Socio-environmental Conflicts Research Articles

The Role of Communication Media in Socio-Environmental Conflicts

In recent decades, certain environment-related issues have come into the public eye. This article aims to analyse socio-environmental conflicts from both a democratic and a communication policy perspective. Given that these socio-environmental conflicts are the response to public policies, this article seeks to study the role played by the media in shaping them. The study focuses on the Basque Country, where many socio-environmental conflicts arise due to the implementation of public environmental policies. The methodology includes quantitative analysis using the data obtained from conducting a press analysis, and a qualitative approach using information obtained from in-depth interviews and the analysis of documentation. The results suggest a communicational and democratic deficit in the socio-environmental conflicts analysed, since the media do not help to build public opinion in a dialogical and dialectical way. To address this, we need a more diverse field of communication beneficial for environmental issues, so that we can work on information, considering the perspectives of all actors and the main topics of discussion. Environmental issues should go beyond traditional representative policies, inviting a broader range of actors in debates.

Unjust Winds of Change: The Politics and Narratives of Wind Farms in the Brazilian Northeast

Renewable energy is recognized as a cornerstone in achieving sustainable development globally, evidenced by international standards such as the UN Agenda 2030 as well as in nations energy policies globally. One of the front runners of the energy transition globally is Brazil, where wind energy has expanded substantially since the early 2000’s. Currently, the state of Bahia in North-Eastern Brazil is seeing the fastest expansions, a state that is characterised by its many traditional and Indigenous communities. Although wind energy is known for its positive sustainability aspects, conflicting wind energy narratives and politics are abundant in this region. The fast expansion of wind energy projects has caused socio-environmental conflicts due to land related conflicts and expulsion of traditional communities for the creation of wind energy parks. In this study, we apply document analysis to critically explore the multiple narratives surrounding wind energy expansion in the state of Bahia. This study shows that different actors frame the matter differently, showcasing that civil society and local perspectives are made invisible in policy documents and decision-making processes. Our results suggest that the dominant narrative of wind power as the most sustainable energy option excludes the contrasting perspectives, perpetuating exclusion and marginalisation of local communities as well as the environment that are directly impacted by the expansion of wind energy projects.

The captivity of Land and Labor: Neoextractivist policy and planning in São Luís, Maranhão

After decades of repeated socio-environmental conflicts in the port region of São Luís, Maranhão, triggered by the appropriation of land from traditional communities, the State and capital have used planning for changes in land use and occupation, legitimizing the land expansion and unifying different business interests. Understanding the process as the result of neoextractivist strategies of the local economic enclave, this article analyzes the relations between port and municipal planning which, based on the developmentalist discourse, have incorporated the demands of real estate capital in a new movement of “accumulation by spoliation” for the submission of Land and Labor to the captivity of capitalist reproduction.

Mediation of Socioenvironmental Conflict in Macrodrainage Works: The Experience of the Municipal Government of Guarujá, São Paulo State, Brazil

Urban growth has been correlated with substantial changes in land use, triggering socio-environmental conflicts. In Brazil, the lack of a tradition in mediating socio-environmental conflicts is evident through numerous lawsuits that often take years to reach a resolution. This study emphasized the actions taken by the Municipal Government of Guarujá (PMG) in 2022 as a tool for resolving socio-environmental conflicts without resorting to litigation. The research focused on the specific case of a macro-drainage project in the Santo Antônio neighborhood, which involved the relocation of 29 families from their homes with equivalent compensation guided by a Terms of Conduct Adjustment (TAC). This qualitative study was grounded in document analysis, a systematic literature review, and interviews with stakeholders. The study aimed to analyze how mediation techniques could contribute to resolving socio-environmental conflicts between public infrastructure projects and the local population. The research findings indicated that the PMG's initiatives were essential in creating a mediation space where, through dialogue, officials involved in the relocation process addressed the families' concerns, even amending clauses within the Comparative Data Market Method for Urban Areas, used for compensation payments, in accordance with legal instruments. This initiative led all the families involved to adhere to the negotiated terms, avoiding litigation and facilitating the project's realization.

