metabolic profile of the colombian economy from 1970 to 2007 · research and analysis figure 1...

R E S E A R C H A N D A N A LYS I S

Metabolic Profile of theColombian Economy from1970 to 2007Maria Cristina Vallejo, Mario A. Perez Rincon,and Joan Martinez-Alier

Keywords:

ecologically unequal exchangeindustrial ecologymaterial flow accountingmaterial intensityresource cursesocietal metabolism

Address correspondence to:Maria Cristina VallejoPrograma de EconomıaFacultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias

Sociales—FLACSOLa Pradera E7-174 y Av. Diego de

AlmagroQuito, [email protected]

c© 2011 by Yale UniversityDOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00328.x

Volume 15, Number 2

Summary

This article characterizes the societal metabolism of theColombian economy, identifying the main factors of naturalresources use, overuse, or exhaustion. The environmental sus-tainability of a country depends to a large extent on the sizeof the economy compared to the available resource base. Ma-terial flow indicators provide an assessment of size or scaleof economies. Direct material flow indicators are used toanalyze the ecological dimension of economic activity in theperiod 1970–2007. Some resource extraction conflicts arebriefly described in the light of material flow analysis. Foreignand domestic demand promotes increasing extraction and ex-port of domestic natural resources. This is sometimes relatedto an irreversible deterioration of the local environment. Theconcept of “ecologically unequal exchange” with the rest ofthe world is analyzed in this context. Colombia has a large andgrowing negative physical trade balance, whereas per capitause of materials is still about half of the industrial countries’average.

www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jie Journal of Industrial Ecology 245

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Introduction

This article discusses material use patternsof the Colombian economy between 1970and 2007. The concept of societal metabolism(Ayres and Simonis 1994; Fischer-Kowalski1998; Fischer-Kowalski and Haberl 1993, 1997)is the central foundation of the analysis. It pro-vides a biophysical reading of the economy andexplores environmental pressures and conflictsrelated to the extraction of resources and the pro-duction of wastes.

A systematic analysis of material flows is anecessary condition to account for the environ-mental dimension of economies, which is omit-ted in conventional macroeconomic indicators.It helps to illuminate the linkages between thecourse of development and material use pat-terns, quantify progress toward a sustainable useof resources by improvements in material effi-ciency (or reductions in material intensity), an-alyze trends in environmental pressures relatedto economic activities, and recommend policyalternatives. The study of societal metabolismis connected in this article to political ecol-ogy, a field that studies conflicts on propertyrights and communal resource management and,in general, conflicts on resource extraction andwaste disposal (Schnaiberg et al. 1986; Blaikieand Brookfield 1987; Berkes 1989; Ostrom 1990;Greenberg and Park 1994; Martinez-Alier andO’Connor 1996; Martinez-Alier 2002; Robbins2004). This article attempts, therefore, to bridgethe gap between industrial ecology and politicalecology.

Societal metabolism is a conceptual tool, thestarting point of which is a comparison of thefunctioning of biological and social systems. Bio-logical systems depend on the environment forvital resources, such as water, carbon dioxide,nutrients, and other essential services—for in-stance, the ability to dispose of wastes. In a sim-ilar way, socioeconomic systems depend on theenvironment to operate. The economy requiresmaterials from the domestic environment to pro-duce goods and services, besides foreign materialsimported. Once consumption takes place, theseflows become outflows to the environment. Theyare disposed of in the form of material residues,emissions, dissipative uses, or losses, or, to some

extent, they could be reused, recycled, or simplyaccumulated as societal stocks.

Taking these ideas as a foundation, we haveused a simple systemic model here. In this model,the economy is an open system embedded inits physical environment, which means that so-cioeconomic systems maintain socially organizedmaterial (and energy) exchanges with their en-vironment (Eurostat 2007). Such a biophysicalunderstanding of a socioeconomic system iscommonly referred to as societal metabolism.Material flow accounts (MFAs) and the derivedindicators are consistent compilations of theoverall material inputs into national economies,the changes of material stocks within the eco-nomic system, and the material outputs to othereconomies or to the environment (Eurostat2007).

