The Ecological and Political Impact of Colonialism in the Third World During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Introduction				to £1.3 million in value, falling to a mere £100,000
Colonialism is a system in which a state claims				by 1832. Through protectionism and the
sovereignty over territory and people outside its own				establishment of the exploitative (British) East India
boundaries ; or a system of rule which assumes the				Trading Company, Britain destroyed the Indian textile
right of one people to impose their will upon another				market and developed its own prosperous textile
(Brett, 1973). During the nineteenth and twentieth				industry (2).
centuries, rich, powerful states, including Britain and				While India produced about 25% of world industrial
other European countries, owned third world colonies.				output in 1750, this figure fell to only 2% by 1900.
‘Third world’ originally referred to countries				This de-industrialisation, which can be defined as
that did not belong to the democratic, industrialised				movement of labour out of manufacturing and into
countries of the West (the First World) or the				agriculture, was accompanied by the creation of a
state-socialist, industrialising, Soviet Bloc countries (the				poorer, more rural society in India (Clingingsmith and
Second World) (Chilton, 2004). This essay uses				Williamson, 2004). In 1810, 40% of Indians lived in
specific third world examples to summarise the main				towns, by 1900 only 10 percent did (D’Amato,
impacts of nineteenth and twentieth century				2003). Contrary to myths about colonialism being a
colonialism, when colonial powers reached their peak.				time of ‘heroic progress through
It focuses on European colonialism in Africa and India.				Westernisation,’ the actual narrative [now] should
One view of development is that, at the level of the				be one of recovery (Cronon, 1983).
individual, it implies increased skill and capacity, greater				Artificial National Borders:
freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and				By 1914, frontiers of the African States, which were
material well being (Rodney, 1972), which European				to emerge at independence in the 1960s had already
colonial powers achieved through economic growth,				been laid down on European maps (Clapham, N.D.).
by exploiting the natural and human resources of				Borders restricted pastoral communities and created
their colonies. Europe and Africa confronted each				conflicts among ethnic groups. By one estimate,
other in respective states of development and				belonging to Asiwaju (1985), no less than 177 African
underdevelopment, the latter term being defined by				cultural or ethnic groups are partitioned across
Europeans in relation to the lack of African progress				borders, representing on average 43% of their
in the techniques required to sustain an advanced				country’s population (Englebert, 2001).
materialistic culture (Brett, 1973).				In Sudan northern Muslim Arabic speakers had
It can be argued that colonialism had some positive				regarded southern non-Muslims as sources of slaves.
effects. For example, the British instigated irrigation				The creation of Sudan enclosed the two groups,
networks in India: by the 1890s nearly 44,000 miles				exacerbating conflicts and causing civil war . In other
of canals and distributaries irrigated a quarter of				countries there have been conflicts over resources in
India’s total crop area, increasing agricultural				boundary areas. For example, armed clashes
output. But this too had some negative effects,				between Burkina and Mali in 1971 and 1985 over the
including waterlogging and salination of the canals and				Agacher Strip, which was rumoured to hold oil
greater prevalence of malaria with more mosquito				(Englebert, 2001). There are claims over Ethiopian and
breeding areas (Arnold, 1996).				Kenyan territory inhabited by ethnic Somalis (Boyd,
Colonialism was also supposedly beneficial because it				1979). Thus, colonialism, through the establishment of
provided infrastructure for economic development				inappropriate borders, created (ongoing) political
and some social services. However, this essay argues				instability.
that the impacts of colonialism were overwhelmingly				Coercive Colonial State Rule:
negative and infrastructure was provided solely to				Colonial states exploited local people by imposing high
enable the colonial power to exploit the natural				taxes. The average tax burden in India, for example,
resources and workforce of the colony.				was twice that of contemporary England, although
The main ecological impacts of colonialism relate to:				average income there was 15 times greater at that
Land and forests: through deforestation and cash				point in time. The burden of taxation was not
cropping;				counterbalanced by expenditure on infrastructure or
Extraction and mining: through changes to the				human development (Murshed, 2003).
landscape and economic systems;				Conclusion
Introduction of animal and human diseases by colonial				The examples from the third world have shown
settlers.				interconnectedness between political and ecological
The main political impacts relate to:				impacts. For example, Indian colonial railways enabled
Destruction of local institutions;				widespread deforestation and increased disease
Coercive and repressive state rule;				transmission; for example, the spread of bubonic
Development of artificial national boundaries;				plague in the 1890s and influenza in 1918-19 (Arnold,
Displacement of local populations				1996). These ecological impacts displaced and killed
The examples will show that the impacts are				indigenous peoples and gave the state control over
intertwined. Political ecology assumes that politics and				resources, enabling further exploitation to serve a
environment are thoroughly connected (Bryant,				political agenda.
