Paper short abstract:

A certain type of discourse frames subsistence farming as a root cause for the changing climate. The idea that subsistence farmers have damaged the planet is a racialised and class-based (a)morality that contributes to silencing the dramatic inequalities of the Anthropocene.

Paper long abstract:

In coastal Guinea-Bissau, a combination of two hegemonic discourses about nature conservation and climate change frames the farming activities of subsistence farmers as a root cause for the changing climate. This (mis)placement of blame is as much a tale grounded in unequal power relations and the cultural morality of the global north, as it is a parody of global environmental injustice. In Cantanhez National Park, livelihoods depend on forests and/or mangroves to grow upland rice and mangrove rice, respectively. The latter has been affected by strong spring tides and climate instability, which directly affects coastal peoples’ food security. Concurrently, conservation stakeholders inform farmers that climate change has resulted from shifting agriculture, a practice used locally for upland rice production. This localised and biased attribution of guilt is not only disproportionate, but it ignores the predominant effects of industrialisation, exploitation and extractivism by the global north. Such a narrative precludes farmers from struggling for global environmental justice, namely for the enforcement of effective climate mitigation measures and just compensation. It is also an overpowering extension of traditional conservation’s war on swidden farming and improperly depicts conservation stakeholders as knowledgeable about climate change mitigation. Finally, the funding allocated for both climate resilience and conservation continues to be diverted from farmers, despite the fact that they are the ones most acutely affected by both and the most knowledgeable about the local manifestations of climate change. The idea that subsistence farmers have damaged the planet is a racialised and class-based (a)morality that naturalises ongoing dispossession and contributes to silencing the dramatic inequalities of the Anthropocene.