This article extends the previous work on thecompilation of MFA of the Colombian economy.The first contribution was the construction ofthe physical trade balance for the period 1974–2004 (Perez-Rincon 2006, 2008). The presentstudy incorporates direct material flows of do-mestic use and expands the analytical frameworkfrom 1970 to 2007. There was a marked change inworld extraction and trade of materials in 2008–2009 because of the global financial crisis. Thisarticle gives a baseline to chart the future pat-tern of the Colombian economy in light of theeconomic crisis and also of the rapid decline inthe rate of population growth. A novelty of theanalysis is the attempt to trace systematic linksbetween Colombia’s metabolic profile (Schandland Schulz 2002)—domestic and external—andresource extraction or waste disposal conflicts.

On the environmental sustainability of thiseconomy, at least two questions are addressed.One is related to specialization patterns. Likeother “extractive economies” (Bunker 1985),Colombia has a history of intensive exploita-tion of natural resources. Is this economy in-creasingly specialized in exploiting resources forexport rather than for domestic use? A secondquestion concerns the so-called ”resource curse”(Auty 1993; Sachs and Warner 1995, 2001;Gavin and Hausmann 1998). Could natu-ral resource abundance determine economicstagnation and conflicts in the country, ratherthan growth and development?

246 Journal of Industrial Ecology


This article is organized as follows. After theintroduction, an explanation of the methodologyis provided. The third section comprises a char-acterization of the Colombian economy, intro-ducing some aspects relevant for understandingsociometabolic patterns. Results of the study arepresented in the fourth section, which is dividedinto subsections to analyze in detail the MFAand the derived indicators. We also compare theeconomy of Colombia with other economies interms of material intensities. In addition, someecological distribution conflicts related to extrac-tive activities are briefly described. The last sec-tion presents the conclusions and some policyimplications derived from the results.

Methodology and InformationSources

Definitions and Methods

This article introduces “satellite” accountsfor Colombia, which extend the conventionalSystem of National Accounts by physical in-dicators, as proposed in work by the UnitedNations (2003) and by Pedersen and de Haan(2006, 2009). The physical indicators employedare domestic extraction (DE), direct materialinput (DMI), domestic material consumption(DMC), an updated physical trade balance(PTB), and material intensities of the economy.

DE is the purposeful extraction or move-ment of natural materials by humans orhuman-controlled technology (i.e., technologiesinvolving labor). Used flows are inputs extractedfrom the environment to be employed in theeconomy, whereas unused flows are not intendedfor economic purposes. This means that used ma-terials have acquired the status of a “product”(Eurostat 2001, 2007). The general categories ofmaterials are biomass, building materials, indus-trial minerals, metal ores, and fossil fuels.

DMI comprises domestic and foreign inputsfor economic activities: DE plus physical imports(M). DMC measures the fraction of all materi-als that remains in the economic system untilreleased to the environment. It is the differencebetween DMI and material exports (X). Finally,we define PTB contrary to the monetary tradebalance—M − X, taking into account the fact

that money and goods move in opposite direc-tions in economies and that international tradebecomes a mechanism to transfer environmentalpressures across frontiers. A negative PTB meanslarger exports than imports, in tonnes.1

MFAs computed in this article are basedon the methodological guides of EUROSTAT(2001, 2002, 2007).2 More recently, the OECD(2008) has become an obligatory methods source.These guides provide not only fundamental def-initions and conceptual principles but also prac-tical procedures for the accounting and reports.This research has not been concerned with un-used extraction, indirect flows, or sectoral dis-aggregation of material flows, which are not yetstandardized.

Data Sources and Reliability

The time series of the material categoriesidentified are based on statistical data compiledby international organizations, as detailed intable 1. This information was originally collectedby national statistical offices and afterward offi-cially reported to international offices. Even ifcertain weaknesses of the data persist becausesome flows are underestimated or not reportedin official statistics—such as illegal activities inagriculture and forestry, hunting, grazed biomass,forage, and building materials—a standardizedmethodology was applied, and estimations are inconformity with Eurostat methods. Therefore, in-ternational comparisons of the material flows andindicators assessed are consistent for the wholeperiod analyzed.

