Green imperialism (also called eco-imperialism, eco-colonialism, or environmental imperialism) is a derogatory epithet alluding to what is perceived as a Western strategy to influence the internal affairs of mostly

developing nation A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...

s in the name of

environmentalism Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecolog ...

Etymology

The skeptical perception of the Brundtland report by the

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

elites was summarized as ''green imperialism'' by Helge Ole Bergesen in 1988. In 1999,

Deepak Lal Deepak Kumar Lal (1940 – 30 April 2020) was an Indian-born British liberal economist, author, professor and consultant.http://www.econ.ucla.edu/Lal/cv2004.pdf Best known for his 1983 book, The Poverty of “Development Economics", Lal was ...

used the term with the same meaning in his book ''Green Imperialism: A Prescription for Misery and War in the World's Poorest Countries''. Nonetheless, the same term is used differently in

Richard Grove Richard Hugh Grove (21 July 1955 – 25 June 2020) was a British historian, environmental activist, and one of the contemporary founders of environmental history as an academic field. His prizewinning book, ''Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansi ...

's 1995 book ''Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600–1860''. In Grove's book, it means the impact of

utopian A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', which describes a fictional island soci ...

tropical islands on European data-driven scientists resulting in early environmentalism. The first mentions of the term ''environmental colonialism'' or ''eco-colonialism'' appeared in connection with debt-for-nature swaps since 1989. It was feared that the however well-intentioned environmental protection programs could be perceived as meddlesome and imperialistic. The establishment of

national parks A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

in Africa has in some cases led to the impoverishment and displacement of local populations. ''Eco-imperialism'' (or ''ecoimperialism'') was originally an abbreviation for ecological imperialism, a concept laid out by

Alfred Crosby Alfred Worcester Crosby Jr. (January 15, 1931 – March 14, 2018) was a professor of History, Geography, and American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and University of Helsinki. He was the author of books including '' The Columbian ...

in his book of the same name, but changed its meaning after the publication of Paul Driessen's ''Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death'' in 2003. Crosby's eco-imperialism is interference with a degrading effect on the environment of targeted countries, while Driessen's eco-imperialism is interference with a degrading effect on the economy in the name of environmental improvement.

Uses of the term

During the Battle of Seattle in 1999, media presented environmentalism as a new form of imperialism. The rich, developed countries impose their environmental preferences and priorities on the developing countries. Several European governments announced boycotts of Malaysian timber due to unsustainable

deforestation in Malaysia Deforestation in Malaysia is a major environmental issue in the country. British colonial deforestation efforts began in 1880 and were rapidly driven by commercial rubber and palm oil cultivation. Between 1990 and 2010, Malaysia lost an es ...

as in a publication by

Mahathir Mohamad Mahathir bin Mohamad (; ; born 10 July 1925) is a Malaysian politician, author and doctor who was respectively the fourth and seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia, prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003 and from 2018 to 2020. He was the ...

in 1999. Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed, opposed the boycotts, arguing that "we are not exploiting the forests for no good reason. We need money. We have to export wood because we need the foreign exchange without which we cannot buy what we want".

Federal Land Development Authority The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda; , LKTP) is a Malaysian government agency that was founded to handle the resettlement of rural poor into newly developed areas (''colonies'', ''settlements'' or ''schemes'') and to organize smallho ...

(FELDA) accused the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

of "economic colonisation" for banning palm oil in biofuels by 2020, in order to halt deforestation. A representative of FELDA said: "It's the same colonial attitudes, the white man imposing their rule on us from afar." In 2022, Malaysia threatened to stop the export of palm oil to EU as response to new regulations on deforestation. In 2009, Germany called French proposal of

carbon tariff A carbon tariff or carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) is an eco-tariff on embedded carbon. In 2024 the United States said it is not a carbon tax, but the World Trade Organization has not come to a conclusion. One aim to prevent carbon leakage ...

