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ECOLOGICAL DEBTS AND TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS IN AFRICA By Department of Business Administration, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria
1 INTRODUCTION It is now no longer necessary to argue about whether the penetration of African societies by capitalist relations of production from around 1400 onwards and the formal process of incorporating Africa into the capitalist world economy from around 1850 onwards have done more harm than good to Africa and its people. Available and mounting evidence indicates clearly that Walter Rodney was right and his critiques wrong.
From the latest World Development Report, the following facts are as revealing as they are disturbing: the Human Poverty Index is highest in Africa than in any other part of the world; by the same token, African countries are at the bottom of the Human Development Index. Specifically, Nigeria potentially the richest country in Africa is number 151 out of the 174 countries listed on the Human Development Index. Countries such as Ghana do a little better but overall, African countries are among the poorest of the poor countries on today's earth.
This discussion looks at the role of transnational corporations in the process of Africa's pauperization in general and their role in creating a new ecological deficit in Africa more specifically. In the process, we deal with the concept of ecological debt and how it may be defined in order to establish appropriate debt levels and responsibilities for paying the debts.
2 FORCES INVOLVED IN AFRICA'S INCORPORATION INTO THE CAPITALIST WORLD ECONOMY Offiong (1980:76) has noted that, 'the international system upon which Africa depends implies a 'structure', that is, a structure of institutions, classes, and power arrangements. The dynamic process that takes place within that structure is called "imperialism". "Imperialism", then is an institutionalised system of control which systematically shapes the institutions and structures of dependent dominated countries and limits their freedom of action, if they are to avoid the system's sanctions, to system-defined alternatives". The notion of a system implies a centre of some remote control and of parts that are so arranged that they function automatically and naturally. It is true that there is an international capitalist system but the key question is what are the driving forces of the system?
Even in closed systems, there is still the principle of first causation. All human systems are brought into being by human agency. In the capitalist system, the human agency and hence driving forces are individual capitalists who erect and maintain institutions that foster and protect their role and control over other classes in society.
In the early days of capitalist accumulation and penetration of other modes of production, the driving forces were individual merchant capitalists supported by the power of the state. For example, the triangular trade in slaves which underdeveloped Africa and developed Europe and the United States of America and Canada were conducted by such private companies and individuals as the East India Company, Baker and Dawson, Richard and John Barclay, Azurara and several others. During the colonial period, these driving forces had expanded considerably to include the large number of joint stock companies that were established during the emergence of industrial capitalism. In Nigeria and in much of English speaking African colonies, the Royal Niger Company and later the United African Company played a leading role in the expansion of capitalist relations of production. In French speaking African colonies, Societe Generale enjoyed the privilege of leading the campaign of capitalist penetration.
In the neo-colonial period, and especially in the period now regarded as that of globalization, 'the dominant forces are the TNCs, the characteristic institutional form of transnational practices, the transnational capitalist class in the political sphere and in the culture-ideology sphere, the culture ideology of consumerism" (Sklair, 2001:4).
These forces are often supported by the state structures of the advanced capitalist countries and those of the underdeveloped world, which they exploit for profit. These state structures are, however, creations of the capitalist class for the purpose of serving the interests of the class. It is thus that capitalist state structures are manned by professional politicians and bureaucrats who are themselves capitalists in terms of their worldviews, orientations, attitudes, preferences and practices.
3. TRANSNATIONAL AND MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS Many writers have noted the definitional problems involved in demarcating the transnational corporation from other types of global corporations such as the multinational business enterprise (Sklair 2001; Jenkins 1987). Sklair (2001:2) has suggested that, "transnational refers to forces, processes, and institutions that cross borders but do not derive their power and authority from the state." The transnational corporation is one of, albeit, the most important of these forces. The UN Economic and Social Council refers to the transnational corporation as, "all enterprises, which control assets - factories, mines, sales offices and the like - in two or more countries" (UNCTC, 1978:158). Jenkins (1987:1-2) believes that it is best to adopt a broad definition, which sees TNCs as "firms that control production in at least one foreign country".
The problem with this definition is that it excludes global financial institutions from the purview of TNCs. Yet, it is clearly established that both finance and production capital work hand in hand to support and enlarge the global capitalist system. In essence therefore, TNCs are corporations that engage in economic activities across national boundaries and which often have huge assets and resources at their disposal.
