EXALT Podcast

This month we are delighted to be joined by Mario Blaser. Mario is a cultural anthropologist and an Associate Professor of Geography and Archaeology at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Mario has engaged in ethnographic work with communities in many different parts of the world, including in Paraguay and Canada. His fascination with how people lived in other places is rooted in his early experiences living in a small town in Southern Argentina and interacting with visitors passing through. Mario gives us insight into what ethnography is in practice and how it extends beyond just conducting interviews in place. Mario introduces us to the idea of “deep hanging out” and shares how this approach helps the researcher to create a more nuanced and subtle understanding of relations in place. Mario uses this base to unpack for us his insights into the pluriversal world and ways of worlding or how the world is made through practices. In short, the world is not something that is already there, but it produced and reproduced through human and non-human relations in place. This just scratches the surface of this rich conversation. His latest book is For Emplacement: Political Ontology in Two Acts , and its Spanish language twin (is not exactly the same but shares the same “genetic make up”) Incomún: Un ensayo de ontología política para el fin del mundo (único), which is available for free download.  

Want to learn more about the duck-rabbit illusion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion 

Want to learn more about Mario’s work? https://www.mun.ca/archaeology/people/faculty/mario-blaser/

In this episode we are joined by Marketta Vuola and Matthieu Pierre. Marketta is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package on Madagascar. Matthieu Pierre is starting his PhD at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar, focusing on protected areas and restoration in Madagascar. In this conversation we talk about the general context of Madagascar, including its high biodiversity, and the role that conservation and ecological restoration play in Madagascar. Marketta and Mattieu have been in collaboration for several years, even predating the start of the TreesForDev project. 

We talk about the two areas where fieldwork is being undertaken in the TreesForDev project, Mahajanga and Andapa. Mahajanga is on the West Coast while Andapa is in the northern part of the country. At the time of recording, Matthieu had just returned from doing fieldwork and gives us some of his impressions from these on the ground experiences. 

This month we are delighted to be joined by Andrea Brock, who is a political ecologist at University of Sussex. Andrea works with forest defenders and environmental movements looking at the responses from state and corporate actors to ecological dissent. Andrea shares with us the trajectory of her research career which was influenced by being brought up in the German Rhineland in proximity to the world’s largest open-cast lignite mine. She shares with us her insights into the actions of the mining company and the greenwashing acrobatics that are put in place to distract from the ecological destruction that is taking place as a result of these mining projects. She gives insight into the repression that had been levied against land defenders in the ancient Hambach Forest which has been under threat from mine operator RWE. In addition, the relationships between different types policing and ecocide are explored and how this influences the domination of non-human and human species. 

Her research is based in the European context and examines how the logics of repression play out and ecological defenders are criminalized in Europe. 

Want to learn more about Andrea Brock’s work? https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p322495-andrea-brock 

Resources mentioned during the episode:

Brock, A., & Dunlap, A. (2018). Normalising corporate counterinsurgency: Engineering consent, managing resistance and greening destruction around the Hambach coal mine and beyond. Political geography, 62, 33-47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.09.018. 

Dunlap, A., & Brock, A. (Eds.). (2022). Enforcing ecocide: Power, policing & planetary militarization. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99646-8 

In this episode we are joined by Professor Steffen Böhm from University of Exeter School of Business and project PI and Associate Professor Maria Ehrnström-Fuentes from Hanken School of Economics. In this conversation we explore carbon markets and how they work (or do not work) and what their connection is to so-called green development. We talk about compliance markets and voluntary markets. In the voluntary carbon markets, anyone can develop a project that plants trees in exchange for carbon credits. There are mechanisms and logics that are not well understood by the general populace that allow highly polluting companies to make themselves look carbon neutral or green through their participation in carbon offsetting. This myopic focus on carbon has developed into a more or less fetishist relationship with carbon and overly simplified measurements that obfuscate the wider social environmental impacts of companies. 

Interested to learn more about Steffen’s work? https://business-school.exeter.ac.uk/people/profile/index.php?web_id=Steffen_Boehm 

Interested to learn more about the TreesForDev Project? www.treesfordev.fi 

Resources mentioned in the episode: 

Böhm, S., Misoczky, M. C., & Moog, S. (2012). Greening capitalism? A Marxist critique of carbon markets. Organization Studies, 33(11), 1617-1638. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840612463326

Ehrnström-Fuentes, M., & Kröger, M. (2018). Birthing extractivism: The role of the state in forestry politics and development in Uruguay. Journal of Rural Studies, 57, 197-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.12.022 

Ramirez, J., & Böhm, S. (2021). Transactional colonialism in wind energy investments: Energy injustices against vulnerable people in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Energy Research & Social Science, 78, 102135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102135 

In this episode we are joined by Forrest Fleischman from the University of Minnesota and the project principal investigator, Maria Ehrnstöm-Fuentes from Hanken School of Economics. 

Forrest gives us insight into the work he has done in the Indian context in relation to tree planting and the long-term outcomes of tree planting schemes. India has had a long history of tree planting programs, but are they always successful? In the western Himalaya, where Forrest is working about half the planting takes place in areas where trees are already growing and about half takes place in areas where trees are not currently growing and most probably will not successfully grow due to environmental or land use reasons. There is sometimes a disconnect between what the government programs want to accomplish (or what looks good on paper) and the experience on the ground of the best land use—both geographically and for the community living in place. One key in indicator of success is the inclusion of the community and getting their buy-in and participation in the tree planting program. However, more research is needed to figure out how to generate that local participation and where it roots from. 