Business responsibility and government complicity in environmental conflicts: a quali-quantitative analysis of global patterns

ABSTRACT Our paper aims at widening political ecology research on business’ responsibility and public governance conditions in cases of violation of Environmental-related Human Rights (ERs), by adopting a quantitative perspective. We focused on a subset of socio-environmental conflicts (SECs) that directly connect with the violations of ERs. We propose a quali-quantitative analysis to explore the country distribution of the incidence of violations of ERs leading to SECs (VERCs) worldwide; the extent to which these can be associated with the involvement of business companies; and the general governance conditions spatially associated with the emergence of VERCs, regardless of the involvement of businesses. Through statistical regression analysis, we showed that the evidence of business’ implication in VERCs and of the lack of adequate public governance conditions suggest the need to complexify our perspective with a more nuanced understanding of the patterns of liability and complicity between diverse actors involved in SECs.

Ecosystems, watersheds and water rights in Cajamarca, Peru

In contested environments, the importance of water transcends its status as a mere resource to comprise the ecosystem and the watershed. Farmers and ronderos in Santa Cruz, Cajamarca, who face the brunt of deleterious environmental impacts from mining in their territories emphasize the relevance of ecosystems and watersheds for water provision. The interdependency of water and ecosystems is demonstrated through their local water rights. As water sources are threatened, the scope of local water rights is reconceptualized to guarantee water as both resource and nature. In analysing the transformation of water rights in the midst of socioenvironmental conflicts, the article shows how the residents of Santa Cruz take an unconventional approach assembling local understandings of water and global environmental discourses to protect the entirety of the environment where water flows.

Can grassroots movements in water conflicts drive socio-technical transitions in water management systems?

Water conflicts open windows of opportunity for grassroots movements to transform water systems. However, academic fields studying social movements in socio-environmental conflicts are not well equipped to deal with complexity, non-linear dynamics, and emergent properties. Therefore, these fields rarely engage with long-term complex social processes and dynamics leading to systemic socio-technical changes. Researching water conflicts driven by grassroots movements, we ask whether and how the latter can influence a socio-technical transition of a water management regime. Through an emblematic water conflict in Mexico, we analyse the grassroots movement's trajectory since the conflict´s inception by following the dynamic process of developing agency. Our findings show that throughout the conflict, the grassroots movement accumulated and mobilized diverse capitals to initiate water management strategies and practices that catalysed change in the water management regime by stalling the implementation of large infrastructures. Eventually, this led to the inception of a sustainable and just transition.

Avoiding ecosystem and social impacts of hydropower, wind, and solar in Southern Africa’s low-carbon electricity system

The scale at which low-carbon electricity will need to be deployed to meet economic growth, electrification, and climate goals in Africa is unprecedented, yet the potential land use and freshwater impacts from this massive build-out of energy infrastructure is poorly understood. In this study, we characterize low-impact onshore wind, solar photovoltaics, and hydropower potential in Southern Africa and identify the cost-optimal mix of electricity generation technologies under different sets of socio-environmental land use and freshwater constraints and carbon targets. We find substantial wind and solar potential after applying land use protections, but about 40% of planned or proposed hydropower projects face socio-environmental conflicts. Applying land and freshwater protections results in more wind, solar, and battery capacity and less hydropower capacity compared to scenarios without protections. While a carbon target favors hydropower, the amount of cost-competitively selected hydropower is at most 45% of planned or proposed hydropower capacity in any scenario—and is only 25% under socio-environmental protections. Achieving both carbon targets and socio-environmental protections results in system cost increases of 3-6%. In the absence of land and freshwater protections, environmental and social impacts from new hydropower development could be significant.

State intervention in socio-environmental conflicts in Peru

State intervention in socio-environmental conflicts in Peru

Sustainability of Informal Artisanal Mining in the Peruvian Andean Region

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the sustainability of informal artisanal mining in the Peruvian Andean area until the year 2022. The research is basic and non-experimental in design and ex post facto in scope. The sample consisted of crime prevention statistics on socio-environmental conflict from guardianship institutions and a television program on mining. Our research procedure focused on gathering secondary information for a documentary review analysis based on past proven and disseminated facts. Informal artisanal mining is strengthened in the Peruvian Andean area due to the following influencing factors: support represented as the social license granted by communal assemblies; the flexibility of governmental management in relaxing compliance related to formalization and preventive laws regarding environmental protection; the resistance to formalization and the 50% increase in socio-environmental conflict; and the 25% increase in production costs related agricultural activities, which promotes the displacement towards mining activities. The environmental sustainability consequences are as follows: limited reconversion of agricultural land-use change in one-third of the communal territories at the headwaters of the basin, which generates the displacement of environmentally friendly economic activity, and a parallel positive action is the impossibility of modification or intervention affecting water surfaces and wetlands due to communal agreements that mining companies must respect during operation.

