Natural Resources, Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Latin America

Exploring the Boundaries of Environmental and State-Corporate Crime in Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico

Marcela Torres Wong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351210225
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Energy Industry
• Index: Business

In 1989, the International Labor Organization stated that all indigenous peoples living in the postcolonial world were entitled to the right to prior consultation, over activities that could potentially impact their territories and traditional livelihoods. However, in many cases the economic importance of industries such as mining and oil condition the way that governments implement the right to prior consultation.

This book explores extractive conflicts between indigenous populations, the government and oil and mining companies in Latin America, namely Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. Building on two years of research and drawing on the state-corporate and environmental crime literatures, this book examines the legal, extralegal, illegal as well as political strategies used by the state and extractive companies to avoid undesired results produced by the legalization of the right to prior consultation. It examines the ways in which prior consultation is utilized by powerful indigenous actors to negotiate economic resources with the state and extractive companies, while also showing the ways in which weaker indigenous groups are incapable of engaging in prior consultations in a meaningful way and are therefore left at the mercy of negative ecological impacts. It demonstrates how social mobilization—not prior consultation—is the most effective strategy in preventing extraction from moving forward within ecologically fragile indigenous territories.

Chapter 1

What do indigenous people want?

Introduction

Indigenous movements in the developing world are typically framed as struggles against the dispossession of their natural resources (Harvey 2003; Bebbington et al. 2008; Bebbington and Bury 2009; Perreault 2014). As argued by Ebus and Kuijpers (2015), by cutting off local communities’ access to their lands and water sources, multinational corporations have ensured that violence ensues. Over the last two decades, the alliances between indigenous rights movements and environmentalists have provided greater leverage to indigenous communities over the extractive industry (Doyle and Whitmore 2014). With resources from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), numerous indigenous groups have strengthened their political organizations while becoming one of the most visible public faces of the global environmentalism.

This chapter shows, however, that the convergence of indigenous people’s goals and environmentalists’ agendas is not necessarily the best window to understanding extractive conflicts. Systematic indigenous approval of mining and hydrocarbon projects resulting from prior consultation procedures unveils the gap between indigenous political discourse and practice. With the aim of beginning to unpack this contradiction, this chapter argues that indigenous peoples’ engagement in conflicts is not always driven by the desire to prohibit extraction on their territories. In most cases, indigenous communities use environmental protest as a means to obtain a more even distribution of extractive revenues.

Drawing from fieldwork in Bolivia, Peru and Mexico, the following sections offer analytical tools for distinguishing between pro-extractivist indigenous and anti-extractivist indigenous. Likewise, the chapter examines the underlying conditions that make both types of indigenous groups politically stronger vis-à-vis the state and extractive companies. Finally, the chapter dwells upon the urgency of improving indigenous peoples living conditions as a key element for safeguarding their territories from potentially destructive industries.

Latin America’s impoverished indigenous peoples

In the international arena, various norms including ILO Convention 169 (1989) and the United Nation Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) recognize indigenous people’s rights to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, economic and cultural institutions. In light with these norms, states have the obligation to guarantee their indigenous citizens the integrity of their territories and natural environments, as well as the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms recognized in international human rights law (Article 1° United Nation Declaration of the Right of Indigenous Peoples 2007). Yet in spite of extant legislation, everyday indigenous communities all over the world face dispossession of land, impacts of large-scale development projects, forced relocation and a host of other abuses (United Nations Department of Public Information 2010).

There are approximately 370 million indigenous peoples worldwide, making up 5 percent of the global population; however, they also account for about 15 percent of the world’s extreme poor (United Nations Department of Public Information 2010). In Latin America, the indigenous population number 45 million living across the 20 countries that comprise the region. There are over 522 different ethnic groups from the Patagonia to northern Mexico, many of which have inhabited their territories since precolonial times (UNICEF 2009). Nevertheless, a high correlation persists between poverty and being member of an indigenous group. The 2013 report elaborated by the United Nation Development Programme on political participation of indigenous peoples in Latin America shows that indigenous peoples own little, often unproductive land and live below the poverty line (UNDP 2013).

