Although there are some clear differences, the 'gospel of eco-efficiency', the 'cult of wilderness', and the 'environmentalism' of the poor overlap and intertwine in certain topics, and can form alliances. In the words of Martínez Alier,
they have a lot in common, and all three are opposed by anti-environmentalists or despised or neglected by them, and in the Global South they are even attacked and killed. or the case of Indigenous Indians being expelled from their communal forests by governmental policy). However, poor and Indigenous people are not ignorant, and in fact are much more conscious of the necessity of biodiversity and the environment as a positive asset worthy of conservation. Over time, they have learned its value because their livelihoods depend on it. For example, poor farmers are often interested in preserving the environment and the soil because they know it is crucial for their material livelihood. In addition, Indigenous people often want to preserve the value of the environment because they have spiritual connections with it, which is also crucial for their livelihood. In Canada,
Indigenous-led fire stewardship enhances ecosystem diversity, assists with the management of complex resources, and reduces wildfire risk by lessening fuel loads. Often Indigenous people are better managers of the biodiversity than private companies or than the State itself. Thus, an alliance between conservationists and poor environmentalists could lead to an effective protection and management of
wilderness. Conservationists have begun to understand that 'poor people' will defend wilderness if they consider it as part of their livelihood. Conservationists are beginning to understand that nature should be protected by protecting its protectors.
The 'gospel of eco-efficiency' and the 'environmentalism of the poor' While the environmentalism of the poor focuses on protecting livelihoods, the gospel of eco-efficiency focuses on optimizing the use of resources. The ideological basis for the gospel comes from an economistic view of nature and resources. Traditionally, the gospel has not been used to protect people's livelihoods, but rather to protect economic production and prolong it by making it more sustainable; they sought to optimize resources use not to preserve them, but to be able to keep exploiting them for a longer period. • In
Montcada i Reixac (Catalonia) a large cement factory managed by
Lafarge-
Holcim shifted from burning coal to burning waste. This change was justified by its promoters as a form of preserving fossil fuels, reducing emissions associated with coal, and as a form of reducing the amount of waste thrown away. However, this caused the factory to become more polluting than before, since the burning of waste produces toxic particles that affects the entire Montcada i Reixac. This negative impact on people's livelihood added itself to the list of negative impacts that the factory already had prior to shifting to burning waste (noise pollution, emission of particles of cement, etc.). The
Montcada i Reixac Anti-Incineration Platform "Montcada Aire Net" has since opposed this, organizing people to protect their livelihoods. As large
monocultures managed with high-tech substituted smaller crops managed with low-tech, the environmental impacts associated also augmented. Widespread
soil erosion and
contamination, along with
peasants dispossession caused by the expansion of monocultures, endangered the livelihoods of those small peasants. • The widespread adoption of
genetically modified crops (GMOs) which are publicized as the solution to food insecurity and environmental impacts by big corporations such as
Bayer-
Monsanto, has impacted the livelihood of smaller peasants due to
genetic contamination of seeds. Crops planted with GMOs pollinate plants planted in nearby crops that do not use GMOs, allowing for the owners of the GMOs patent to claim the ownership of the genetic code of the contaminated plants, thus negatively affecting the livelihood of the peasant who had planted them. Negative effects of GMO crops are strongly opposed by environmentalism of the poor movements such as
La Via Campesina This shows that a lot of times the 'gospel' is aligned with economic interests, thus endangering people's livelihoods. However, this is not always the case: if it is not driven by the logic of maximizing benefits, an improvement in a certain production process can indeed reduce the impact of that economic activity, thus opening up space for livelihoods to develop more freely. For example, in locations that have implemented an efficient waste management program, environmental pollution has been effectively reduced. This is an example of how the 'gospel' can, through acting on the production side, open up space for non-productive activities. In addition, on a lot of occasions the 'gospel' can have a positive impact by acting on livelihoods side: on a lot of occasions to protect livelihoods it is necessary to optimize the use of resources that sustain that livelihood. For example: • For example, several rural communities around the world, that did not have access to the general electricity network before, have installed solar panels in their own houses to improve their accessibility to electricity. • Some other communities have implemented new techniques of forestry to make forestry more efficient, not to augment production, but to reduce the amount of resources that they use to sustain their livelihoods. • Another example would be the improvements made in health. Even though it is more complicated than that because there are a lot of economic interests in the
healthcare industry, a lot of the advances in health science are made to improve people's livelihoods rather than just making production more efficient. For example, health improvements in
cancer treatment will have a direct positive impact in people's livelihoods. • In
Ahmedabad (India), an improvement of waste management policies opened up opportunities for informal waste pickers, which were formalized into public servants, thus improving their livelihoods while still having competitive rates of recycling. All those positive examples have one thing in common: in them technology is not used with a logic of maximizing economic production. It is rather used as a
tool for conviviality, which
Ivan Illich described as
those which give each person who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the fruits of his or her vision. Illich also wrote that
industrial tools deny this possibility to those who use them and they allow their designers to determine the meaning and expectations of others. Most tools today cannot be used in a convivial fashion. • On the contrary, there is evidence that due to the
Jevons paradox, the majority of improvements in the cost-efficiency of economic activity does not result in reducing the costs themselves, but in being able to produce more with the same costs. The 'gospel of eco-efficiency' worries a lot about resources provided by
natural capital and
ecosystem services. In some instances, assuring those resources may involve the creation of natural areas, or even the restoration of degraded spaces. For example, forest management was born with the utilitarian objective of managing sustainably some forests to provide wood and other resources. For instance,
carbon offsetting, or
ecosystem restoration by businesses have been deemed as a form of
greenwashing by some of those authors. However, some deep ecologists are practical and argue for the creation of separated and untouched natural reserves that can coexist with forms of economic activity, thus legitimizing the 'gospel of eco-efficiency' as long as it protects pristine natural areas. Less radical forms of conservationism argue that economic activity can coexist with natural spaces as long as this economic activity is eco-efficient. It is precisely in this context that the 'gospel of eco-efficiency' and the 'cult of wilderness' find the strongest alliance. For example, some authors argue that
forest fires can be avoided by introducing
extensive farming. Other authors argue that an eco-efficient industry based on
nature-based solutions can coexist with conservationism. In general, less radical forms of conservationism see economic activity as something neutral as long as it does not threaten natural spaces. As Martínez Alier argues, they assert that
technical change will make the production of commodities compatible with ecological sustainability, thus emphasizing
the preservation of that part of Nature which is still outside the economy. In sum, they argue for
sustainable development with the preservation of natural spaces. == Examples of 'environmentalism of the poor' ==