Illegal crops of coca, marijuana, and opiumpoppy can conceptually be linked to direct MFA.The lack of consistency among sources, how-ever, makes it difficult to generate reliable an-nual estimates.3 In addition, these flows are notsignificant in terms of tonnage—less than 0.3%of DE of primary crops. Their manufacture (co-caine and heroin) is an important part of theeconomy: about 40% of export revenues between1980 and 1995. They are what Immanuel Waller-stein called “preciosities” (Hornborg et al. 2007)in the context of colonial trade, because of theirhigh price per unit of weight (like gold or pepper).Illicit crops have high prices because of prohibi-tion.

Vallejo et al., Metabolic Profile of the Colombian Economy 247


Table 1 Data sources

Category of material Description Sources

Trade Import and export data classified by the level ofprocessing (ISIC Rev. 2) and the mainmaterial component.

UNSD (2009a) compared toDANE (2009b)

Biomass Biological materials moved by humans andlivestock per year.

Primary crops Cereals, roots and tubers, dry legumes,oleaginous plants, vegetables and melons,fruits, fibers, and other primary crops(stimulants, sugar cane, spices, and flowers).

FAO (2009a)

Grazed biomass Demand for forage of livestock units. FAO (2009a)Forage Crop residues of sugar cane and cereals used as

forage.FAO (2009a); OLADE

(2007)Forestry Wood harvested from forests, plantations, or

agricultural lands: fuel wood, roundwood,and wood roughly prepared.

FAO (2009a)

Fishing Captures of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, andaquatic invertebrates.

FAO (2009a)

Minerals Metal ores and industrial minerals productionmeasured in its gross metal content.

USBM (2009)

Building materials Sand and gravel used for concrete and asphaltproduction, and other building materialsemployed.

IRF (2009); UNSD (2009b);USBM (2009)

Fossil fuels Production of fossil fuels. OLADE (2007) compared toOPEC (2007)

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

In the case of wood harvested, although illegalforest clearance and the domestic consumptionof fuel wood directly collected introduce someuncertainty in statistics, FAO is a reliable datasource.4 Biomass from hunting is not accountedfor because of the lack of regular reports disaggre-gated at this level and the small contribution ofvolumes obtained through estimations.5

Comparisons of different international datasources and studies indicate an underestimationin building materials statistics by the U.S. Bureauof Mines (USBM). These accounts are calculatedaccording to a recently proposed method (Kraus-mann et al. 2009) that is based on cement andbitumen production figures.6

The Colombian Economy:An Overview

Colombia occupies relatively high positionsin several dimensions of the international rank-

ings. It is the 33rd largest economy in the worldin terms of gross domestic product (GDP) at pur-chasing power parity (PPP; Heston et al., 2009).Its geographical area of 1.1 million square kilo-meters (km2) makes it the 25th largest country,but with only 39 inhabitants/km2 (WB 2010).7

Colombia is among the five most biodiverse coun-tries in the world, with a great variety of ecosys-tems and species of both terrestrial and marineflora and fauna, which all add up to an impres-sive genetic wealth. With only 0.7% of the globalsurface area, Colombia hosts around 10% of theworld’s biodiversity (DNP 2007). In social terms,however, around 49.2% of the population livesbelow the poverty line, and the country is ranked77th in the Human Development Index, one ofthe group of countries with medium-level humandevelopment (UNDP 2010).

On analyzing the country’s economic activity,we found that total GDP at PPP prices in 2005constant dollars rose at an annual rate of 3.9%



Figure 1 Trends in the economy and population, Colombia (1970–2007). Gross domestic product (GDP)figures are given in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars at 2005 constant prices. Sources: Penn WorldTable 6.3 from Heston and colleagues (2009); CELADE (2009).

from 1970 to 2007. Per capita income wentfrom US$3,926 to US$7,790 in the same period.Although the population doubled, from22.5 million people to 43.9 (DANE 2009a),its growth rate is now quickly decreasing. Theaverage annual growth for the period was 2%.Figure 1 shows the evolution of these variables.

