Blaming Nature: Legitimising the Mismanagement of Natural Resources

Abstract

Climate change is progressing fast and is undeniably a man-made disaster. Its impacts - heatwaves, floods, sea-level rise, melting ice caps, erratic rainfall, desertification, and similar - are likely to worsen in intensity and increase in frequency for many years to come. While the question of why measures to halt climate change are not fully implemented is not easily answered, it is necessary to reflect meanwhile on the strategies employed by governing actors to legitimise such inaction. One such strategy is the attempt to ignore the "human" aspects of natural disasters, like bad governance and mismanagement, a process called "ecologisation." Climate change lends itself easily to this. By presenting drought, floods, and other extreme weather events as "natural" and thus "beyond our control," governing actors can deflect responsibility for their mismanagement and bad governance regarding natural resources. This has happened in Syria, for example, following the prolonged drought occurring in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Political Ecology provides key knowledge on how these problems can be constructed as "environmental" or "natural," how such "environmental" situations can be positioned as unprecedented and disastrous, and how framings like these may support ulterior political goals. Somewhat counterintuitively, it may be necessary to "de-naturalise" phenomena that have been attributed to climate change to uncover the broader sociopolitical impetuses behind them. With the fight over a possible trade-off between climate action and human rights already ongoing, policymakers need to learn how to both identify and address "ecologising moves." One way of doing this is by strengthening civil society actors who are identifying and calling out such moves, often under existential threat.