The distinction between TNCs and multinational corporations (MNCs) has usually been in terms of the membership of the organizations. MNCs were viewed as those TNCs that had employees drawn from different countries. Moreover, MNCs usually establish sites in most countries and operate these sites largely as autonomous units. However, recent developments among TNCs in the areas of mergers and acquisitions have increasingly blurred the distinction between MNCs and TNCs. Now, it is clear that in both cases, share holdings may be geographically dispersed and that organizational membership will cut across national boundaries. What is, however, not at issue is that, with respect to third world countries, at least, the location of control in both TNCs and MNC's tends to be in some foreign advanced capitalist country, usually the USA, Canada, Japan or Europe. These developments indicate the need to use both MNCs and TNCs interchangeably: they spring from the same interests, operate on the same terms and produce the same consequences.
4 PROFILING TNCS TNCs vary in terms of size, national coverage, origin and area of concentration. The last criterion, area of concentration is perhaps the most important in terms of the consequences or effects of TNCs on different pacts of the world. However, the origins of TNCs are also of significance. In terms of origins, the largest number of TNCs is located in the USA, which accounts for 151 or 30.0% of Fortune Global 500 (1996). The USA is closely followed by Japan, which accounts for 141 or 28% of Fortune Global 500 (1996). Between the developing and underdeveloped countries, only India (1) Mexico (1) and Venezuela (1) have three TNCs between them (Table 1) These TNCs are however state funded enterprises.
In terms of areas of concentration, the consumer goods and services sector accounted for 153 or 30.6 % of the 500 Global corporations; financial services accounted for 132 or 26.4 % of the TNCs; heavy industry posted 84 TNCs or % of the total while infrastructures and electronics respectively accounted for 88 or % and 43 or % of Fortune Global 500 (1996). (Table 2) (Table 2 available only in Rich Text Format)
The heavy industrial sector is dominated by extractive global companies (petroleum refining 29, chemicals 18, metals 15, crude oil production 3, and mining 3). The refining petroleum companies are dominated by the 'Seven Sisters' - five US based corporations plus Shell and BP" (Sklair, 2001: 44)
5 THE IDEOLOGY OF TNCs Understanding the ideology or the particular beliefs of the owners of TNCs is crucial to an explanation of the activities of TNCs in the world in general and in the underdeveloped parts of the world in particular. Ideologies help rationalise actions that border on the criminal or, that are in fact, criminal. They suggest strategies, justify means - ends choices and even the choice of particular ends. The slave trade was rationalized, for example, on the ideology of the superiority of races, the needs of capitalist commerce and development. Today, the ideology of the TNCs has changed but a little.
Korten (1996:131, 70-71) has identified several key elements of this ideology and they include the beliefs that: X The world's money, technology, and markets should be controlled and managed by gigantic global corporations; X Corporations should be free to act soley on the basis of profitability without regard to national or local consequences; X There should be no loyalties to place and community; X People are motivated primarily by greed; X The relentless pursuit of greed and acquisition leads to socially optimal outcomes.
It has also been pointed out that the willingness with which multinational oil companies tend to exploit the undemocratic and corrupt processes of most third world countries arises from an entrenched oil industry culture that defines the relationship of Western oil companies with third world countries. According to Ashton - Jones, (1998:130) this oil industry culture is founded on five assumptions:
q That profit maximization is the only basis upon which a company can run, so that any expenditure beyond what is required to get out the oil is resisted; q That a deal can be made with governments only, regardless of the government's legality or morality; q That once an arrangement has been made with a government, a mining company can do what it likes, in fact, to act as if it is a government agency; q That the "market", (that is, the industrialized world) has a right to have the resources it wants, at the lowest price, and regardless of the costs to local people who are obliged to play host to mining companies; and q That "we", the mining companies, know best and are acting responsibly.
Continuing, Ashton - Jones, (1998:31) says: "Generally, neither the companies nor the governments with whom they associate, (from both first and third worlds) are willing to accept any divergence from this culture which is reinforced with a mixture of cynical public relations and intimidation. It is fair to say that the adverse impacts of mining upon the lives of host communities (and, for that matter, the extravagant use of mineral resources by the industrialized world) arise more from this immoral culture (this wickedness) than from anything else."
These assumptions drive the operation of the TNCs operating in the third world. They serve to justify and legitimize the attitudes of the multinational (oil) companies towards such environment degrading activities as oil spills, gas flaring, shoddy and unsafe constructions of oil facilities, supply of guns and weapons for the massacre of indigenous peoples, bribery of top officials of the state and their direct participation in human rights abuses.