Governments’ failure to improve indigenous populations’ living conditions has been deepened by the increment in the number of extractive projects in areas inhabited by indigenous communities. Resource extraction remains one of the main causes of dispossession from indigenous agricultural lands and water sources not only in Latin America but also in Canada, Australia and Africa (Carrington et al. 2015). Due to historical and ongoing overrun of extractive companies and other colonizers, indigenous territories continue to be reduced causing negative impacts on these groups’ ancestral relationship with their lands and natural resources (Chirif 2015). The expansion of extractive activities jeopardizes the survival of indigenous cultures either by forcing these groups to migrate due to environmental degradation or by transforming indigenous men and women into low-skilled wage workers (Brisman et al. 2015:18). In the words of the former special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, the extractive industry might as well be the most pervasive source of the challenges to the full exercise of indigenous human rights (Doyle and Whitmore 2014:xiv).

Pro-extractivist indigenous vs anti-extractivist indigenous

The negative impacts on indigenous people’s health, lands, water and sacred places have become more visible over the last few decades. Furthermore, the economic benefits produced by the extractive industry have not translated into a significant improvement in indigenous people’s quality of life (Arellano-Yanguas 2011). On the contrary, these industries represent a major threat to the natural resources upon which many indigenous communities depend to achieve long-term survival (Mrema et al. 2009, cited by Milburn 2015:59).

However, mining and hydrocarbon projects might also represent the most viable way for numerous indigenous communities living in extreme poverty conditions to access economic resources. Some scholars argue that no real ecologists would exist if multinational companies offered the communities legitimate development opportunities (Devlin and Yap 2008:20). Research on Bolivia’s hydrocarbon industry would seem to corroborate this argument. Evidence from this country demonstrates that many indigenous communities use prior consultation procedures to negotiate extractive resources with the state (see Chapter 3). This corroborates previous research showing that indigenous groups do not use consultations with the government to reject extraction (Pellegrini and Ribera 2012; Falleti and Riofrancos 2018).

Positions for and against extractive activities correspond to the different conditions existing in indigenous territories that lead them to mobilize. Social movements’ theorists conceptualize social struggles as responses to disruptive changes that either pose a new threat to some segment of the population or grant new opportunities to potential challengers (Tilly 1978; Tarrow 1998; McAdam 1999; Goldstone and Tilly 2001). Whether extractive industries pose an ecological threat or represent an economic opportunity depends on the socioeconomic reality the group faces at the time disruptive changes take place. Nevertheless, distinguishing indigenous communities mobilizing to achieve anti-extractivist goals from those seeking to obtain economic resources is not an easy task, as both groups frame their struggles using environmental discourses (Arellano Yanguas 2011; Arce 2014). The sections that follow emphasize the characteristics of local economies, market integration, dependence on natural resources and access to information as the main factors contributing to the formation of indigenous attitudes toward the extractive industry.

Pro-extractivist indigenous groups

The characteristics of indigenous communities vary from region to region. Furthermore, indigenous groups are not internally homogeneous. Research shows that disagreements between indigenous members usually deepen when they have to decide to allow or prohibit extractive industries within communal lands. Therefore, it is very likely that anti-extractivist and pro-extractivist stances coexist in one single locality. Whereas for some members, resource extraction represents a source of ecological destruction, for others, these activities represent a means to escape poverty (Roblero 2011; Hernández 2014). Despite this duality, previous studies demonstrate that pro-extractivist positions generally end up prevailing in most cases (Arellano-Yanguas 2011). This is consistent with the fact that a large part of Latin America’s indigenous population lack alternative development options that can surpass the incomes expected from giving up their lands for extractive operations.

As of today, subsistence agriculture, fishing and hunting do not generally provide sufficient resources to cover indigenous basic needs. In these cases, geographic isolation makes things worse for indigenous families. The lack of access to broader markets prevents these communities from trading their products, curtailing economic mobility. Extractive companies in these contexts are perceived as one of the few sources of economic expansion. Employees of such companies require provision of services such as lodging, food and entertainment. Increasing demands for these services create conditions for the emergence of new businesses near the places where employees live (Wise and Shtylla 2007:9). The expectations of greater economic growth prompt disadvantaged indigenous communities to accept extractive projects.

