Colonialism and the Environment

by

Meg Parsons

• LAST MODIFIED: 19 February 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199874002-0286

Introduction

Colonialism has far-reaching environmental effects. Colonial enterprises allowed people to accidentally and knowingly introduce exotic plants, animals, and diseases to colonies and bring biota back to Europe and other colonial settings. Colonial actors transformed the landscapes and waterscapes, introducing new land use systems, but many were (and still are) unsustainable and unsuited to local climates and environments. Monoculture agriculture, for instance, depletes soil nutrients, reduces biodiversity, and makes ecosystems more vulnerable to global climate change. Colonial authorities frequently prioritized export crops over local food security, increasing food insecurity and heightening the risk of famine. In the name of colonial progress, civilization, and productivity, vast swaths of endemic forests were cut down, wetlands were drained, and land reclaimed to create farms, plantations, towns, and cities. Natural resources, including timber, spices, and minerals, were extracted from colonies and exported to fuel colonial powers’ lifestyles and economic development, with colonialism and capitalism interwoven with environmental changes. Even the creation of biodiversity conservation measures followed colonial actors’ desires to secure their continuous access to natural resources and protect their commercial interests. Studies show that pre-colonial societies were complex and dynamic, with long-standing and effective environmental governance and management arrangements that sustainably used resources. However, global colonialism severely disrupted local environmental governance and management regimes. Colonized peoples lost vital resources and were excluded from decision making, resulting in countless environmental injustices. Historically marginalized social groups, including but not limited to Indigenous peoples living in colonial territories, settler colonial societies, and postcolonial nations continue to experience various environmental injustices traced back to colonial and neocolonial policies, economic practices, and racial ideologies. Climate change is also reinforcing existing old environmental injustices and creates new ones for people living in colonial situations. Industrialized Global North nations (current or former colonial powers) are primarily responsible for causing climate change due to their high greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, Global South countries (mostly former colonies) and Indigenous peoples in settler colonial societies contribute little to emissions but suffer the worst climate impacts. Moreover, climate colonialism is happening around the globe. Those in the Global North are buying land and establishing carbon offset projects in the Global South, undermining local peoples’ ways of life. Colonial mindsets still hinder decision makers from recognizing the value of Indigenous and postcolonial solutions to environmental issues, despite promising examples of enhanced resilience, social and environmental justice, and environmental guardianship practices tied to the resurgence of Indigenous knowledge.

General Overviews

These studies examine the impacts of different forms of colonialism on environments across various temporal and geographical scales. Ax, et al. 2011 compiles essays by historians focusing less on quantifying environmental changes and more on how different groups perceived and interacted with colonial environments. Similarly, Shanguhyia 2018 describes how Africa’s environment served as a stage for colonial actions, where European powers expressed their perceptions and utilizations of nature. Ross 2017 discusses the environmental transformations within tropical regions under European colonialism, focusing on the late-19th-century colonies in Southeast Asia and Africa and issues of overexploitation and conservation. The environmental history book Griffiths and Robin 2019 focuses on how settler colonialism, a distinct form of colonialism, led to significant, long-lasting environmental degradation and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. While Gardner and Roy 2020 focuses specifically on the economic history of colonialism, it also includes a chapter delving into the environmental impacts of colonial rule within tropical and equatorial regions, which similarly highlights how colonial powers imposed property rights, exploited resources, and marginalized Indigenous peoples. Several journal special issues further explore these themes. A 2018 special issue of the journal Environmental Archaeology fills a gap in understanding the ecological impacts of European colonialism in the Americas. A 2023 special issue of Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space discusses Israeli settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel, focusing on environmental control and its role in Palestinian dispossession. Finally, the journal Decolonization, Indigeneity, and Education offers insights into the politics of water for Indigenous peoples, emphasizing the link between water struggles and Indigenous political formations. These works underscore colonialism’s interconnected and ongoing impacts on social and ecological systems.