6 TNCs IN AFRICA Against the above background, it is easy to understand the activities of TNCs in Africa. During the colonial period, almost all TNC activities were concentrated in the primary sector. These included 'tea estates and coffee plantations in Kenya, rubber plantations in Liberia, copper mines in Zambia, precious metals in South Africa' (Jenkins, 1987: 6) and cotton, groundnuts and coca in Nigeria. Although the TNCs moved into the manufacturing sector during the colonial period, they continued to expand and dominate economic activities in the primary sector of African economies. There was, however, now a shift from agricultural products to the extractive (including timber) industries. In addition, they tended to dominate those sectors of manufacturing industry in which they began to participate. The data on the worldwide sales of leading TNC's compared to GDP of selected Third World Countries in 1984 is indicative of the first trend (Table 3) while the data on the share of manufacturing industry controlled by foreign firms in selected African countries for the same period is indicative of the second trend (Table 4). Over the years, these trends have deepened, rather than recede.
7 TNCs IMPACT ON AFRICA The impact of TNCs on the world economy in general and on Africa in particular has been a matter of controversy. On the one hand, there are those, including the TNCs themselves who have argued that TNCs have been the engines of economic growth and development in the world and Africa.
On the other hand, there are those who have argued that while the TNCs have indeed been the engines of growth in the wealth of a small portion of the earth's population, they have nevertheless been the engines of poverty and underdevelopment for the vast majority of the world's people. This second view is obviously the correct one. It is supported by the historical experience of the peoples of the third world and Africa in their relationships with TNCs, by the determinants and hence role of power in economic relationships and by the specific practices of TNCs in Africa.
Although there are several areas of African experience that are directly relevant in this regard (Africa's debt crisis, underdevelopment, poverty, political instability, cultural crisis, etc) we shall focus particular attention on Africa's growing environmental and hence ecological crisis. The analysis shall be in terms of the role played by TNCs in the creation and substance of this crisis Africa. Africa's ecological crisis is substantively different form the ecological crisis in the advanced parts of the world. It arises largely form the activities of global multinational companies in the extractive industries: mining, petroleum extraction, exploitation of forest resources, including genetic reserves and the introduction of large mono product farms. While we can cite several examples in Africa where the activities of TNCs and their local collaborators have produced ecological crises, (Ghana - where there has been excessive water pollution especially in the mining areas, and depletion of forests for surface mining; Zaire - where foreign interests in the mining industry and the consequent export of all outputs to the advanced capitalist countries have produced environmental degradation, mass poverty, unemployment and economic growth without development; Cameroon - where the activities of logging companies have dramatically altered the ecosystem) two particular instances of the activities of TNCs will be highlighted to illustrate the general situation. These are the cases of Papua New Guinea and Nigeria.
Broken Hill Proprietary in Papua New Guinea Sklair (2001:241) has documented that Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) "was a major actor in the mining industry in Papua New Guinea. The OK Tedi copper mine, in which BHP had a controlling stake, had been both a source of large profits and a running sore for the company since its opening in the 1980s. Shortly after the Australian government granted independence to PNG in 1975, OK Tedi Mining Limited was established. The promise of revenues and jobs persuaded the PNG government to exempt the company from most of the country' s environmental laws. Unsurprisingly, the mine has become an environmental hazard. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, in 1991, the head of the OK Tedi River System was almost "biologically dead" after years of exposure to crushed rock, cyanide and heavy metal wastes from the mine. The livelihood of about 30,000 landowners had been seriously impaired and in 1994 they filed suit in Australia against BHP. The company, which accounted for about 30 percent PNG federal revenues, was later found guilty by the Victoria Supreme Court (BHP was headquartered in Melbourne) for its involvement in legislation that was drafted for the PNG parliament making it a criminal offence to sue BHP! For this behaviour, BHP was included in Multinational Monitor's list of the ten worst corporations in 1995".
The Nigerian Case The role of TNCs and the Nigerian government in the brutal exploitation and creation of an ecological disaster in Nigeria's Niger Delta has been well documented (Olorode, 1989; Ashton - Jones, 1998; ERA/FoEN, 1999: Human Rights Watch: The Price of Oil, 1998; Iyayi, 1999; Okonta, 1998).