After Colombia followed the import substitu-tion economic policy common to most of LatinAmerica through the early 1970s, a vision of de-velopment through external markets came to pre-vail. Between 1968 and 1989, economic policiessupported strategic sectors, emphasizing hous-ing and infrastructure instead of industry, anddiversification of the export base became thefundamental strategy (Ocampo 1993). From1990, sectoral policies disappeared because of theprominence of macroeconomic stability policiesand deregulation to favor economic openness. Asa result, the services sector expanded—mainlyled by the financial sector—from 48% to 63% ofGDP between 1970 and 2007, whereas extractiveactivities and manufacturing decreased in terms

of share of GDP. This cannot be interpreted asa path of dematerialization, because the absolutefigures of MFA prove the opposite.

Material Flow Patterns of theColombian Economy

A metabolic profile of this economy is builton the base of three material flow indicators:PTB, DMI, and DMC. In addition, terms of trade(TOT) describe the position of the country intrade relations with the rest of the world. Bio-physical scales and dematerialization trends arecompared through material intensities related toincome and population figures.

Trade Relations and Inequalities

The Physical Trade BalanceAs shown in figure 2, the volume of physi-

cal exports increased notably during the period1970–2007, from about 7 megatonnes (MT; or



Figure 2 Physical exports of Colombia (1970–2007). Source: Authors’ estimations.

million tonnes) to around 97 Mt,8 an annualgrowth rate of 7.3%, much higher than the mon-etary growth rate of 3.9% in constant terms. Asignificant upward cycle began in 1985 with thereestablishment of oil exploitation at the CanoLimon and Cusiana wells in the east and thediscovery of new coal and ferronickel for exportfrom the large open cast mines in Cerrejon andCerromatoso on the Atlantic coast. Coal, whichrepresented 70% of the total volume exported in2007, largely explains the trends in physical ex-ports. The share of primary products in exports isquantified in weight at 85%. A decline in the ex-ported amounts of fossil fuels in 2002 is related tolow international prices. A significant recovery in2003 resulted from an improvement of interna-tional prices and an expanded production capac-ity. Coal producers invested in transportation in-frastructure, and new exploration activities wereundertaken by the petroleum company.

Physical imports went from 1.8 Mt in 1970to 21.1 in 2007, with an annual growth of 7%,as presented in figure 3. With the economic pol-icy favorable to trade, imports were encouraged,but they declined in the late 1990s due to aneconomic crisis in the country, recovering after2002.

Figure 4 shows the growing PTB deficits formost of the period analyzed. The total balance

for 37 years shows a deficit of 932 Mt of mate-rials that have left the country on their way tothe rest of the world, largely fossil fuels, essentialfor maintaining the metabolism of the import-ing countries. Due to the relatively low price ofthese exported resources and to the zero pricesassigned to environmental impacts, it could besaid that importing countries have an ecologicaldebt to Colombia. Most of the weight of the neg-ative PTB comes from primary products, whereasa small positive PTB is registered for semimanu-factured goods.9 This is a regular pattern for smalleconomies founded on the export of raw materi-als domestically extracted, with a limited scopeof the domestic productive chains.

This assessment, however, does not includeindirect flows. The so-called “raw material equiv-alents” (RMEs; Eurostat 2001; Weisz et al. 2006)are not accounted for—that is, the upstream ma-terial requirements of used extraction (interme-diate inputs) associated with imports or exports.Munoz and colleagues (2009) determine that theColombian deficit in the PTB doubled when theraw material trade balance was estimated, from62 to 123 Mt. Each tonne exported by Colombianeeded about 1.3 tonnes of indirect flows thatremained in the country in the form of wastesand emissions—a larger amount in the aggregatecompared with imports—whereas each tonne



Figure 3 Physical imports to Colombia (1970–2007). Source: Authors’ estimations.

imported required the movement of 2.9 tonnesof indirect flows in the country of origin.

