Environmental justice and harm to humans - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 61

arrangements, often at the expense of local communities. It has been
alleged, for example, that a Norwegian company operating in Uganda
leased its lands for a sequestration project that is said to have resulted
in 8,000 people in 13 villages being evicted (Bulkeley and Newell,
2010: 48). The effects of the commodification of carbon (that is, its
extraction from local contexts and circulation in global markets) will
thus put pressure on communities that are home to these resources.
Lands in less developed countries are also being taken over by
governments, companies and conservation groups ostensibly for
purposes of ecological sustainability and climate change mitigation.
For example, there are businesses that are keen to secure money as part
of carbon sequestration schemes, usually involving companies based
in Europe offsetting their pollution by buying carbon credits in the
form of forests in other parts of the world. For others, the motivation
is less financial than ecological, at least in intent. Here we can include
western conservation groups and movements that both historically
and today are usurping the lands of traditional and indigenous peoples
in the name of conservation (Jacoby, 2001; Duffy, 2010). Corporate
funding largess to mainstream conservation groups also contributes
to the overall strategy, one that disenfranchises traditional owners and
users from their own lands.
Land grab for toxic waste disposal
As noted above, pollutants, such as e-waste, are being shipped to
peripheral areas and countries for processing and disposal. There is also
a land grab for toxic waste disposal. For instance, the forced or co-opted
acquisition of indigenous land is not only related to carbon emission
trading schemes and the push to plant biofuels, but is also associated
with the establishment of nuclear waste dumps and disposal of hazardous
wastes more generally (Boylan, 2010). As with the general pattern, it
is the most vulnerable who are likely to suffer from both take-over of
land and radical transformation of existing land use. Likewise, this type
of 'garbage imperialism' feeds upon those who seek fiscal relief in the
very moment that it sustains a racist and classist culture and ideology
that views toxic dumping on poor communities of colour as perfectly
acceptable (Pellow, 2007).
Land grab for alternative commercial purposes
Deforestation is another example of changing land uses. It is not just
that grain production is changing in form (toward industrial) and