Chapter 5: Neoliberal boom, 1987-2000 The rise of ecodependence During the neoliberalism boom, international, national, and local communities joined together due to concerns regarding the substantial growth of the environmental movements. In turn, this meant that ecodependent organizations were bought out by ecoimperialists organizations. This caused the ecodependents to represent a more professional and focus on conserving more important habitats. This buy out caused ecodependents to the work less with the locals and the state and work more with foreign organizations to achieve any environmental goals. Ecodependents disliked partnering with other transnational funders due to the organization being very bureaucratic. Although the main objective of these organizations was to protect the environment on the basis of helping the greater good of the people, this joining caused a change in their overall objectives. They became an organization that created fixed contracts that would trade services for fees, resembling more of a consulting agency than an environmental organization.
As discussed in Chapter 3, ecoimperialists are defined as environmentalist organizations that help provide funding and other resources to help maintain the conservation of biodiversity. These funded environmental issues are called “green” issues. Unfortunately, funding provided by transnational and ecoimperialist organizations do not address the biggest problem at hand, “brown” issues. “Brown” problems deal with the environmental issues that affect the everyday life and health of Ecuadorians, such as air, land and water pollution. These have not been funded due to the need to promote and focus on “global interests” opposed to focusing on “local interests”. “Brown” issues have also not been funded due to the lack of involvement and funding from NGOs. Ecoimperialists funded a sustainable agenda that focused on wildlife conservation and hotspots found in Ecuador. Unfortunately, these organizations lacked funding and were unable to achieve every goal on the agenda. For example, the lack of funds could not help urban environments and their concerns about pollution.
Nonetheless, the two groups joined together to help combat the decision of the state to privatize and decentralize its policy decisions. Although ecodependent groups did not create a self-made agenda, the joining the two organizations helped to protect the land and slow degradation, regardless of not addressing the causes of degradation. Many environmentalists believe that the land in Ecuador would have degraded faster and the organizations tasked to stop environmental issues would have been weakened without funding provided by international organizations. I have very conflicted thoughts regarding ecoimerialists and ecoependents. I agree with their logic of protecting biodiversity and wildlife conservation but there is more to the environment than that. There is a risk of failure of protecting the environment by not including Ecuadorians in the agendas. If the local’s concerns are addressed, that will give them more incentive to help organizations protect the environment. If the locals are educated about environmental issues and how to avoid them, it will further help the protection of conservation. Before I decided to attend school to be an environmentalist, I didn’t know much about the surrounding environmental issues. The more I learned about the issues and how to prevent them, the more inclined I was to help. Involving the locals would definitely benefit transnational organizations as well at Ecuador itself.