Energy Security in Ecuador: An Analysis Considering the Interrelationships of the WEF Nexus

The objective of this research was to analyze energy security in Ecuador, which is interconnected with water and food security. As a methodology, 21 indicators grouped into the following dimensions were analyzed: availability, infrastructure, energy prices, efficiency, social impact, environment and governance. For each indicator, a cross-sectional analysis was carried out with the countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, along with a longitudinal analysis from 2011 to 2021. The main contribution of this study is the characterization of the Ecuadorian energy system as available, accessible, affordable and renewable in an electrical matrix but inefficient and heavily dependent on fiscal resources. The factors that may affect Ecuador’s energy security were determined to be the risk of a reduction in income due to it becoming a net importer of energy, climate change, socio-environmental conflicts, poor diversification, energy subsidies and weak governance. A policy is proposed aimed at decoupling development from fossil fuels, with a systemic vision considering the complexity of interactions with other economic sectors, such as water and food, among others.

Grassroots leadership and negotiation style: The quest for justice in the movie Erin Brockovich

The power gaps nested in the political ecology of socioenvironmental conflicts often impose critical impasses on the attainment of justice. Therefore, negotiation is accepted as an alternate tool for environmental justice, especially to avoid the prolonged sufferings linked to uneven power relations between conflicting parties, unpredictable outcomes, mounting expenses and the time taken to get a decision through formal judicial trials or arbitrations. Against this backdrop, the American movie Erin Brockovich is selected to highlight the importance of negotiation as a tool to mitigate environmental conflicts. The movie presents how an ordinary woman, who has many blemishes and liabilities, transcends personal limitations to accomplish appreciable socioenvironmental justice through grassroots mobilization and negotiation. Using close study interpretive methods, the movie Erin Brockovich is analysed as a case study in environmental leadership, distributive negotiation and procedural justice.

Governance capture and socio-environmental conflict: a critical political economy of the global mining industry’s prior consultation regime

Prior consultation purports to mitigate socio-environmental conflict risks by creating deliberative and democratic spaces for local communities to influence decisions over newly proposed mining projects. Yet, many contest state and corporate claims to fair and inclusive decision-making, insisting that mines are often approved in violation of their human rights. Using a critical political economy of environmental governance approach, we analyze the multilevel governance regime which informs the practice of prior consultation within the global mining industry. We argue that this regime has become ‘captured’ by mining interests, as evidenced by the ‘market-enabling’ procedures which restrict communities’ capacity to exercise self-determination. Furthermore, we suggest that this leaves some local groups with little choice but to engage in risky protest action to express opposition. We utilize the Brazilian and Peruvian mining sectors as illustrative vignettes, for which data were collected from extensive fieldwork in both countries.

Experiences of Underground Mine Backfilling Using Mine Tailings Developed in the Andean Region of Peru: A Green Mining Solution to Reduce Socio-Environmental Impacts

In Peru, socio-environmental conflicts related to the development of mining-metallurgical processes and the responsible disposal of mine tailings have become central issues for accepting mining projects, especially regarding building relationships of trust with the communities. This condition has prompted the Peruvian mining industry to advance in managing alternatives to the conventional surface disposal of mine tailings. A promising and increasingly popular management strategy for mine tailings in Peru is their disposal inside underground mines. This article presents: site-specific conditions, advantages/disadvantages, and lessons learned from practical experiences of mine tailings disposal in underground mines in Peru. In addition, some techniques are highlighted, such as (i) hydraulic fill, (ii) cemented hydraulic fill, and (iii) cemented paste backfill. Finally, this article concludes that the responsible disposal of mine tailings in underground mines is a green mining solution that reduces negative socio-environmental impacts, limiting the generation of acid rock drainage (ARD) and the leaching of metals due to the decrease in contact with oxygen and rainfall, thus mitigating the contamination of surface and underground waters, reducing the footprint of affectation in the territory, and eliminating the emission of particulate matter in the environment.

