Remapping the world to understand what is ecocide and who the ecological debtors are demonstrates the enormous extent of the destruction already taking place. Here is a sample selection of 10 examples of ecocidal damage, destruction or loss taking place today. Please feel free to add your own suggestions below.
1. Alberta Tar Sands
Referred to as the most damaging project on the planet, it ranks top of the list. Known as ‘dirty oil’ due to it’s excessively damaging outcomes, if proposed expansion proceeds, tar sand extraction will result in the loss of vast tracts of boreal forest and muskeg peat bogs of a territory the size of England. Read more at Tar Sands Network.
2. The North Pacific Gyre
An island of garbage: A swirling island of 100m tonnes of plastic bits and bottle tops, spins clockwise from Hawaii to Japan. Also known as the Pacific trash vortex, it is estimated to be the size of Texas.
3. The Niger Delta
An area the size of Ireland is scarred by polluted rivers, air and land due to oil extraction. Nigeria is the world’s sixth largest oil-producing nation, but with some of the worst records for ecosystem destruction and devastation. Between 1976 and 1998, over 2.5 million barrels of oil have been spilt into the Delta environment (Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska was only a mere 257,000 barrels). Fifty years of oil extraction in the Niger delta has left its deep scars. Oil companies operated here for decades with very little environmental supervision and the delta, notoriously beset by conflict and poverty, has been steadily pushed towards ecological disaster. Villagers struggle to live off land and water poisoned by years of oil spills, and crops fail under the acid rain caused by gas flares.
4. Deepwater mining
Deepwater mining is one of the new frontiers being explored out of sight and very much out of mind. Like deepwater oil extraction, you can’t see what is going on, but the same premise is being used: it’s another avenue of profiteering without laws stopping companies who are being economical with their practices. It is high risk, potentially very destructive and we have no understanding of the long-term implications.
5. Lusi mud volcano, Indonesia
Lusi started to erupt in East Java, Indonesia, on May 29th 2006. It has displaced around 30,000 people from their homes and swamped 12 villages. At a recent conference, scientists voted that gas exploration well, Banjar-Panji-1, which was being drilled the by oil and gas company called Lapindo Brantas, was the cause. Lusi is still spewing huge volumes of boiling mud over the surrounding area.
6. Bingham Canyon copper mine
This mine has been in production since 1906, so far stretching over an area 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide, and covering 1,900 acres (7.7 km²). It has the dubious distinction of being named the world’s largest man-made excavation.
7. Toxic dumping by Chevron Texaco in Ecuador
Thousands of residents near the company’s former oil fields, alleges Texaco Chevron, dumped roughly 18.5 billion gallons of oil-laden water into unlined pits, estuaries and rivers during its operations in Ecuador’s Oriente between 1971 and 1992. Now, with Ecuador’s recent Bill of Nature’s Right’s which has changed the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity, justice may just be seen to be done for people and planet. See: Chevrontoxico
8. Tianying, Anhui Province, China
Lead smelters and processing plants in the Tianying area and heavy metals from battery recycling factories pollute the atmosphere and environment on a daily basis. 140,000 people in the Tianying area are affected, though the spread of heavy metals is distributed throughout Anhui province. Voted one of the dirty 30 by the Blacksmith Institute. See: worstpolluted.org
9. The Amazon
The one everyone knows about: razing of the Amazonian Rainforest, a key stabiliser of the global climate system, by logging, mining, crop planting and beef production. Currently resulting in destruction, damage and loss of a territory the size of France. Almost 60% of the region’s forests could be wiped out or severely damaged by 2030
10. Oil extraction in the Arctic
The last frontier for bounty-hunters has to be the land and water that is opening up in the Arctic. As the ice melts, so the new routes to exploitation open. Whose interests are best being served here?
Space junk!? OHNOS! I was planning a trip there next week, maan…
LOLFAIL!
@Bluecloud … it’s No.3
I am afraid that our civilization is coming down to a race between consciousness and catastrophe….how sad that all we can do is react rather than just do the right thing to start with…..
I’m sad to see there was no mention of huge sites in the former USSR, after all, ecocide is at the foundation of the failure of the USSR, and seems to be likely to bring China down within a few decades, and India, and will probably prevent Central Asia from ever becoming successful.
Thank you Polly for you inspiring lecture in Uppsala! Great job!
I have suggested the network Avaaz to make a campaign against the exploitation of tar sands. I hope they will do it!
Best wishes,
Hannes (the student who followed you to Ekocaféet in Uppsala)
The destabilisation of our planet’s climate is the ultimate form of ecocide. The present economic system of evaluation is criminally negligent of the human mental and physical, economic and environmental impact of the consequences of government policies and the subsequent corporate conduct. Is Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada using fraudulent evidence to justify his inadequate climate stewardship legislation and if so what criminal liability should he face for his actions. In Nov 2010 the Conservative dominated Canadian senate under the leadership of Senator Marjory Labreton voted with out debate to sabotage the efforts of the parliament of Canada to enact responsible climate stewardship legislation. Is this an act of sabotage?