Are Terms of Trade (TOT) Improving?The concept of economically unequal ex-

change was popularized in the 1960s by theUnited Nations Economic Commission for Latin

America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and com-plemented with contributions from the Marxianlabor theory of value. It was argued that produc-tivity improvements of developed economies—increments in the production per worker be-cause of technological advances—do not leadto price declines because wages increase due to

Figure 4 Physical trade balance of Colombia by material component (1970–2007). Source: Authors’estimations.



the strong negotiation power of unions. Con-versely, productivity improvements in the “pe-ripheral economies” result in lower prices becauseof ample supplies of labor and because of competi-tion among product sellers—notice, for instance,that the Organization of the Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) is the only successful exportcartel. As a result, many hours of underpaid workare embodied in primary products exported fromthe periphery, which are traded for few hours ofwell-paid work embodied in the industrial prod-ucts or services imported.

This was one central argument of the LatinAmerican so-called “structuralist school”: dete-rioration of the TOT of primary export prod-ucts (Prebisch 1950). When countries specializein exporting goods rich in natural resources andless-qualified labor, as is the case for many LatinAmerican countries, this pattern contributes tostagnation and slow development. Along this lineof thought, Bunker (1985, 2007) posits a struc-tural asymmetry between “extractive economies”in the periphery and “productive economies” inthe core. Industrial capitalism induces the rapidexpansion of production, but it is separated fromextraction in spatial terms. Notice that energycannot be recycled, and materials are recycledonly to some extent. Therefore, there is a needfor continuous fresh supplies from the “commod-ity frontiers” to feed the metropolitan centers.As greater amounts and varieties of material andenergy are required, extractive economies are fre-quently relocated, either because they have de-pleted their natural endowments or because newtechnologies have shifted the market. Regionsdepending on exporting natural resources aretherefore likely to suffer from severe fluctuationsin income, unable to sustain a path of develop-ment and to establish strong social and politicalstructures. To account for such uneven develop-ment, Bunker complements the Marxian argu-ments with a notion of “natural values,” which—like labor—are systematically underpaid by theindustrial core areas to which they are transferred(Hornborg et al. 2007).

From an ecological economics perspective(Hornborg 1998; Muradian and Martinez-Alier2001; Giljum and Eisenmenger 2004), the asym-metries in the value of imports and exportsencourage intensification of natural resource ex-

ploitation to acquire the same amounts of im-ported goods. Moreover, environmental liabil-ities are generated, which means costs are notincorporated into the companies’ balance sheetsand into the final prices of export goods. There-fore, the South—resource-intensive developingeconomies—not only exports its increments inproductivity but also physically drains its natu-ral resources by sending them abroad and suffersenvironmental externalities due to the industri-alized countries’ consumption patterns. All thisconstitutes a doctrine of “ecologically unequalexchange.”

Trends in the TOT are provided in figure 5.Unit values of exported and imported productsare expressed at constant prices (base year 1990).Export prices are lower than import prices, evenduring the coffee price peak of the 1970s, causedlargely by a failure of the Brazilian crop. A six-fold improvement in TOT was registered by 1981,which was followed by a substantial decline in ex-ports’ unit values and a long period of stagnationeven during the high commodity prices registeredin the 2000s—the subsequent decline since mid-2008 is outside the scope of this analysis. Noticethat when prices of essential bulk commodities(e.g., oil, coal, or ferronickel) increase too muchat the world level, this slows down the economicgrowth of the importing countries. When 1970and 2007 trade unit values are compared, thereis evidence of deterioration in TOT. Thus, ex-port prices declined 1.7 times (from US$340 toUS$202), and import prices declined 1.3 times(from US$2,233 to US$1,710).10

A Domestic Profile

Material Extraction and Resource Extrac-tion ConflictsHistorically, abundant natural resources have

been exploited in Colombia. Nevertheless, thereis still a notable potential for (both sustainableand unsustainable) DE in tropical forests, agroe-cosystems, grasslands, mangroves, coral reefs,wetlands, Andean forests, and moors, in additionto the continental and maritime waters. Colom-bia is a large country in terms of physical space—twice as large as France—most of it covered byforests (55%) and by agricultural lands and pas-tures (38%).



Figure 5 Unit value of foreign trade flows, Colombia (1970–2007). Sources: UNSD (2010) and authors’estimations.

