In the first episode of the third season of the Future Perfect-Futur Antérieur podcast, Professor Joshua Castellino, the Co-Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International and Professor of International & Comparative Law at University of Derby, UK, discusses ecological justice and reparations, highlighting how marginalized racial groups, particularly in Africa, bear the heaviest burden of the global ecological crisis. This episode examines the colonial roots of the climate crisis, emphasizing that European colonialism established extractive systems that treat nature as a commodity, driving both wealth inequality and environmental destruction.
Castellino critiques current environmental policies, particularly those that prioritize corporate profit at the expense of vulnerable communities and ecosystems. He stresses that indigenous peoples, who have long been ignored, should not bear the primary responsibility for solving a crisis they did not create. Instead, responsibility should fall on major polluters like corporations and industrialized nations. He also warns against "green colonialism," where conservation efforts further displace indigenous communities under the guise of environmental protection.