EarthDay: The link between colonialism and over-exploitation of natural resources
We are currently experiencing the worst environmental crisis in human history, including a “biological annihilation” of wildlife and dire risks for the future of human civilization.
To understand our current ecological catastrophe, described as “a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040,” we need to look at the role of colonialism at its roots. Exploitative colonial policies in Singapore and the peninsula limited the economic options of poor Malays, Indians and Chinese. These workers were increasingly forced to clear cut vast swathes of rainforest to literally carve out a living for themselves at the expense of local ecosystems.
The integration of regions north of the Irrawaddy River basin into the Burmese colonial state drastically increased economic integration between upland areas rich in natural resources and larger flows of European and Chinese capital. From 1867 to 1871, exploratory digging along the Vaal, Harts and Orange rivers in South Africa prompted a large-scale diamond rush that saw a massive influx of miners and speculators pour into the region in search of riches. By 1888, the diamond industry in South Africa had transformed into a monopoly, with De Beers Consolidated Minesbecoming the sole producer.
Nearby Liberia was never formally colonized and was established as a homeland for freed African-American slaves. But American slaveholders and politicians saw the republic primarily as a solution to limit the “corrupting influence” of freed slaves on American society.
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