Figure 6 shows DE from 1970 to 2007 by mate-rial component. A threefold increment from 136to 392 Mt was registered. The annual growth ratewas 2.9%, slightly larger than population growthand lower than the economic growth of 3.9%.Consequently, the material intensity of the econ-omy has declined.

DE of fossil fuels experienced an impres-sive sevenfold growth between 1970 and 2007.Current coal production, approximately 70 Mt,is mainly obtained from the Cerrejon. It isone of the largest open cast mines in theworld, and it could grow much more in the LaLoma mine. Crude oil is the second fossil fuel

Figure 6 Domestic material extraction of Colombia (1970–2007). Source: Authors’ estimations.



exploited. In terms of weight, it is currentlyabout 26 Mt. An unsustainable extraction ofexhaustible resources, however, is not the onlyproblem. There is also a series of associated socialand environmental effects: pollution, deforesta-tion, loss of biodiversity, gas flaring, and other se-vere environmental impacts, which furthermorejeopardize health conditions and chance of sur-vival for the people living in the mining areas.

For instance, the ancestral community ofYariguies disappeared with the crude oil exploita-tion of Exxon-Esso in Colombia—there are nomore references to its existence after the 1920s.Likewise, the Motilones Bari communities un-dertook various resistance actions against Mo-bil’s activities; however, by the late 1960s, only60% of the original population was living on lessthan one-fourth of the territory initially occu-pied (Roldan 1995). The Standard Oil Com-pany affected about 100,000 hectares of virginforests,11 and twice this area was affected by Tex-aco and Mobil (Oilwatch 2001). A similar his-tory is repeated with the U’wa communities. In1995, the Colombian government authorized theOccidental Oil and Gas Company (OXY) opera-tions inside their traditional territories. Althoughinternational protests supported the indigenousresistance to stop OXY activities in 2002, since2006 the state’s company, Ecopetrol, has beenoperating inside the area.

As coal extraction releases toxic pollutantsinto the air, water, and soil, it is known as thedirtiest of all fuels. The Wayuu indigenous com-munities, which comprise about 145,000 peopleoccupying 1.1 million hectares of the Guajira(DNP 1997), suffer from the impacts of open castcoal exploitation. Atmospheric pollution withcoal powder is spread along 150 kilometers ofrailways lines crossing the indigenous territoryuntil they reach the port,12 where the productis shipped for export. The Wayuus’ complaintsemerge because of health damage and livelihoodlosses due to accidental death of goats on railwaylines.

The share of fossil fuels in DE increasedfrom 13% to 29% between 1970 and 2007,whereas grazing activities diminished from 42%to 23%. Livestock units and land occupied forraising cattle show a moderate pattern of growth.The number of cattle heads increased 1.3 times,

and other types of livestock almost doubled innumber. Around 1 million extra hectares wereconverted to permanent meadows and pasturesby 2005 (FAO 2009b), perhaps most of themprimary forests. Although the majority of cat-tle were raised in settled grasslands of the At-lantic coast and the east flat plains, new settle-ments were established on tropical primary forests(Kalmanovitz and Lopez 2006) in the south,which have also been usurped to establish ille-gal crops.

Biomass from primary crops increased consis-tently by almost threefold by 2007 (22 Mt to 62Mt). Permanent crops for export displaced sometemporary crops meant for domestic consump-tion. This was the case for cereals, roots, and tu-bers, whose participation in primary crop extrac-tion diminished from 19% to 13% by 2007. Sugarcane, increasingly intended for agrofuel produc-tion (as also oil palm), has maintained the high-est share in primary crops throughout the years:58% in 1970 and 64% in 2007. Social and envi-ronmental problems related to permanent cropsarise from “land grabbing” and from the inten-sive consumption of water—the so-called “waterfootprint” (Chapagain and Hoekstra 2004; Perez-Rincon 2008)—to the detriment of wildlife andfood security, besides the increasing use of agro-chemicals; pollution of water, air, and soil; andhealth impacts on the surrounding populations.In 2007, banana and sugar cane occupied abouttwo times more land than in 1970—515,000 and450,000 hectares, respectively—whereas oil palmplantations, a new crop, has currently surpassed165,000 hectares.

