculating the historical debt of exploitation that has culminated through the periods of conquest, imperialism and colonisation to contemporary international aid.
Ecological debt refers to "the cumulative responsibility of industrialised countries for the gradual destruction of the planet caused by their production and consumption patterns".
Natural wealth extracted by the North at the expense of Southern people has contaminated their natural heritage and sources of sustenance. Beyond this basic stance the ecological debt campaign is complex and intricate - the details of debt, relationships of exploitation and quantifying repayment of debt that individual nations of the North owe the nations of the South is carefully considered.
Friends of the Earth Australia supports the position of the Southern Ecological Creditors Alliance.
Over the past few years, the problem of Third World external debt has increasingly been seen as one of the main issues to be solved, due to its grave economic and social impacts. Impacts which have been aggravated due to the consequences of natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch and el Nino.
In the South various national, regional and international movements have been initiated in order to demand the cancellation of Third World external debts and which consider them and their impacts as inhumane, illegitimate and immoral - not simply because they have already been paid in financial terms but because of the latent and existing degradation and adverse impacts of the debt itself.
The Third World's external debt has been paid. According to the UN, in the 12 years from 1980 to 1992, the Third World countries have repaid $1.662 trillion, an amount three times more than its debt in 1980 ($567 billion dollars).
The external debt has produced devastating economic, social and environmental effects because of the structural adjustment programs implemented in Third World countries for the purposes of external debt payments. Thanks to these and other initiatives, the need for external debt cancellation is on the agenda of most international and national forums in both Northern and Southern countries.
The principal arguments in favour of the notion of the "ecological debt" include acknowledging:
- ecologically unequal terms of trade;
- disproportionate use of environmental services by the North;
- environmental, social and cultural destruction as a result of promoting natural resource extraction and export crops in order to pay external debt interest; and
- the flow of wealth to the North, from conquest until the present.
We believe that this is the best moment to present and promote the ecological debt argument and claim for damages, not just because of its relationship to the external debt, but for the irreversible damage to natural resources and on sustainable societies.
To date, Friends of the Earth Australia has:
- promoted discussion of the ecological debt through the distribution of leaflets, briefing papers, and newsletter articles;
- formed alliances with faith-based organisations such as Jubilee;
- made a commitment to integrate the concepts from the ecological debt campaign into our campaigns, particularly into our national and international campaign work; and
- maintained an ecological debt section on its web site
The particular elements of ecological debt that have been focused on through FoE Australia literature include:
- colonisation and imperialistic agricultural practices and neoliberal economic and cultural imperialism, (for example, by opposing the dominance of economic agendas over environmental and social justice issues during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, discussions on the General Agreement on Trade in Services and within the WTO);
- globalisation of Western-dominated trade systems, agricultural practices, and ownership of knowledge that oppressed traditional knowledge-bases and practices; and
l <~>exploitation of natural resources, and consumption and production patterns of the North that are beyond the earth's ecological limits.
Issues which have been identified by Friends of the Earth Australia as needing to be further explored include:
- how to acknowledge the exploitation and struggle of indigenous people of Australia (as a "Northern" country) within the global context of ecological debt campaign. What is the reality of ecological debt for indigenous people and other people in Australia who currently live in Third World conditions? How can we calculate an internal debt as a colonised nation?;
- how to deal with Australia's unusual position in global politics: it is politically part of the North, and has amongst the highest per capita consumption rates on the planet, yet is largely based on an export economy. Compared with Western European and North American economies, Australia appropriates far less environmental space from the global South. A considerable amount of research is required to develop a clear picture of resource flows between Australia and the Asia-Pacific region before a clear understanding can be developed about the nature of Australia's ecological debt;
- how to further increase awareness of the ecological debt amongst Australian environmental non-government organisations, political and economic institutions and the general public; and
- how to promote pro-active support of ecological debt in the Friends of the Earth International arena.
[Stephanie Long is a member of Friends of the Earth Australia. This is an abridged version of a paper presented to Friends of the Earth International's conference, "Globalisation, Ecological Debt, Climate Change and Sustainability: A South-South Conference", held in Benin.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 28, 2001.
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