Socio-environmental conflicts and land governance: a study of Chinese infrastructure investments in Argentina

This article establishes a dialogue between the neo-Gramscian approach and Latin American Political Ecology by analyzing land governance – specifically attempts at land grabbing through Chinese infrastructure investments in Argentina. Building bridges between these two perspectives enables an application of Robert Cox’s framework to the study of socio-environmental conflicts inherent to land governance. The study of two land grabbing initiatives in Argentina, one that was suspended and one that continues with modifications, shows that social resistance can condition attempts at land control through investments and their execution. Consequently, the dialogue between these two theoretical perspectives not only revitalizes Cox’s thought but also highlights socio-environmental conflicts in environmental and nature governance processes as a new research direction for IPE.

Supporting Activism in Latin America: The Role of Science Communication, Science Journalism, and NGOs in Socio-environmental Conflicts

ABSTRACT This exploratory paper addresses the relationship of science journalism, science communication, environmental activism, and social movements. It draws on data from Latin America, exploring how journalists and activists use science communication as a tool for telling stories about environmental conflicts that frequently turn violent (more than 1600 land and environmental activists lost their lives between 2002 and 2020 in Latin America, more than three times that of all other regions of the world combined). The main goal of the paper is to understand how scientific storytelling by NGOs helps them present their points of view for journalists and to influence public opinion. Our data is drawn from the formal reports of four NGOs and from semi-structured interviews with representatives from each NGO’s staff about their use of science communication. Our analysis suggests that Latin American NGOs use science communication tools such as scientific storytelling and scientific explanation to support journalists and to communicate with broad publics about complex phenomena such as socio-environmental conflicts, contributing to efforts to reduce the alarming amount of violence in the region.

Environmental justice at the environmental courts? Mining, socioenvironmental conflicts, and environmental litigation in northern Chile

With the judicialization of politics and the creation of new environmental institutions, environmental litigation is now an increasingly common dimension of socioenvironmental conflicts. This study examines this pattern in the context of recently created environmental courts in Chile, focusing on lithium and copper mining litigation in the Atacama salt flats of the Antofagasta Region. I argue that while the courts are formally open to a wide variety of legal complaints, community groups face an uphill battle when using legal mobilization strategies due to the underlying political and economic power of the mining industry in northern Chile. Nevertheless, environmental litigation matters for environmental policy implementation because it reveals conflicts over environmental compliance, highlighting gaps between environmental laws on the books and actual practices. In this sense, environmental litigation activates environmental regulations and can provide communities with greater leverage to demand stronger enforcement, even as the long-term implications of judicial rulings for addressing current and past harms remain to be seen. The paper is based on documents from the Chilean environmental courts database, media sources, and twenty-two semi-structured interviews with activists and community leaders, lawyers, scientists, and government officials to better interpret and contextualize the court archival data.

Political Ontologies of Colombian Amazonia: Peasant Resistance in Protected Areas

This paper investigates the ontological and material dimensions of peasant struggles in Colombian northwestern Amazonia in a context of increasing international deforestation concerns that press the Colombian government to enforce protected areas through military campaigns and market-based conservation programs. Building on ethnographic research in the region, the paper contributes to ongoing debates in the field of political ecology about the ontological dimension of dispossessions and social struggles. It brings together ontological studies with a perspective of critical geography to propose an integrative political ecology of socio-environmental conflicts that addresses the material and the ontological dimensions of domination and resistance.

Socioecological practices and community resilience strategies for sustainable agriculture in lower Sinú, Colombia

This research examines the socioecological practices of rural communities as an epistemological foundation to configure community resilience strategies and face socio-environmental conflicts due to limited access to water, loss of biodiversity and ancestral knowledge. To meet this objective, a qualitative approach was used with a non-experimental transectional research design of exploratory type with a case study method in the Association of Producers for Community Development of the Cienaga del Bajo Sinú-ASPROCIG, Colombia. As a main result, it is argued that the rural communities of the lower Sinú organized in associations carry out self-management models that promote the articulation of social and ecological systems, socio-environmental sustainability and make an adequate management of use and access to ecosystem services.

Dos lecturas de un conflicto socioambiental. El caso de Repechique en el norte de México

This paper aims to analyze two proposed approaches of a socio-environmental conflict generated by logging permits affecting the Repechique community of the Raramuri indigenous people in Chihuahua, Mexico. The first approach is to understand the conflict as a struggle for the unequal control of natural resources located in their territory; the second approach is to understand the conflict as ontological controversies that visualize a fundamental difference on what is the issue in conflict. Through both theoretical approaches, I present an analysis that accounts for the case, the conflict, and its implications. As a result, I conclude with a call to complement both approaches in order to capture the political, economic, and ontological implications of studying socio-environmental conflicts.