Over the past couple weeks, our class has been exploring how
conflict is related to the environment, and several theories used to explain
the root cause of conflicts. In this paper I will be looking specifically at
conflicts surrounding forest resources, both in the Amazon, from our class
readings, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). By looking at both
case studies, I will prove that environmental conflicts are rooted in scarcity
issues, but come to life through a lack of recognition of indigenous and
minority grievances. Continued lack of recognition runs the likely risk of
entrenching and increasing the civil unrest surrounding the scarce
resource.
The Kayapo have been living in the Amazon for thousands of
years, slowly accumulating shared knowledge of the rainforest and how to
subsist from it. They are a nomadic people, living in temporary settlements for
a few years until all natural resources are exhausted, then they move on. Yet,
because of land colonization by non-indigenous people, the Kayapo have been
forced into a sedentary lifestyle that basically transformed the once lively
population into peasants (WWF 2014). The establishment of non-indigenous
people, namely loggers and gold miners, not only caused the Kyapo and other
local people to lose control over their territory, but also destroyed their traditional
nomadic lifestyles. The land, a scarce resource, is still a contested resource
today; as indigenous people are reliant on the forest for survival, and are
pitted against the interests of loggers eager to extract valuable timber.
Although the Kyapo and other indigenous groups are receiving attention by
various activist groups, more than 1,000 environmental activists, religious
workers, organizers and rural workers have been murdered in the Amazon in the
last 20 years (New York Times 2011). Successful prosecutions of those who order
the killings are virtually nonexistent, proving both that competition over the
scarce forest resources is very real, and that cooperation with the indigenous
groups reliant on the forest is essentially absent. In order to properly cope
and deal with the violence, governments must cooperate with the indigenous.
While their claims to the land were never formally conceded, this does not
delegitimize their claim in any way.
The issue surrounding land claims in forest regions is
occurring similarly in the DRC. Vitshumbi is a fishing village located on the
southern shore of Lake Edward within Virunga National Park in the DRC. Africa’s
oldest national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site, Virunga is home to many
endangered and endemic species, and holds the largest intact forest of all of
Africa. Now that the country is reaching a relatively peaceful era, after two
decades of civil war, loggers are pouring in to the capital hoping to reinstate
their companies and profit from the regions’ rich forest resources. One London-based
company in particular, SOCO, is devoted to tapping into the supposed oil
reserves under Lake Edward (The Guardian 2014). This exploration has direct negative impacts
for the villagers of Vitshumbi. With little to no assistance from the weak
central government, the village relies entirely on the lake for sustenance. Villagers
and park wardens have taken to the streets to try and block SOCO from exploring
within the national park, an illegal activity to begin with. SOCO has allegedly
dealt with this complication by paying off the park wardens, promising them a
share of SOCO’s profits from the exploration. Armed groups are now getting
involved as well, promising to stifle village protests by any means for a share
of the profit (Global Witness 2014). This behavior unquestionably feeds into
continued conflict.
Rebel groups in the northeastern town of Beni, located right
outside of Virunga National Park, have carried out a series of seemingly
arbitrary killings and kidnapping against civilians, brutally murdering men,
women and children with machetes and axes. The attacks have left more than 100
casualties in the October alone, after villagers took to the street demanding
the government respond to the injustice occurring in the park (AlJazeera 2014).
In a country that is struggling to pull itself out of civil war, SOCO and other
invasive companies that come in and ignore the local population threaten the
vulnerable country’s newly reinstated peace. If the villager’s claims and
contestations were taken into account, the resulting conflict could have been
evaded.
Resource scarcity undoubtedly leads to competition over the
resource, yet this competition does not necessarily have to be violent. It
turns violent when a stakeholder’s claims remain unrecognized. In both cases,
in the Amazon and in DRC’s Virunga Park, the villagers stated their claims
through activist groups and protests, which led to violence by those seeking to
silence their voice. Granted, a government needs to be capable of responding to
villagers’ claims, which in some cases it is too fragile to do, but
disregarding and thereby discrediting indigenous grievances will more than
likely lead to conflict.
Works Cited:
Balint-Kurti, D. 2014. “Drillers in the mist’: How secret payments
and a climate of violence helped UK firm open African national park to oil” Global Witness.
Rudolf, John. 2011. “After Killings, Brazil Vows to Confront
Amazon Violence.” New York Times.
Vidal, J. 2014. “Soco Denies Paying for Congo DRC Trip to UN to Discuss
Virunga Oil Drilling.” The Guardian.
2014. “DR Congo town hit by
protestors over killings.” AlJazeera:
Africa.
2014. “About the Amazon People.” WWF.