Between geocentricism and environmental pragmatism: Inductive considerations on development, extractivism, and environmental rights in Bolivia and Ecuador

Abstract

The indigenous concept of Sumak Kawsay, in which human
beings reside in harmony with each other and with the environment, is
the principal framework for the new constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia.
These constitutional reforms strengthen the rights of the environment
as well as the countries’ ethnically defined communities. Nevertheless, the
same constitutions grant the State the right to exploit and commercialize
natural resources, and extractivism has increased since the approval of these
radical constitutions. This article examines the tensions between social
welfare policies, extractivism, and the rights of the environment and indigenous peoples within the new constitutional contexts found in Bolivia and, especially, Ecuador. Is it possible to justify the extraction of natural resources
for the provision of progressive welfare policies and still respect the
constitutional rights of the environment? This article argues that the Sumak
Kawsay philosophy challenges the dominant understanding of the concepts
of well-being, common good, and development and that the governments of the two nations have applied a pragmatic, anthropocentric approach to the constitutional rights of nature in relation to other human values.