It is instructive that Ashton - Jones' 'The Human Eco-systems of the Niger Delta' is dedicated to: "NNAH UABARI, who was shot dead on 25th October, 1993 near Shell Flow Station No, 5 Ilorokoro, Ogoni, Rivers State Nigeria."
The repression of the peoples of the Niger Delta has gone hand in hand with the crude exploitation of the oil resources of the area. In this repression, the oil companies led by Shell has played a significant role, providing Nigerian police with guns and information with which to suppress local revolt against its profit maximization activities. As Olorode (1998: 15) has noted the oil industry in Nigeria has inflicted unprecedented agony on the indigenous communities of the Niger Delta by completely disrupting the waterways, by destroying soil, water, air, animal and plant life and indeed cutting off all the means of livelihood of the communities. Olorode (1998) has equally documented how other branches of the extractive industry in Nigeria: tin mining in the Jos Plateau area, lignite and coal mining in the Enugu and Niger Basin area, exploitation of forest products and plant genetic resources have adversely affected the local and hence national ecosystems.
The extractive industries in Nigeria as in other parts of Africa and the third world are completely dominated by TNCs. The TNCs not only operate with the full backing of their home governments over which they have considerable control but also exercise complete control over the governments of Africa and third world countries. The role and impact of TNCs in these contexts confirm the view that they: "have emerged as the dominant governance institutions on the planet, with the largest among them reaching into virtually every country of the world and exceeding most governments in size and power. Increasingly, it is the (interests of TNCs) more than the human interest that defines the policy agendas of states and international bodies, although this reality and its implications have gone largely unnoticed and unaddressed" (Korten, 2001:54).
From this brief analysis of the profile and activities of TNCs some general points can be made about the reasons for environmental degradation in Africa and elsewhere. The first point is that in any given situation, environmental and ecological problems often arise from unequal power relations between the user non-owner and the owner non-user of natural resources. This holds true not only TNC user non-owner and indigenous peoples owner non - user relationships in Africa and other parts of the Third World but also for the same types of relationships in the advanced countries. It is for this reason, that the activities of extractive companies produced quite different results for both Canadian and American Indians than they did for Canada's Atlantic Provinces and US West Texas farmers. For the Indians on both sides, the activities of extractive companies caused social dislocation, environmental degradation and despair. For the West Texan farmers and Canada's Atlantic Provinces, "local community businesses became more prosperous and larger . the new oil field and gas money broadened and deepened the distribution of wealth and power in the community" (Copy, 1984). Whereas in the one case the extractive companies and the US and Canadian governments entered into agreements with local communities that guaranteed that they could exercise the right to refuse, delay or permit any activity in their communities, in the case of the Canadian Indians, the culprit, the Reed Paper Company and the Canadian government both "disclaimed all legal, social and moral responsibility for the pollution. Neither the Federal government, the state government nor the politicians could, or would help the Indian people" (Ikein; 1988: 118). Unlike the Texan farmers, the Indians were, of course poor, unorganized but most importantly, indigenous and powerless.
The second fact is that environmental degradation is the result of the pursuit and application of the TNC ideology, which is also the ideology of the capitalist class in the advanced capitalist countries. Thus ideas about sustainable development and corporate environmentalism cannot succeed in a world where profit making, mass consumption and acquisition and greed inform or provide the fundamental basis for economic, political and social relationships. The third point is that those who exercise dominant power in the user - non - owner and owner non- user relationship are not only largely responsible for producing environmental degradation; they are also responsible for producing poverty in these contexts. This point is amply supported by specifically African experience, by the American and Canadian data that we have just reviewed and by thousands of case examples from various parts of other third world countries. In this regard, the following are illustrative: the Japanese controlled Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corporation, PASAR and its record of shame in the Philippines; the experience of the indigenous Igorot people of Benguet Province, Philippines in the hands of the US - rich Philippine investors owned Benguet Corporation; the careless dumping of waste and severe pollution in Venezuela, Curacao, Peru and Ecuador by oil companies notably, Shell (Bassey, 1997; the environmental tragedy in Indonesia (Ikein; 1990); etcetera etcetera, etcetera. The fourth and certainly the most alarming and disturbing point is that the TNCs that degrade the environment of the Third World do so deliberately and consciously, rather than out of ignorance, necessity, lack of resources and accident. Whether it is in PNG or Nigeria, the Philippines or Ecuador, the TNCs backed by their home governments take part in drafting legislation to cover their paths or to escape responsibility, they actively take part in human rights abuses, they mount advertising campaigns that cost billions of dollars to polish their image and distort the facts, they tell lies. They do all these and more knowingly, deliberately with the backing of carefully crafted strategies. It is within the context of these four observations and particularly, the last one that I believe the concept of ecological debt needs to be phrased, given meaning and developed.
8. THE CONCEPT OF ECOLOGICAL DEBT Debts imply some mandatory obligations based upon some precedent. The obligations may be moral or legal but they do require to be redeemed. Moreover, that requirement, or the foundation that provides validity for the obligation is the precedent and therefore the nature of the debt, whether moral or legal can only be inferred from the nature of the precedent. In the normal debtor - creditor relationship, the precedent is provided by a request from the debtor to the creditor for some facility. The relationship between the debtor and the creditor is formalized in an agreement which becomes binding on both parties: the creditor is obliged to provide the promised facility while the debtor is obliged to replace the facility upon terms and conditions specified in the agreement. Even in cases where the obligation is moral, for example, where A feels indebted to B for some acts performed by B that A values, the obligation arises out of an understanding between A and B, that an obligation exists on the part of A to redeem the debt at some future date. No formal agreement may be executed but the obligation to redeem the debt will be no less binding.
Difficulties arise in the debtor-creditor relationship where [i] A believes that B owes her a debt but which B does not acknowledge - or refuses to acknowledge and [ii] where B acknowledges the debt claimed by A but proclaims that it is a moral rather than a legal one. This may be so even when, indeed, A maintains that the obligation is a legal one or both legal and moral. In this case, the parties will be required to plead their causes in the court of precedent.
Ecological debts encounter these and other difficulties in at least four areas. The first is one of definition; the second is that of quantification and therefore of establishing the limits of responsibility; the third is assigning responsibility. The fourth and by no means, the least difficulty is ensuring that those who have responsibility actually assume and discharge that responsibility.
Defining Ecological Debt Some writers have made a distinction between ecology and environment and while noting the dependence of the one upon the other have insisted that the two terms be used differently (Ashton - Jones, 1998; Sklair, 2001). Indeed Sklair (2001) has argued that leading trans-national corporations are consciously involved in promoting the idea of an environmental rather than an ecological crisis because the latter has greater implications for corporate behaviour. Corporate environmentalism has costs but they are costs that can easily be absorbed within the dominant TNC ideology. Other writers make no distinction between ecology and environment indicating that one does not make sense without the other (World Commission on Environment and Development). While taking serious note of Sklair's observation, this discussion will use the two terms interchangeably.
Ecological, or from our point view, environmental debt, has been defined as "the additional burden on the environment occasioned by surpassing the limits of the resilience of the natural system" (Navia, 1994, quoted in Ojo, 2001: 28); or as surpassing "the productive potential of the ecosystem" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987: 9). These and related definitions raise a number of questions: what is the resilience of the natural system or the productive potential of the ecosystem? What is the nature of the additional burden and how does the burden arise? These questions, especially the last one, are important because of the need to assign responsibility for debts.
Arising from our earlier observations, we see an ecological debt as an obligation owed by economic and political actors to society or sections of it for conscious acts on their part that lead to a damage of the environment and impairs its ability to support life or regenerate itself. The emphasis on actors indicates that recognizable individuals and institutions perpetuate harmful acts to the environment whether or not they hide under an agenda of global sustainability or development imperatives. The idea that the acts are conscious is to draw attention to the legal, rather than moral obligation that the consequences of damage to the environment, impose. It is also to separate this class of action from others such as those in previous pre-modern or pre-industrial societies, when food-gathering communities engaged in relationships with the environment that ultimately led to the true tragedy of the commons. In particular, given the acknowledged relationship between poverty and environmental degradation, the insistence on economic and political actors acting consciously usually in pursuit of the profit motive suggests that responsibility for environmental degradation cannot be shared to the poor but rather those whose actions cause poverty. Finally, being conscious acts, they are different from acts of ignorance or accident. They can and need to be placed within the representative class of actions that we categorize as "crimes against humanity". For example, we are aware that soldiers kill each other and even members of the civilian population in times of war. These killings are not regarded as criminal acts: they are understandable within the rules of war. But then some soldiers do get tried for war crimes. An ongoing and classic case is that of Milosevic, former President of Yugoslavia who has been arrested and is now being tried at the Hague for 'crimes against humanity. The trial is based upon the notion of decent and indecent or normal and abnormal acts in war. While different kinds of action can lead to ecological damage, not all such actions need to be classified as ecological debts. We suggest that the notion of ecological debt be reserved for damage to the ecosystem that results from the conscious acts of economic and political agents and that the concept, of ecological losses be reserved for damage to the environment that result from the unintended actions of economic agents and actors. The one is a crime of the head, the other an offence of the heart. Both require redemption but of qualitatively different kinds. TNCs commit ecological crimes in the third world for which they must pay but payment cannot be in the form of sustainable development, nor corporate environmentalism; it must be in the form of appropriate and adequate restitution. The question that arises however is, how are the adequacy and appropriateness of such payments are to be determined?
Establishing Costs Many commentators on the ecological crisis are agreed that is difficult if not impossible to quantity and allocate the costs of ecological damage (Kapp, 1970; Martinez -Alier, 1990). Indeed, Kapp (1970: 44) has argued that:
"the fact of the matter is that both disruption and improvement of our environment involve us in decisions which have the most heterogeneous long-term effects, and which moreover, are decisions made by one generation with consequences to be borne by the next. To place a monetary value on and apply a discount rate to future utilities or disabilities in order to express their present capitalized value may give us a precise monetary calculation but it does not get out of the dilemma of a choice and the fact that we take a risk with human health and survival. For this reason, I am inclined to consider the attempt at measuring social costs and social benefits in terms of monetary or market values as doomed to failure". (Quoted in Martinez - Alier Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and society . Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1990: xx)
Martinez - Alier (1990) has suggested that one way to resolve the problem is to politicize the economy by assigning values to alternative results and costs since neither economic rationality nor ecological rationality can be relied upon to solve the problem of incommensurability in valuation. The problem with such a solution however, as Martinez - Alier recognizes is that the politicization of the economy will mean leaving decision making in the very hands of those who create the negative externalities. Thus the interests of "the three or four billion of the earth's poorest members" who suffer the effects of environmental degradation will not be taken into account. We believe that the problem of measurement can be solved if we reserve the process for ecological debts as opposed to ecological losses. Indeed, we believe that the difficulties that Kapp observed apply largely to damages to nature that we have classified as ecological losses.
Indeed, Pearce and Turner, 1990; Power, (1996) have demonstrated that it is possible to measure environmental damage, especially those that involving environmental debts. Devlin and Grafton (1998) have advanced the notion of property rights as basis for conducting such valuation. "Property rights are defined in terms of owner(s) and their relationship with others regarding the asset. A property right provides a stream of benefits to the owner (or user) and requires that others respect the property right. Who owns the property right and how this right is specified affects its use". (Devlin and Grafton, 1998: 38)
Once property rights are established over resources, it becomes possible to make people pay attention to the external costs that are generated in the course of using those resources and therefore of ensuring that payments will be made for any negative externalities thereby created. An important point about property rights is that they can be exercised at local, national and international levels. At the local level, the problem is easy to identify, property rights can easily be established and the costs of negative externalities quantified; moreover, the major contributors to the problems can be identified easily. The idea of local property rights and how trading schemes can be established at this level indicates how the process may also be established at the national and international levels.
At the national level, ecological debts can be computed as an aggregate of the debts at the local level, in the same way, the debts at the international level can be established as the sum total of the debts at the national level. The idea then is that rather than think of ecological debts in global terms, and therefore be confronted with the problems of incommensurability, assigning responsibility and exact measurement; it is better and more realistic to begin with an agenda of local ecological debts which are arrived at on the basis of local property rights. Such rights would include tradeable permits (Devlin and Grafton) that provide for the rights of the owners of the property rights and liability on the part of the users whenever and wherever negative externalities are produced. The methods of enforcing these rights including the role of regulatory agencies would also be provided for and addressed when drawing up the tradeable permits.
In proposing this approach towards the establishment of the ecological or environmental debt, we wish to acknowledge that a number of preconditions must exist for success. The first precondition is that property rights must be vested in the real rather than surrogate owners of resources. The real owners of the resources are those who have a historical claim to the resources and who also will be most affected by negative developments with respect to the use of the resources. In developing countries, the major problem is how property rights are established: this explains the struggles of the peoples of Nigeria's Niger Delta for control over the oil and gas deposits on their land. It also explains the refusal of the Nigerian state to concede such rights to the people of the Niger Delta. In essence, here, as in several parts of Africa, property rights are vested in the state, which however, goes into collaboration or collusion with transnational corporations to exploit those rights without regard for the interests of the owner non-users or host communities.