Chapter 3 presents several cases of pro-extractivist indigenous communities complying with resource extraction. Geographic disconnection and insufficient subsistence economies push Amazonian tribes from the Mosetén ethnic group in Bolivia, and from the Kukama Kukamiria and Capanahua ethnic groups in Peru to approve hydrocarbon operations in their lands, in the hopes of accessing to jobs and basic services. The chapter also shows that pro-extractivist indigenous groups are generally found in places where mining and hydrocarbon companies operate for long periods. Over time, the presence of extractive companies generates local economic dependence and discourages the emergence of alternative sources of income (MMSD 2002:276). Guaraní indigenous communities in Bolivia, for instance, have coexisted with the hydrocarbon industry for extended periods and systematically comply with gas extraction. Similarly, the Amazonian ethnic groups of Datem del Marañon, in Peru, accept the continuity of oil extraction, as hydrocarbons are the dominant industry in the area.

In addition, favorable attitudes toward extractive industries might be reinforced by episodes of nationalization of these industries, which have historically fostered far-reaching nationalist feelings among the population. In some countries, nationalist sentiment toward state-owned industries prevented the formation of opposition movements, even at the expense of the environment. In Bolivia for example, mining workers had a leading role in the Revolution of 1952 that then resulted in the nationalization of the mining industry (Grindle 2003). Enduring nationalist feelings discouraged the formation of anti-mining movements in the highlands of Oruro and Potosí despite extended ecological harms caused by the ongoing extraction of minerals (Perreault 2014). A similar scenario is observed in the hydrocarbon industry in Mexico, in which nationalist feelings toward state-owned oil companies, and strong economic ties between the state enterprise PEMEX and surrounding communities prevented the emergence of anti-oil movements (De la Fuente 2013; The Dialogue 2015).

Hence, indigenous communities lacking alternatives to the extractive industry, either because they lack local economies that are sufficient to guarantee adequate standard of living or because they are dependent on incomes from extractive companies, are likely to be pro-extractivist. For them, resource extraction does not represent a major threat to their living, as they have little to lose and potentially much to gain from relinquishing their land. In these cases, the enforcement of prior consultation procedures could serve as an innovative mechanism to negotiate extractive profits. Yet, as evidenced in Chapter 3, adequate provisions to prevent environmental harms to indigenous ecosystems are generally absent in these negotiations.

Anti-extractivist indigenous groups

Previous research shows that true anti-extractivist struggles led by indigenous peoples to protect the environment occur, but constitute a minority of cases of indigenous mobilization (Arellano Yanguas 2011; Arce 2014). Research confirms that barring economic depravity as the root cause for mobilization, there are communities that are skeptical of the environmental sustainability of extractive projects. Moreover, such communities do not believe that extractive industries are capable of improving current living conditions for people living close to extraction sites. Instead, indigenous peoples engaging in anti-extractivist mobilization are convinced that the damages caused by industrialized resource extraction would be greater than the benefits they could reap from it (Zavaleta 2014:6).

Generally, anti-extractivist protestors have viable economic systems in place that are threatened by extractive companies (Arellano-Yanguas 2011; Arce 2014). For instance, Arce finds that anti-mining struggles are likely to emerge and succeed in cases in which well-established, agricultural-based social organizations exist. Mineral extraction directly jeopardizes water sources needed for agricultural, as well as local control of lands (Arce 2014: 22). Following this argument, radical opposition to “big mining” projects (particularly to open pit mining) originates because opponents perceive that these projects threaten existing agricultural economies while lacking the capacity of generating comparable benefits.¹

This chapter adds to previous studies by arguing that agricultural economies must not only be present for anti-extractivist mobilization to emerge, but they must also represent viable economic systems for indigenous communities (in opposition to subsistence agriculture). This requires that agriculturally based economies exhibit specific characteristics. Mexican anthropologist Aracely Burguete argues that indigenous communities with access to external revenue sources are most likely to be defensive of their lands and natural resources. According to Burguete, communities with “mixed economies” have more to lose from harms to their environment than communities that only have subsistence economies like agriculture, f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figure and tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 What do indigenous people want?
• 2 Ecological defense or bargaining over indigenous lands?
• 3 Rights do not matter, political power does
• 4 There is nothing to consult here!
• 5 Prior consultation and the expansion of extractivism in Latin America
• 6 Conclusions
• Index