What we owe
Let us begin to repay the ecological debt owed to the developing world by helping Nepal get back on its feet.
In the Sindhupalchowk district of Nepal, a man surveys the ruins of his former home. There is nowhere to sleep or take shelter from the rains that are coming; his entire home lies flat on the ground, buried under piles of dusty rock. He has lost his wife and his father, he says, voice trembling, “and I don’t have money to perform the final rites”. His eyes drop to the ground, agonized by frustration and shame. His family prepare to sleep outside for another night, blanketed only by the uncertainty of the coming months.[i]
Nepal needs money to rebuild. Yet every year the country spends millions of dollars servicing its $3.8 billion in foreign debt. In 2013 alone, debt repayments drained $217 million from Nepal’s almost-empty coffers. High levels of indebtedness in a poverty-stricken, primarily agrarian economy have led to unsustainable agricultural practices. Deforestation wiped out 1,181,000 hectares of forest between 1990 and 2005 — almost a quarter of total forest cover[ii] — yet forests continue to disappear at an alarming rate due to agricultural encroachment, fuelwood consumption, illegal logging and timber smuggling.[iii] Deforestation destabilizes the land, increasing the risk of landslides, flash flooding and the lethality of seismic activity. Yet the treadmill of development, debt and environmental degradation continues to trap countries like Nepal in a vicious cycle of poverty. Every million US dollars in external debt is associated with 8.4 ha of deforestation in Asia and 27.2 ha of deforestation in Latin America.[iv] Similarly, sub-Saharan Africa’s growing foreign debt burden compels many countries in the region to over-exploit their natural resources. Countries adopt myopic strategies designed to meet the next interest payment, contrary to long-term conservation interests.[v] Farmers overuse the land, moving into forests and marginal lands where possible.[vi] The export of agricultural commodities and timber is a major source of the foreign exchange earnings necessary to repay international lenders.[vii]
As highly indebted developing countries engage in environmentally harmful practices to generate adequate export revenue with which to finance their debts,[viii] their exports are sold in international markets at exceedingly low prices that fail to reflect the environmental damage consequent to the export-generating activity.[ix] This gives rise to an ‘ecological debt’ owed to poor countries by rich countries, the latter benefiting from cheap imports without having to endure the environmental damage associated with their manufacture.[x] Externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, deforestation and overfishing have led to the silent accumulation of unrecognised ecological debts. The transfer of negative environmental externalities associated with First World consumption has created an ecological debt that exceeds the entire Third World debt burden of $1.8 trillion.[xi]
As Nepal mourns the loss of over 8,000 lives after two devastating earthquakes, it faces a bill of at least $10 billion for the reconstruction of infrastructure.[xii] If it is to have any hope of recovery, it must be granted relief of its $3.8 billion in foreign debt. Here is an opportunity for developed countries to begin repaying the vast ecological debt owed to the world’s poor. An opportunity to repay the debts that sustain their high standards of living as developing countries sink further and further into the ground. An opportunity to lift Nepal from the rubble and rebuild.
This article is written by Katrina Geddes, a global health advocate from Boston. Sign our petition to relieve Nepal of debt at http://burythechains.org/nepal/
References
[i] Bhandari, R. “Life on the Edge in Rural Nepal”, The New York Times, TimesVideo, May 12, 2015.
[ii] http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/archive/Nepal.htm
[iii] UN-REDD Programme, “Understanding drivers and causes of deforestation and forest degradation in Nepal: potential policies and measures for REDD+”, Discussion Paper, February 2014.
[iv] Montagnini, F. & Jordan, C. Tropical Forest Ecology: The Basis for Conservation and Management, 2005, Springer Berlin.
[v] Von Moltke, referred to in Kahn, J. & McDonald, J. “Third-world debt and tropical deforestation”, Ecological Economics, 12 (1995) 107–123
[vi] Culas, R. “Debt and Deforestation”, Journal of Developing Societies, Vol 22(4), 2006.
[vii] Culas, R. “Debt and Deforestation”, Journal of Developing Societies, Vol 22(4), 2006.
[viii] Torras, M. “An Ecological Footprint Approach to External Debt Relief”, World Development, Volume 31 (12), December 2003.
[ix] Torras, M. “An Ecological Footprint Approach to External Debt Relief”, World Development, Volume 31 (12), December 2003.
[x] Torras, M. “An Ecological Footprint Approach to External Debt Relief”, World Development, Volume 31 (12), December 2003.
[xi] The Guardian, “Rich countries owe poor a huge environmental debt”, 20 January 2008, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/21/environmental.debt1
[xii] Krishnan, U. & Mehrotra, K. “Nepal Says Earthquake Rebuilding Cost to Exceed $10 billion”, Bloomberg Business, 28 April 2015, available at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-28/nepal-rebuilding-cost-to-exceed-10-billion-finance-chief-says
