Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire: Europe and the Transformation of the Tropical World by Corey Ross (review)

This excellent book is an ambitious effort to describe the ways that European imperialism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries was the vehicle for the initial impact of industrialization in much of the tropical world. While including events in established colonies such as India, Egypt, and parts of the Caribbean, Ross focuses on colonies acquired or undergoing intensified exploitation in the second half of the nineteenth century. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia figure prominently in Ross' analyses. As different regions were colonized by different European metropoles, this book is also a valuable contribution to the comparative study of "high" imperialism and its aftermath.

Ross describes an important chapter in the human transformation of the biosphere driven by exploitation of fossil fuels, the scientific-industrial revolution, and the emergence of standardized mass consumption. In the initial chapters, he presents a series of case studies of the exploitation of tropical primary products, including both agricultural (cotton, cocoa, rubber) and mineral (tin, copper, oil) products, initiated or expanded by colonial regimes. In many respects, these are depressingly familiar examples of off-shoring destructive exploitation from European metropoles with the burden of adverse consequences falling on the environment, indigenous peoples, and future generations. The velocity, durability, and scale of these adverse effects are often astonishing, particularly considering the relatively primitive technologies employed. The coercive powers, funneling of capital, access to global markets, and transportation infrastructure provided by colonial administrations were critical to these ecological transformations.

What distinguishes Ross' case studies are the careful analyses of the interactions of the biologic and physical features of products and regions, the specific social settings, and the policies of colonial powers—the "socio-ecological" processes resulting in wholesale ecological transformations. Some socio-ecological processes and ecological transformations, for example, the development and impact of Central African copper mining, were driven by European (British and Belgian) capitalists and colonial administrations. Others were not. Colonial states may have been the social engines of change, but the specific directions and ultimate destinations were often not those anticipated by colonial administrators.

The spread of cocoa cultivation in West Africa, which became and remains the largest regional producer of cocoa, is an excellent example. Expanding cocoa cultivation resulted in major alterations of forest ecosystems. Despite the efforts of colonial officials to support plantation production and to persuade native cultivators to use European "scientific" methods, the enormous expansion of cocoa production was driven by successful adaptation of traditional labor intensive and land extensive methods by African farmers. Unanticipated primary actors also characterized the important Malayan tin industry. With world demand for tin soaring because of mass consumption of canned foods, many of the pioneering entrepreneurs were Chinese miners utilizing labor intensive methods imported from China. As these methods exhausted higher quality ores, they were superseded by capital intensive and even more destructive mechanized methods employed by European-based firms.

In the second half of this book, Ross analyzes the efforts of colonial administrators to rationalize resource extraction as the initial production frontiers were exhausted, particularly after WWI as European imperial states pursued semi-autarkic economic policies. The often unsuccessful attempts to impose top-down technocratic solutions aimed at optimizing resource extraction over the longer term is a major theme. Wildlife conservation measures, improved forestry management, and efforts to enhance agricultural practices are analyzed carefully. Ross shows efforts at scientifically based policies to have mixed outcomes. Inappropriate transfer of European-based methods ignored regional-local realities and were often unsuccessful. Policies with some beneficial features, such as the institution of national parks and forest reserves, permanently disadvantaged indigenous peoples and were an intensification of colonial control. Efforts at scientific management resulted in increasing knowledge of tropical ecologies, resulting in an appreciation (by some colonial experts) of the effectiveness and sustainability of traditional African agricultural practices.

Ross concludes with a pair of concise and analytically...