1998), and the conclusion will draw together the key				The legacy of colonialism remains. In India for
points.				example, the state organised system of
Ecological impacts				‘scientific forestry,’ established under British
Deforestation and Cash Cropping:				rule, has remained unchallenged since independence in
British colonialism exploited timber for Britain’s				1947, serving the political and economic interests of
industrial revolution. Timber was used for shipbuilding,				colonial and postcolonial regimes alike (Bryant, 1997),
to fuel steam engines in industry and transportation,				taking resources away from local people.
and to make railroad sleepers for India’s growing				The dependency created by colonialism continues. In
colonial rail network; by 1910 there were more than				the 1980s neo-liberal structural adjustment
32,000 miles of [rail] track (Arnold and Guha, 1995).				programmes pushed ‘free’ trade on third
Forests had to be cleared for the railways, which in				world countries, based on the idea that markets
turn enabled timber exploitation in deeper areas.				work best. Trade is unequal. Richer countries subsidise
Cleared areas were converted to agricultural land for				their own producers and supply chains make
revenue. Ecologically, deforestation resulted in soil				small-scale producers compete to sell low price
erosion, loss of biodiversity, problems of salination,				produce to richer countries, who capitalise on the
rising water tables; abandoned wells; drying or siltation				value added (Vorley, 2003).
of drainage channels, and the spread of malaria				Colonialism was a period of monopoly capitalism,
(Gadgil and Guha, 1992).				driven by major resource exploitation in the
In the pre-colonial era, under the Mughals, it was				nineteenth and twentieth centuries as colonial powers
non-timber products such as pepper, cardamom and				industrialised. Europe established plantations to grow
ivory that were collected through centralised state				cash crops, mines, and transport systems to facilitate
control. Under the British, emphasis shifted to				the extraction of resources; rails and roadways were
‘scientific management’ of timber species				designed for commodity export, and not for
such as teak, pine and deodar (Gadgil and Guha,				economic interconnectedness and development within
1992; Bawa 1992). At the same time as imperial				colonies. People were forced by taxes and coercion
foresters sought to eliminate competitor species to				to work in colonial enterprises inwhich they were
favoured tree species, they attempted to restrict				overworked and underfed; agriculture suffered, food
alternative forest practices that might ‘interfere				production declined, and hunger, famines, and disease
with official timber extraction and regeneration				followed. (Podur, 2002)
operations – shifting cultivation usually being a				Many global inequalities can be traced to colonialism. In
favoured target’ (Gadgil and Guha, 1992).				addition to unequal trade, the creation of borders and
In Madagascar, French colonialism from 1896 created				states created conflict between ethnic groups, and
deforestation, pushing coffee cultivation over				an unstable third world political system. The scale of
traditional rice harvesting, when it became apparent				unsustainable environmental exploitation could not be
that [French] producers were able to generate large				controlled by newly industrial nations who were in
profits from the latter. This resulted in rice shortages,				many cases economically weak. Third world countries
as early as 1911 . The net effect was an increase in				have less capacity to cope with resultant
shifting cultivation as people tried to grow rice to				environmental problems, but the scale of ecological
feed themselves and coffee as a cash crop. Forests				impact, stemming from colonial practices and
were increasingly fragmented and either destroyed				exploitation, affect the whole of humanity. Ex-colonial
by burning or clear-cutting (Ward, 2002). The state				powers can never abrogate their responsibility for
prohibited shifting cultivation in 1909, imposing				what the world has become.
“rational forest resource management ", to				References
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Mr Safaris

The Ecological and Political Impact of Colonialism in the Third World During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries