Latin American decolonial environmental justice

Abstract

This chapter offers an insight into an environmental justice perspective emerging from the Global South: the decolonial environmental justice approach. Although environmental justice literature from the Global North increasingly acknowledges the historical legacy of colonialism in environmental justice struggles in the Global South, particularly in reference to land use and distribution patterns, it rarely mentions the persistence of colonial values (coloniality) as a cause of current injustices and violence, and the need to confront it. This is precisely what Latin American environmental justice thinking offers to environmental justice perspectives from other parts of the world, through its focus on decoloniality. This chapter explores this perspective by examining two themes: i) the roots of Latin American decolonial environmental justice thinking; and ii) its main propositions.