by Joan Martinez-Alier

About Joan Martinez-Alier

Joan Martinez-Alier is Emeritus Professor at ICTA, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and at FLACSO, Ecuador; author of Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment, and Society (1987) and The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (2002); coeditor of Ecological Economics from the Ground Up (2012); past President of the International Society for Ecological Economics; and Director of the EJOLT project (Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities, and Trade), 2011 to 2015.

Environmentalism(s)

The three main currents of environmentalism could be named as the Cult of Wilderness, the Gospel of Eco-Efficiency, and the Mantra of Environmental Justice (together with the Environmentalism of the Poor). The religious overtones are justified by the fervor with which the faithful defend their own positions. Those currents are as three big branches of a single tree or three cross-cutting streams of the same river. There are many possibilities of collaboration among them, but there are also substantial cleavages.