Environmentalists vs. Corporations: The 1990s Green Wars

The Two Meanings of Green

It is a sad fact that the word "green" means different things to different people. For some, "green" is the color of leaves, grass, hillsides, and forests — the symbol of a vibrant and flourishing Earth. For others, however, "green" is the color of money, profits, big business, and unbridled capitalism: the keystone of corporate America. The 1990s, in particular, were a period in which these two definitions of "green" came into often bitter conflict.

Environmental groups became increasingly alarmed at what they saw as the destruction of the natural habitats of many animal, bird, fish, and plant species. The Amazon rainforest, for example, was being cut down at an alarming rate by companies that appeared concerned only with exploiting its natural resources — wood, agricultural land, and underground minerals. Scientists worried that humanity was consuming one of the Earth's primary sources of fresh air, pointing to the Amazon forests as a natural "factory" where carbon dioxide is converted into oxygen.

For many activists, the worldwide destruction of physical environments — rainforests, wetlands, floodplains, and others — was symptomatic of human overpopulation. Too many men, women, and children were simply eating up and using up the planet. In the interests of human safety and greater productivity, mankind had destroyed many natural predators, thereby upsetting the delicate balance among species. With no animals to hunt them, many herbivorous creatures became uncontrolled pests. Worse still, the environmentalists claimed, modern farming methods and large industrial corporations were poisoning the Earth with dangerous chemicals, creating toxic wastelands that would last for decades, if not centuries. For almost the first time, in the 1990s these issues were coming to a head. Yet others argued that the environmentalists were exaggerating the situation, and that the Earth was far more resilient than the Greens maintained. So who was right? What would be the outcome of the war between the environmentalists and their opponents?

Rainforests, Development, and the Developing World

Regarding the preservation of rainforests, many Third World governments began in the 1990s to respond to the concerns of environmentalists. Since almost all rainforests are located in developing countries, this seemed a promising step toward protecting the Earth and its resources. However, in most developing nations, the enforcement of environmental regulations presents a very serious problem. In the case of indigenous peoples and local peasant societies, there is often little understanding of modern science or of the complex interaction between human needs and the natural world. Large corporations, meanwhile, frequently view environmental regulations as a barrier to progress in industrializing regions. Politically, this dilemma can be framed as the Developed World versus the Developing World, with environmental regulations cast as yet another tactic to keep down much of the globe's population. On an economic level, such constraints can be interpreted as prohibitive costs in countries with limited financial capital and a poorly educated populace.

As Ledgerwood and Broadhurst observe:

Lack of uncontaminated water, raging forest fires, severe air pollution caused by soft-burning coal for heating homes and industrial emissions, mountains of untreated waste, squatter settlements, and rapid population growth — which places even more severe stress on the environment — combine to create both a sense of urgency for resolving the problems and a feeling of frustration at the enormity of the task. All three sectors of the global triad have been engaged in the question of how best to assist the developing countries, especially the poorest ones. Their concern will intensify as the problems of poverty in the Third World continue to affect business, governance, and quality of life in the developed world. In turn, as developing countries try to solve environmental and development problems through privatization strategies, private firms will play an ever-increasing role, sometimes with mixed results. (Ledgerwood and Broadhurst 51)

The need to balance profits against protecting the environment becomes even more difficult to resolve when environmental concerns are brought down to the level of individual species. While a nation can commit to preserving rainforests broadly — by limiting logging, or by teaching indigenous peoples more modern agricultural techniques that do not depend on slash-and-burn methods — the situation grows far more complex when it involves a specific, geographically limited ecosystem. A particular species of bird may inhabit only a narrow territory; protecting that one species could mean closing off an entire forest, not merely limiting its exploitation. Even a highly industrialized country like the United States faced this exact dilemma in the famous case of the Spotted Owl and the logging industry of the Pacific Northwest.

Species Protection: The Spotted Owl Controversy

The conflict over the northern spotted owl became one of the defining environmental battles of the 1990s. In 1990, the Fish and Wildlife Service identified the northern spotted owl as a threatened species, and 6.9 million acres of old-growth forests on federal lands were set aside to ensure the owl's survival. An intense conflict developed between environmentalists, who wanted more acres protected, and timber-dependent communities, who argued that thirty-three thousand jobs would be lost if the forests were closed to timber harvesting.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton convened a Forest Conference in Portland, Oregon, to resolve the old-growth and spotted owl controversy. An interdisciplinary Forest Ecosystem Management Assessment Team formulated ten management alternatives for the region. From these options, Clinton selected a watershed-based plan built around three key provisions.

First, a planning and monitoring program would be established to manage old-growth ecosystems on the relevant public lands. Second, a complex of old-growth reserves, riparian reserves, Adaptive Management Areas, and a forest management matrix would be established across twenty-five million acres of the region. Third, the plan provided for sustainable annual sales of 1.1 billion board feet of timber. Clinton hoped that by adopting these provisions, a satisfactory compromise had been reached (Santos 52).

While this American case is almost entirely a matter of profits versus preservation, in many developing countries the issue is far less straightforward. Often, environmental concerns pit people directly against the animals and plants with which they share the world. The past century has witnessed an extraordinary population explosion — largely the result of advances in modern medicine and sanitation — yet vast numbers of people in industrializing nations have barely enough food and fuel to survive. They live, every day, on the edge of starvation. In such circumstances, the continuing exploitation of the Earth's limited resources can appear to be the only option. Environmental policies are therefore interpreted as yet another challenge to traditional ways of life and long-held religious beliefs. As Twiss and Grelle note, "Certain groups within religious traditions share similarities that add up to challenges and resistance to the values, practices, and ways of life associated with secular societies and cultures" (156). The Indian mother who has ten children is conforming to the long-held ideals of her people, and she, her husband, and their entire family are likely to oppose any changes they perceive as contrary to their conception of morality and ethics.

Works Cited

Cuesta Camacho, David E., ed. Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class, and the Environment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.

Ledgerwood, Grant, and Arlene Idol Broadhurst. Environment Ethics and the Corporation. Houndmills: Macmillan, 2000.

Santos, Miguel A. The Environmental Crisis. Ed. Randall M. Miller. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999.

Shurmer-Smith, Pamela. Globalization and Change. London: Arnold, 2000.

Twiss, Sumner B., and Bruce Grelle, eds. Explorations in Global Ethics: Comparative Religious Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.