The conservation sector must speak truth to power, says political ecologist

The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week's Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only what increases their bottom line. Understanding this power dynamic and speaking truth to it is essential for the environmental movement to succeed.

"If you keep on doing the same kind of things and not take the root causes, the root structural forms of power into account, you may have nice terms like nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, natural capital, but they don't actually challenge the power structures to change," he says.

That structure he refers to as "platform capitalism." Tasks humans used to do through various options or pathways are now gate-kept by tech companies. These companies have monopolized these platforms, including social media, generative artificial intelligence, and search engines that prioritize data collection over sincere citizen engagement. This makes it difficult for the environmental movement's message to find an open audience. In some cases, people cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not anymore.

Buscher has written his thoughts in his book The Truth About Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism, which explains why "speaking facts to power" does not fundamentally change the policies currently failing the environment. Speaking truth to power, Buscher argues, is the only way to truly address the root causes of environmental destruction.

"Unless we understand how power works … also authoritarian power … we can't go beyond it and or speak truth to it. To do something deliberately and consciously different."

Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, here.

Banner image: Wallace's Passage between Gam and Waigeo islands in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

—-

Timecodes

(00:00) What is political ecology?

(12:31) Why conservation is inherently political

(17:03) What is 'speaking truth to power'?

(29:35) Understanding 'platform capitalism'

(42:02) How to speak truth to power

(53:24) Convivial conservation