Agro-Fires and Anti-Blackness in Eco-Genocide Reporting

MODIS satellite image of clearing fires in Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia captured on 25 July 2015. nasa.gov.

Last October, the Amazon was burning. The source of the 2,000+ fires being agricultural clearing for cattle farming stoked by President Bolsonaro's destructive and authoritarian administration.  Naturally, mainstream attention was delayed as the impacted communities were indigenous people, who continue to fight the rapid deforestation and legalized gold mining along the Amazon and rivers by their colonizers. Leading protectors have been assassinated in their efforts to save their homes.

 Initial outrage tremored through activist groups and organizations. By sharing and reposting videos and messages from indigenous nations being directly threatened, tweets and messages sent eventually sparked a mainstream interest. Of course, that devastation then became sensationalized; emphasis on the hopelessness gave way to sharing information on non-profit organizations raising money to protect and take action. Put your money where your mouth is! Send real dollars to protect the indigenous Amazonians you've just heard about, who are already living partitioned, both self-imposed and by the means of demarcations set by Brazil's federal government!

Amazonia is responsible for producing a significant percentage of the world's life-giving oxygen (20%). The upset for this devastation lies in the destruction of the natural ecosystem, divorced from the actual people who have inhabited the land for thousands of years.  The lack of empathy and intentional support of indigenous nations who are being impacted by and resisting this eco-genocide from the West. The mutual political relationship between Brazil and US (and having identically authoritarian leaders running our nations)  as well as many people's self-interested "activism" against the beef industry, does not address how we have bastardized food production, and moreover our standard of living, nor as being wholly dependent on these clearing fires. And this goes beyond beef.

Media is a tool of persuasion routinely weaponized by the West to sway public attention.
Social media is so often a counter to this; it dictates our daily news consumption. It can also impact how we congregate and organize ourselves, where political lines are drawn, and who is and who is not trustworthy. Media is power, but how pertinent and useful it is can be up to individual interpretation.

Media attention predictably died down within less than a few weeks' time, while the same form of man-made devastation is occurring, at an even higher rate, elsewhere in the world. Angola, a Portuguese-speaking country in Southeastern Africa is suffering from fires of the same source at an even greater proportion. Angola and the whole of the African continent have been reported to have more man-made fires than what is being witnessed in Brazil.  Yet, Brazil holds 3rd place worldwide, at over 2,000 identified clearing fires. Angola is the world leader in agro-fires and reportedly stood at 6,902 fires within a 48-hour time span. Within a weeks' span of time, over 67,000 fires were reported by NASA's Aqua satellite data.

The same devastation is being fulfilled with the same objective. And yet, we rarely ever hear about environmental crises if reported. By now, the answer as to what is preventing greater awareness, and wider outrage should be crystal clear. The same colonial forces that are dictating Western media's consciousness and concern for reporting on these instances are the same that are creating and contributing to, this devastation in Angola, and continental Africa at large.

Anti-blackness is largely understood as being only specific to social issues, specifically those in the West, where African people are the minority in question. What if I were to tell you that it's actually a global phenomenon and that the social and environmental are in a constant dialogue with one another. The reason why Angola, the Congo, and Zambia are hardly an afterthought, and why Flint and Newark are experiencing egregious water crises and despicable lack of accountability being held by elected officials' who are culprits, the reason why health and location are treated as separate but equal issues of any community, is because it would begin to unravel the very same societal structures we continue to uphold.

It would mean that we have to recognize anti-blackness as sustained in our ways of thinking, especially in how we understand environmental activism in relation to different parts of the world. While the media shapes our perceptions about global issues and our own critical reflection of what does and does not go unsaid. How often do you see yourself represented in media? What does that say about where your perspective lies in relation to media representation?

As direct action led predominantly by white and white-adjacent people from privileged backgrounds, who are directly complicit and benefactors of global eco-genocide and anti-blackness. As the source of selective media coverage on some non-Western nations but not others experiencing a climate catastrophe. Empathy-signaling by media representation for black and brown people worldwide cannot be expected, this (I hope) we all can establish. Selective grieving is created and weaponized for media advantage.

The relationship between eco-genocide and anti-blackness is a result of Western imperialism, colonialism, and the continuation of the two through global capitalism. The insidious exploitation of African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora by its "former" and new colonizers, (hello, China!), has left African people disproportionately vulnerable to oncoming "natural" devastation of ecosystems. It should be prerogative to center global climate change activism on African people, to make the connection between ecological destruction and the survival of Africana people, in opposition with the legacy of major Western and Western-influenced nations.