• Ax, Christina Folke, Niels Brimnes, Niklas Thode Jensen, and Karen Oslund, eds. Cultivating the Colonies: Colonial States and Their Environmental Legacies. Research in International Studies 12. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2011.

  This book is an edited collection covering various colonial contexts, including British settler colonies, colonial India (British and French colonies), Indochina, northern Russia, various African colonies, and Guangzhou (China). Essays examine the question of how ways in colonial rule impacted “nature,” showing the diversity of colonial regimes and governance structures that operated around the globe and (re)shaped landscapes.

• Collard, Rosemary, Leila Harris, Nik Heynen, et al., eds. Special Issue: “Critical Nature–Society Relations in Palestine/Israel.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space (2023).

  The articles in this special issue help explain to readers how Israeli settler colonialism, paralleling other settler colonial projects, involves various policies, projects, and practices aimed at controlling nature and remaking the natural environment, which are part of efforts to dispossess Palestinians. The special issue, which includes works steeped in critical social theory, is better suited to postgraduate students and above.

• Gardner, Leigh, and Tirthankar Roy. Colonialism and the Environment. In The Economic History of Colonialism, 129–146. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2020.

  This chapter examines the different motivations of European colonisers and types of economies colonial powers established in their tropical colonies, which included unprecedented levels of control over the environment. The authors highlight how the introduction of new ideas and technologies frequently clashed with indigenous worldviews, values, and beliefs about nature.

• Griffiths, Tom, and Libby Robin, eds. Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.

  An environmental history book examining the complex relationships between European colonial expansion and ecological changes within settler colonial societies. Demonstrates the profound ecological impacts that followed the European colonization of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The book highlights the consequences of European settlement, both planned (Indigenous dispossession) and unexpected (environmental degradation).

• Ross, Corey. Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire: Europe and the Transformation of the Tropical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

  DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199590414.001.0001

  Ross outlines how European colonialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries changed tropical environments. The book concentrates on colonies of Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It provides case studies on the overexploitation of primary products and the subsequent efforts to conserve natural resources and biodiversity.

• Shanguhyia, Martin S. “Colonialism and the African Environment.” In The Palgrave Handbook of African Colonial and Postcolonial History. Edited by Martin S. Shanguhyia and Toyin Falola, 43–80. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

  DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-59426-6_2

  In this chapter, historian Shanguhyia provides a broad overview of European imperial and colonial projects in Africa. This historical essay offers an excellent introduction to all levels of students about how the European colonial powers perceived and sought to use the natural environment in Africa.

• Wallman, Diane, E. Christian Wells, and Isabel C. Rivera-Collazo, eds. Special Issue: “The Environmental Legacies of Colonialism.” Environmental Archaeology 23.1 (2018).

  The special issue explores the profound environmental and demographic changes in the Americas following European colonization. There is limited archaeological research published on the ecological impacts of European colonialism on the lands and biota of the Americas. Thus this special issue fills a gap in the scholarship. The articles are suited to postgraduate social science and humanities students and undergraduate archaeology students.

• Critical Nature-Society Relations in Palestine/Israel: Virtual Special Issue. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 2023.

  The articles help explain to readers how Israeli settler colonialism, paralleling other settler colonial projects, involves various policies, projects, and practices aimed at controlling nature and remaking the natural environment, which are part of efforts to dispossess Palestinians. The special issue, which includes works steeped in critical social theory, is better suited to postgraduate students and above.

• Yazzie, Melanie K, and Cutcha Risling Baldy, eds. Special Issue: “Indigenous Peoples and the Politics of Water.” Decolonization, Indigeneity and Education 7.1 (2018).

  In this special issue, the editors bring together papers that provide critical theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding the politics of water for Indigenous peoples. The papers highlight how Indigenous struggles over water are tied in with Indigenous political formations. The special issue is an excellent introductory text for undergraduate students interested in Indigenous water politics.