Introduction: The Theft of Nature and the Poisoning of the Land in Latin America

Abstract

This book is the first green criminology text to focus specifically on Latin America. Green criminology has always adopted a broad horizon and explicitly emphasised that environmental crimes and harms affect countries and cultures around the world. The chapters collected here illuminate and describe the "theft of nature" and the "poisoning of the land" in Latin America through and from processes of agro-industry expansion, biopiracy, legal and illegal trafficking of free-born non-human animals, and mining. An interdisciplinary study, this collection draws on research from a wide range of international experts on not only green criminology, but also social justice, political ecology and sociology. An engaging and thought-provoking work, this book will be an essential text for anyone interested in current issues in environmental crime. Introduction: The Theft of Nature and the Poisoning of the Land in Latin America / Avi Brisman David Rodríguez Goyes, Hanneke Mol and Nigel South -- The Environmental Damages and Liabilities of Collective Suicide / Cleotilde Hernández Suárez -- The Archipelago of Chiloé and the Uncertain Contours of its Future: Coloniality, New Extractivism and Political-Social Re-vindication of Existence / Eduardo Mondaca -- Understanding Environmental Harm and Justice Claims in the Global South: Crimes of the Powerful and Peoples' Resistance / Gustavo Rojas-Páez -- Mining in Colombia: Tracing the Harm of Neoliberal Policies and Practices / Laura Gutiérrez-Gómez -- Global Pollution, Multinational Oil Companies and State Power: The Case of Yaiguaje v. Chevron Corporation / Matthew G. Yeager and Jade L. Smith -- A Decade of Social and Environmental Mobilization Against Mega-Mining in Chubut, Argentinian Patagonia / Ana Mariel Weinstock -- Agro-Industry Expansion Through "Strategic Alliances": The Shifting Dynamics of Palm Oil-Related Dispossession / Hanneke Mol -- The Injustices of Policing, Law and Multinational Monopolization in the Privatization of Natural Diversity: Cases from Colombia and Latin America / David Rodríguez Goyes and Nigel South -- The Use and Abuse of Animals in Wildlife Trafficking in Colombia: Practices and Injustice / Ragnhild Sollund -- Wildlife Trafficking in the State of Sáo Paulo, Brazil / Marcelo Robis Francisco Nassaro -- Biomedical Research vs. Biodiversity Conservation in the Colombian-Peruvian Amazon: Searching for Law Enforcement Where There is Lack of Accountability / Ángela María Maldonado and Thomas Lafon -- An Epilogue to the Book, Not an Elegy for the Earth / Avi Brisman.