The second precondition that needs to exist is that the property rights must be adequately protected by appropriate legislation. In the name of the need for revenues and development, the governments of several third world countries often fail to enact legislation that protect the property rights of their people. Indeed, legislation is enacted that frees the TNC user non-owners of those rights from several obligations. It must be noted however that within the context of the ecological debt as have conceptualized it here, the lacuna in the laws does not free the users of the rights from being liable for abuse of those rights; if anything, it simply postpones the day of reckoning for them.
The third precondition is that the owners of property rights must be empowered to protect their rights. Where the owners of the property rights are weak relative to the users of those rights, ecological abuse will certainly occur.
In summary then, ecological debts need to be calculated on the basis of specific local instances. The localization of quantification means that every possible detail will be captured: the actual degree of abuse, opportunity costs and so on. It will not matter that the origins of a particular pollutant are several thousands of kilometers away, nor that the effect become recognizable after so many years. These will be matters of tracing responsibility. What will be critical from the point of view of establishing the size of the debt will be compiling all the data that relate to actual costs in each local situation. From such local costs, national and international costs can then be established.
9 CONCLUSIONS: ECOLOGICAL DEBT, REPARATION AND DEBT CANCELLATION A reappraisal of the past and ongoing relationships between the third world peoples and leading centres of the advanced capitalist world has led in recent times to demands by peoples of the under-developed world for various forms of compensation and restitution from the leading centres of the advanced capitalist world. One of such demands, reparation, is specifically African and is anchored on the inhumanity of the forced trade in slaves from around 1400 to 1850 during which over 20 million Africans were uprooted from the African continent and sold into plantation labour in the Americas and elsewhere. Walter Rodney (1972: 106) has shown, for example that whereas in 1650, Africa's population stood at 100 million, by 1900, three hundred and fifty years later, the population had increased to just 120 million. Europe and Asia, which respectively had 103 million and 257 million people in 1650, had increased their populations to 423 million and 857 million people by 1900. The trade in slaves pushed Africa outside of the orbit and hence natural trajectory of its development as a push by a big planet on a small planet alters the trajectory of the small planet forever. The slave trade altered Africa's natural trajectory of development forever. The demand for reparation thus seeks redress for a small part of the incalculable and unindemnifiable damage done to Africa by European and American slave traders.
The second demand, shared by all third world peoples is that of debt cancellation. This demand is based upon the realization of debtor countries that the huge debts, which they are being called upon to pay, represents a fraction of the surplus expropriated from their own countries by agents and representatives of global capital. More importantly, it is based upon the realization that the debts arose as a result of unjust economic, trading and political relations that were consciously foisted by the advanced capitalist countries on the poor countries. It has been estimated for example that in 1996 alone, the net outflow of funds from the third world to the advanced world was in excess of US$50.0 billion. This net outflow was calculated by subtracting the total outflow of foreign investments form the advanced countries to the third world from loan repayments by third world countries. What the data shows is a scandal: in effect, third world countries are financing the development of advanced countries and having to be reminded that they are poor by the same advanced countries.
The third demand, the idea of an ecological debt owed by rich countries to the world in general and to third world countries in particular links the current world wide ecological crises and specific regional environmental disasters to the conscious activities of a globalising capitalism. For third world and African countries, the ecological debt has a close relationship with debtor status and therefore the demand for debt cancellation, for the sources of the loans that finance the debts of third world countries are extracted from the soils of third world peoples - extractions that produce environmental disasters and crises in the third world. That this relationship is indeed recognized by international financiers can be seen in the attempt some years ago to write off US$4.0b of Brazil's foreign debt as the value of the ecological damage to the Amazonian rain forest in Brazil.
In general, however, what needs to be understood is that the demands for reparation, debt cancellation and payment of ecological debt are related. They are demands that arise from the exploitative nature of the relationships between third world and first world capitalist countries. Indeed, they arise from the relationships between poor and rich countries, where the rich have become so by fraudulently taking what belongs to the poor. In a fundamental sense therefore, all the demands arise from a class of actions on the part of the advanced capitalist countries that need to be recognized and as treated as crimes against humanity. This needs to be the slogan for the various demands. The slogan may not win any specific concessions now because of the existing power relationships between third world and the advanced capitalist countries but it will certainly serve a note of warning to them that we understand the history and nature of our relationships and that a day of reckoning is coming.
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