s as eco-imperialism. Back then, greenhouse tariffs met strong opposition from developing countries such as India and China, since these tariffs would impact their exports. The biofuel transnational meta-standard regulation of the

promotes certain sustainable fuels. However, this regulation extends beyond EU's jurisdistion and raises the issue of eco-imperialism. In 2014, Joji Morishita, a Japanese commissioner, expressed his concerns about calls of sustainable whaling from the

International Whaling Commission The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation ...

by the words "The whaling issue is seen as a symbol of a larger issue sometimes in Japan... You might have heard the word 'eco-imperialism'". The approval of the World Bank loan of $3.05bn (£2.4bn loan) for 4,764 MW

Medupi Power Station Medupi Power Station is a dry-cooled coal-fired power station built by Eskom near Lephalale in Limpopo province, South Africa. The station consists of 6 generating units with a nameplate capacity of 764 MW each bringing the total installed capacit ...

drew criticism for supporting increased global emissions of

greenhouse gas Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...

es. If the coal plant was not built, there would have been significant limitations placed on industrial development in the country. US president's

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

's ''"Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad"'' is described by '' Asian Times'' as green imperialism and a hidden

protectionist Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...

policy, which should protect American jobs from competition by "cheap carbon-dirty goods".

Relation to neoliberalism

Eco-imperialism is sometimes described as a combination of global environmental and broad

neoliberal Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...

agendas. Eco-imperialism is perceived to result in a policy of

commodification Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things (objects, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals) into commodities, or objects for sale.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trade Stati ...

of all resources of earth. This tendency of

commodification of nature The commodification of nature is an area of research within critical environmental studies that is concerned with the ways in which natural entities and processes are made exchangeable through the market, and the implications thereof. Drawing upon ...

for environmental goals is also known as ''"selling nature to save it"'' or green grabbing. Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt mentions

Ouarzazate Solar Power Station Ouarzazate Solar Power Station (OSPS), also called Noor Power Station (نور, Arabic for light) is a solar power complex and auxiliary diesel fuel system located in the Drâa-Tafilalet region in Morocco, from Ouarzazate town, in Ghessat rural ...

as an example of such green grabbing, which was built without informing surrounding communities on

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

land and will export some of the energy to Europe.

Political debates and surveys

Critical voices depreciate environmentalism as an excuse for hindering economic development of

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

. Critics see alternative energy sources as far from realistic, and

fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geolog ...

s as the key to lifting entire populations out of poverty. Developing nations, led by Brazil, India and Singapore, opposed entangling global trade with pollution controls in 1994, calling them hidden protectionism, which will keep jobs in the developed countries and deprive poor nations of their competitive advantages. The agenda of environmentalist NGOs is called neo-colonialism and eco-imperialism in 2022 by Japan, Peru, South Africa, Kenya and Bolivia. Eco-imperialism functions as a derogatory epithet. According to Anil Agarwal, a 1990 study by the

World Resources Institute The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth. Subsequent presidents include Jonathan Lash (1993– ...

allocated responsibility for global warming to developing countries. Agarwal considered this study to be flawed, politically motivated, and unjust, and saw it more as exacerbating the North–South divide. In his 1991 paper, he called this an example of environmental colonialism and blamed U.S.

overconsumption Overconsumption describes a situation where consumers overuse their available goods and services to where they can't, or don't want to, replenish or reuse them. In microeconomics, this is the point where the marginal cost of a consumer is greater ...

for global warming. However, a 1990s worldwide survey ''"Bicycles, Yes — Cheap Shoes, No"'' by ''WorldPaper'' showed that 66% of the participants did not agree to perceive debt-for-nature swaps as eco-colonialism. Environmental colonialism became a subject in the book '' Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All'' by

Michael Shellenberger Michael D. Shellenberger (born June 16, 1971) is an American author and journalist. He is the first endowed professor at the University of Austin, serving as CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech. Considered a prominent heterodox t ...

. In ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'', John Tierney, a long-standing critic of environmentalism, wrote that "Shellenberger makes a persuasive case, lucidly blending research data and policy analysis with a history of the green movement and vignettes of people in poor countries suffering the consequences of 'environmental colonialism.'"

References

External links