Genocide–ecocide nexus

The genocide–ecocide nexus is the connection between ecocide (destruction of the environment) and genocide (destruction of a people). Ecocide can be a means of genocide,^[1] when "environmental destruction results in conditions of life that fundamentally threaten a social group's cultural and/or physical existence",^[2] and makes future genocides more likely.^[3] It is particularly relevant in discussions of genocide of indigenous peoples.^[4][2]

Many of the scholars writing about genocide and ecocide use Raphael Lemkin's original definition of genocide.^[3] When ecological destruction is responsible for genocide, it occurs in systemic and structural form, often over many decades or centuries, that is not easy to pin on the specific intention of a particular actor.^[5][6] When ecocide leads to genocide, it often looks more like social death than physical extermination.^[5] For example, genocide scholar Tony Barta referred to the "remorseless pressures of destruction inherent in the very nature of the society".^[6] Insights from settler-colonial studies, critical race theory, and critical Indigenous studies, are also used to explore the genocide–ecocide nexus.^[7]

It is argued that processes such as natural resource extraction and techno-capitalist development are behind ecocide and ecocide-related genocides.^[8] Ecocide often leads to genocide when it occurs on the edges of capitalist expansion into indigenous economies,^[9] preceded by land expropriation that both enables capitalist exploitation of the land in question and severs indigenous people from their previous way of subsistence.^[10]

Examples of cases where genocide and ecocide are said to be connected include the draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes,^[11] deforestation of the Amazon,^[3] Colombian indigenous peoples,^[12] Sudan,^[13] and the Gaza genocide.^[14]

• Scorched earth

• Crook, Martin (2024). Capitalism, Colonisation and the Ecocide-Genocide Nexus. University of London Press. ISBN 978-1-912250-58-5.