Flower production, rather insignificant interms of tonnage, also gives rise to environmentalconflicts due to the competitive consumption ofwater, which is required for every stage of the pro-cessing (irrigation, fumigation, and postharvest).This conflict is worsened by water pollution andhealth effects because of the use of agrochemi-cals. Flower crops could employ, on average, 0.5tonnes/hectare of pesticides in 1 year, which iseightfold higher than for potatoes, for instance.

Although biomass extracted in forestry andfishery activities is a small fraction of biomass—3% and 0.1%, respectively—both are qualita-tively important because of the environmen-tal impacts associated with their exploitation.



Colombian forests play a fundamental ecologi-cal role, not only as carbon reservoirs and homesfor rich biodiversity but also as protectors of vi-tal water resources. Forest wealth, however, hasdeteriorated. Deforestation during the last 15years is estimated at 47,400 hectares a year (FAO2009b).

Deforestation is mainly attributed to the ex-pansion of pastures for grazing and agriculturalactivities. Other causes are the internal consump-tion of wood for industrial purposes and, to someextent, fuel wood as a domestic source of en-ergy. Displacement because of the violence of theinternal armed conflict and illegal crops estab-lishment are also important factors in deforesta-tion. In 2007, illicit plantations occupied 99,000hectares (UNODC 2008). Deforestation, how-ever, is higher because the establishment of 1hectare of coca crop requires clearing 4 hectaresof tropical forests (Nivia 2001; Bernal 2003).13

A significant potential for fishing exists in thelarge areas of marine and continental waters ofColombia, but there is no large fishmeal indus-try in Colombia, as there is in Peru. The At-lantic and Pacific coasts comprise 3,240 kilome-ters, besides 700,000 hectares of lakes and 20,000kilometers of rivers. Industrial-scale fishing is de-veloped in oceanic waters, above all for export.Shrimp have been grown industrially, which af-fects mangroves. Continental fishing was an im-portant source of income and food security forlocal populations up until the 1980s, when pol-lution, deforestation, and overexploitation col-lapsed the activity in the Magdalena River (FAO2003).

Building materials are in many countries animportant part of DE. In Colombia, annual ex-traction of building materials increased from 29 to108 Mt from 1970 to 2007, and industrial miner-als exploitation—in part related to the construc-tion activities—grew from 1.7 to 9.4 Mt. His-torically, different governments considered roadsand housing policies as fundamental elements forpromoting economic development because of thelinks with employment, investment, savings, andpositive distributional effects. Housing policies,however, have not been able to provide homesfor 31% of the families.

There is a close correspondence between pat-terns of extraction of building materials and eco-

nomic growth cycles (Weisz et al 2006; Behrenset al. 2007). A higher demand for building ma-terials is promoted because of the infrastructurerequirements of growth. Conversely, investmentin physical infrastructure and, therefore, the useof materials declines during recession phases. InColombia, similar trajectories are observed. Thedeepest fall of the economy in the late 1990s wasalso a period of depression for the constructionsector. Likewise, the economic recovery since2002 corresponds to the most recent boom inconstruction activities. In a country like Colom-bia, with low population density, conflicts onthe siting of quarries (so widespread in Europeancountries) are not often reported.

For more than 400 years, gold extractionchaotically expanded in Marmato, a traditionalsmall-scale mining district of the Andean re-gion in Colombia. Frequent landslides on itshigh slopes made the area unstable and riskyfor urban populations. The government solutionis to shift the urban settlement to a differentlocation. At the time of writing, the MiningCompany of Caldas—subsidiary of the Colom-bia Goldfields Limited—is planning to under-take large-scale open cast mining in the arealeft without population, with a daily removal of30,000 to 60,000 tonnes of land and rocks. Theaffected community—about 1,000 inhabitants—however, is complaining (OCMAL 2009). This isjust one of the many mining conflicts arising. Justwhat items are considered “preciosities” in theimporting countries, such as gold—completelyirrelevant to their metabolic flows—have impor-tant socioenvironmental impacts in the export-ing areas.