Forrest gives us insight into the mythology of the modern concept that trees everywhere are a good thing. As more people are divorced from earning their living from the land this concept become more and more common. However, this lionization of the forest landscapes devalues the natural and vital landscapes that naturally do not have trees or have only scattered trees. These landscapes are currently being destroyed in support of tree planting to match this prominent environmental narrative. 

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Veldman, J.W. et al., Tyranny of trees in grassy biomes. Science 347,484-485(2015). DOI:10.1126/science.347.6221.484-c

Bai, Y., & Cotrufo, M. F. (2022). Grassland soil carbon sequestration: Current understanding, challenges, and solutions. Science, 377(6606), 603-608.

Forget Tree Planting, Start Tree Growing a Q & A with Lalisa Duguma https://forestsnews.cifor.org/61174/forget-tree-planting-start-tree-growing?fnl=en 

This month we are delighted to welcome Maija Lassila back to the EXALT podcast for our second conversation. Maija is post-doctoral researcher at Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and recently received her doctorate from Global Development Studies at University of Helsinki. Maija takes to the North and gives us an overview of the work she did during her doctorate. We talk about reindeer herding and the impacts of resource extractivism (and the threat of future resource extractivism) on reindeer herding in Sápmi and Finnish Lapland. Maija “examines the contestations arising from the early stages of mining expansion in Utsjoki and Sodankylä.” Maija looks at the contestations the local community has to mining projects and traces out how this plays out in practice. Join us for this thought-provoking and wide-ranging conversation that gives deep insight into this world. Maija also reminds us how important it is to engage with post-extractivist alternatives as a way to reduce our dependence on the consumption. 

In this month’s episode we are delighted to be joined by Brazilian agroecologist, Karen Nobre Krull, who has worked on projects in federal environmental and research institutions in Brazil, such as EMBRAPA and ICMBio, and in the last year with the NGO Imaflora. Her work focuses on developing strategies and implementing actions with rural communities for the agroecological transition of productive systems, regenerative agriculture, and rural development, incorporating environmental, social, and economic aspects. Over the past four years, her work has been concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon, particularly in the state of Pará. 

In this conversation Karen gives us insight into how she first became interested in the topic of family farming and how it supports the spread of agroecological practices. Agroecological farming in Brazil stands as an alternative to the industrial agricultural practices associated with the dominant food system. Creating space for these small farmers is increasingly important in the face of the agroextractivist spread of monoculture agriculture like soybeans and corn. 

If you are interested in these topics, Karen recommends the book, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World by Ailton Krenak

Interested to hear more about Karen’s research? https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-nobre-krull-24420118b/ 

Check out the presentation Karen gave in connection with the EXALT Initiative and the TreesForDev Project https://youtu.be/gKzH0xWFcCM?si=XyWzO4YVAn9db-ng 

In this episode we are joined by Linda Annala Tesfaye and Bikila Warkineh. Linda is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Ethiopia. Bikila is the Head of Plant Biology and Biodiversity Management at Addis Ababa University and works as Associate Professor of Ecology. His research centers on the broad area of the ecological sciences and ecosystems ecology. He is strongly interested in the science, politics, and policies of natural resource management, climate change, sustainable development, and how these are linked with socio-economic development.

Bikila and Linda give us insight into the history and current developments in tree planting in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has a long history with tree planting and more generally greening initiatives. Through the Green Legacy Initiative, Ethiopia has become a forerunner in ecological restoration in the African context. The activities in Ethiopia go beyond just tree planting, but really working toward developing a resilient and green culture in the face of climate change. One key facet of the work being done in Ethiopia is the widespread use of native species in the planting projects. This model has had many positive regional impacts and has strongly influenced the approach to tree planting in its neighboring countries. 

We are joined by Marketta Vuola from University of Helsinki’s Global Development Studies. In this conversation Marketta gives us insight into the work that she is doing in her doctoral research. She started her academic career interested in conservation and national parks, but during her field work she kept running into gold mining and its role in the rural areas of Madagascar. Marketta gives insight into what artisanal means on the ground in Madagascar, which is not a simple thing to define as there is wide range of practices that fall under this designation. The scale she investigates is quite small scale and overturns the masculine stereotype of mining because it is often an activity that involves whole families. There are approximately 700000 artisanal miners, and it is the second most popular source of income after subsistence agriculture. Marketta opens some of the dynamics that surround the complicated relationship between mining, conservation, and violence in Madagascar. 

In this episode we are joined by Ossi Ollinaho and Natacha Bruna. Ossi is a project researcher from the TreesForDev project leading the work package that is looking at Mozambique. Natacha is scholar activist and researcher who is doing a post-doctoral project at Cornell University in the Global Development Department, previously she worked at our project partner at Observatório do Meio Rural (OMR), in Mozambique. Natacha coordinated the research line on models of rural development and her research has focused on the impacts of large-scale investment. 

Natacha gives us an insight on her take into Green Extractivism and how this plays out in the Mozambican context. She sees green extractivism as a variation of extractivism where what is being extracted is emission rights. Emission rights are extracted from the rural poor and then sold to entities like multinational firms who then have the right to continue to pollute. The privilege of pollution is given to the main actors who are perpetrating the pollution. We explore this dynamic from multiple perspectives.