Environmental Violence and Its Consequences

• Published date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15585116
• Author: Horacio de la Cueva Salcedo
• Date: 01 September 2015
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 19–26

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15585116

© 2015 Latin American Perspectives

19

Environmental Violence and Its Consequences

by

Horacio de la Cueva Salcedo

Environmental changes happen all the time. Changing environments bring about

selection of organisms, and there is no organism that does not modify its environment to

make a living, survive, and reproduce. These changes are the main motors of evolution

and, consequently, the main cause of biodiversity. Environmental violence—unsustain-

able use and extraction of natural resources—is the way capitalist economies exploit

nature. The extinction rates associated with the current unsustainable use of resources are

sufficient to assume that we are experiencing a sixth mass extinction event. The rate at

which humans are transforming the environment leaves no time for evolutionary adapta-

tion. We need to reduce environmental violence for life to maintain its normal processes.

Without knowledge of nature and the consequences of violence against nature, we will

become another of the planet’s extinct species.

Los cambios ambientales ocurren todo el tiempo. Los ambientes cambiantes propician

la selección de organismos y no hay organismo que no modifique su ambiente para sub-

sistir y reproducirse. Estos cambios son los principales motores de la evolución y por lo

tanto la causa principal de la biodiversidad. La violencia ambiental—el uso y la extracción

insostenibles de los recursos naturales—es la manera en que las economías capitalistas

explotan la naturaleza. Las tasas de extinción asociadas con el uso insostenible de los

recursos son suficientes para considerar que estamos experimentando la sexta extinción

masiva de especies. El ritmo al cual los seres humanos están transformando el ambiente

no deja tiempo para la adaptación evolutiva. Necesitamos reducir la violencia ambiental

para que la vida pueda mantener sus procesos normales. Sin el conocimiento de la natu-

raleza y de las consecuencias de la violencia contra ella, nos convertiremos en otra de las

especies extintas de nuestro planeta.

Keywords: Natural processes, Sustainability, Landscape disruption, Mass

extinctions

Violent action against nature and fellow humans is a commonplace of the

capitalist mode of development. Activities such as open pit mining in Brazil

and Mexico, overfishing on the Atlantic coast of Canada, and the Seven Gorges

dam in China are rampant across the global landscape and reflect the extent of

the unsustainable development that threatens nature and humans. These

Horacio de la Cueva is a researcher in environmental biology at the Centro de Investigación

Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada and teaches ecology, evolution, and conservation

in its life sciences program and its joint environmental administration program with the Colegio

de la Frontera Norte. He is a founding member of Terra Penisular A.C., an organization committed

to the conservation on public and private lands of the Baja California peninsula, and of the Jardín

Botánico Todos Santos, a garden dedicated to the conservation and study of the Baja California

flora.

585116LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X15585116LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESde la Cueva Salcedo / ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLENCE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

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