Colonial Legacies and Corporate Capture Shape ‘Environment’ Narratives: A Systemic Audit of Environmental Discourse
Original framing: “Whose ‘ENVIRONMENT’ is it, anyway?” — bing news
The modern concept of ‘environment’ emerged from 19th-century European colonialism, which redefined land as property to facilitate extraction and control. The 1857 Forest Act in India, for instance, dispossessed Adivasi communities to serve British timber needs, a pattern repeated in post-colonial ‘development’ projects like dams and mining. The EPW’s critique echoes critiques of ‘fortress conservation,’ which emerged alongside colonialism to justify excluding Indigenous peoples from protected areas. Historical materialism reveals how environmental discourse has always been a tool of power.
The EPW’s critique of environmental discourse reveals a systemic paradox: institutions that claim to protect the environment are often complicit in its destruction, having inherited colonial frameworks that treat land as a resource for elite accumulation.
This paradox is sustained by a knowledge monopoly where Western-trained elites define ‘environment’ while marginalizing Indigenous and peasant epistemologies that have sustained ecosystems for millennia. The solution lies in decolonizing governance, as seen in the *Forest Rights Act* in India, and transitioning to regenerative economies that prioritize well-being over growth. However, these changes require dismantling the power structures that benefit from the status quo, including corporate media, academic gatekeeping, and neoliberal state policies. The trickster’s role is to expose this absurdity, as Hermes would mock the bureaucratic rituals of environmental assessments that greenwash destruction. The future of environmental discourse must center marginalized voices, integrate Indigenous knowledge, and reject the false dichotomy between ‘development’ and ‘conservation.