General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Culture of Waste: Free Trade Agreements and Environmental Destruction
Uruguayan President José Mujica, addressing the Group of 77 and China summit in Bolivia last Sunday, urged attendees to halt the massive depredation of nature underway worldwide by battling the Wests culture of waste. Washingtons free-trade agreements in effect throughout Central and South America are products of this culture, and must count among their achievements the destruction of huge swathes of the regions forests, the poisoning of its waters, and the ruin of scores of its indigenous communities.
Perus Awajún and Wampís peoples waged the culture war Mujica described when they protested the 2009 launch of the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA). The accord granted firms new access to exploit [indigenous] Amazonian lands for oil, gas and logging, José de Echave and Lori Wallach wrote in The Hill a week ago, identifying policy outcomes that make the PTPA and similar arrangements difficult politically, in U.S. trade official Susan Schwabs assessment. A political difficulty in June 2009 was the crowd of men, women, and children blocking the Devils Curve, a jungle highway near Bagua, 600 miles north of Lima, de Echave and Wallach explained.
But bullets solved that problem: Peruvian forces unloaded their clips into the demonstrators, and at the skirmishs end dozens were dead and hundreds wounded. WikiLeaks cables, just released, reveal Washingtons steadfast support for the Peruvian state at the time. The governments reluctance to use force to clear roads and blockades is contributing to the impression that the communities have broader support than they actually do, U.S. Ambassador P. Michael McKinley complained, blamingon the day of the main confrontationsocial movement leaders seeking to make political hay out of the situation, called a crisis in the memo. How McKinley weighed this crisis against, say, the rape of the Amazon, or the systematic decimation of Peruvian peoples and territories, one can only wonder.
The PTPAs predicted environmental impact makes it a worthy heir to its predecessors. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which turned 20 this year, came after Mexico implemented a series of major rural reforms aimed at transforming its agricultural sector to promote private investment and growth, economics professor Edward B. Barbier writes, emphasizing the 1992 revisions to Mexicos land tenure legislation as one of the crucial changes. These amendments, conforming to World Bank prescriptions, helped dismantle structures of communal land ownership that were capable of overcoming the tragedy of the commons, Barbier explains, referring to their ability to mitigate deforestation. But Meera Fickling and Jeffrey J. Schott, in a Peterson Institute book, point out that [f]orest preservation is not sufficiently profitable compared with agriculture and use of land as pasture, hence the current expendability of Mexicos woodlands, wiped out at a rate of 1.1 million hectares annually post-NAFTAnearly double the previous rate, according to the Sierra Clubas displaced campesinos, victims of rural reform, clear forests for farmland.
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http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/20/free-trade-agreements-and-environmental-destruction/
Alex P Notkeaton
(309 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The TPP -- negotiated while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
We import products from washing machines to socks to shoes that use of natural resources and are shoddy.
Young Americans do not know what this means. From tee-shirts to washing machines we import badly made things.
Who profits from these shoddy products? The companies who instead of selling one washing machine that is well made and lasts 30 years make one of cheap metal that lasts only 5-6 years. They profit from each sale. And the Americans who repeatedly buy these cheap products enjoy the fleeting pleasure of believing they are prosperous when in fact each purchase of a badly made, cheap import from who-know-where impoverishes them more.
Really. These trade agreements help only the 1%.
Elizabeth Warren by the way has voiced her disapproval of the TPP.
I don't care what Elizabeth Warren says when asked if she will run in 2016. Our country needs her. She needs to run for the sake of her country.