It can be concluded that material flows indi-cate several types of pressures on the environ-ment. Often, local inhabitants complain becauseof the effects of resource extraction. Environ-mental pressures from the extraction of mate-rials have increased, along with several ecolog-ical conflicts summarized in table 2. Extractionreaches new “commodity frontiers,” controver-sially demanding materials, including soil, water,and other vital resources, besides polluting someecosystems. Neither economic policy nor tech-nological change avoids the resulting impacts,which disproportionately affect different socialgroups. This is the ultimate source of protests and



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resistance expressed through diverse types of val-uation languages (Martinez-Alier 2002, 2009).

Besides the ecological distribution conflictsdiscussed in this section—those derived fromthe extraction of oil, coal, extensive monocrops,flowers, and gold—in table 2 are also describedother ecological distribution conflicts. Some vari-ables detailed are main actors, resources affectedper type of commodity, and regions disturbed;the table links, therefore, the study of societalmetabolism to the study of political ecology (Ger-ber et al. 2009). On a larger scale, the conflictwe call “ecologically unequal exchange” betweenprimary exporting countries and industrializedcountries (Hornborg, 1998) has also been de-scribed in this article.

Domestic Material ConsumptionProductive processes are continuously trans-

forming domestic and foreign inputs into prod-ucts; a fraction of the products become physicalexports to the world, and the remaining fractionturn into the DMC. Given that this fraction ofmaterials is employed to further industrial pur-poses, it constitutes an “apparent consumption,”including intermediate inputs. For these reasons,Weisz and colleagues (2006) identify DMC as anindicator of the “domestic waste potential.”

In the Colombian economy, DMC has in-creased from 131 to 317 Mt between 1970 and2007, as shown in figure 7. It implies an an-nual growth rate of 2.4%. Like in DE, biomass isthe main component of DMC, although its sharehas declined over the years, from 63% to 50%.Grazing has been the most important componentof biomass. An important increment, from 22%to 33%, is registered in building materials. Re-garding other kinds of resources, no significantchanges in terms of structure were recorded, butvolumes are currently larger than they were in1970.

In per capita terms, biomass is also the maincomponent of the DMC. Meanwhile, more in-dustrial minerals and building materials are re-quired; the share of biomass consumption is de-clining. These figures, as do those of DE, showthat a transition toward nonrenewable resourcesis consolidating in the material use patterns. Atthe same time, population has been growing, butat a decreasing rate. Growth rates of the popula-tion as well as per capita and aggregate DMC areincluded in table 3 to compare trends. Per capitaDMC increases at a much slower pace (0.5%)than the aggregate DMC (2.4%), than the econ-omy (3.9%), and than the population (2%) be-tween 1970 and 2007.

Figure 7 Domestic material consumption of Colombia (1970–2007). Source: Authors’ estimations.



Tabl

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tic

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eria

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Comparisons of Scales and MaterialIntensities

The purpose of this section is to comparemetabolic profiles of economies with similar anddivergent levels of development, population, andterritory. In a first comparison, it is notable thatsocially and economically similar structures cor-respond with regard to their per capita use of ma-terial resources. Colombia and Ecuador are smalleconomies, where industrialization and liberal-ization policies did not consolidate a dynamicpath of development. Natural resources are ex-ploited in keeping with economic requirements,to the detriment of the environmental and cul-tural wealth. Given this set of structural corre-spondences, it is not surprising to find analogousmetabolic profiles. Per capita volumes of DMCand PTB in both countries have increased since1970, although by higher rates in Ecuador.

At the other extreme, Spain shows thatthe level of development determines im-portant disparities in the metabolic profiles.Colombia and Spain had similar populationsin 2007 (40 million inhabitants). About 2.4

times more materials per capita are domesti-cally consumed in Spain. This country increasedbuilding materials enormously in the boom un-til 2008. Structurally, just like most Europeancountries, Spain shows a large PTB surplus. Theaccounts of hidden flows further support argu-ments of an ecologically unequal exchange be-tween the economic centers and peripheries andsupport claims for recognition of the ecologicaldebt from north to south (Machado et al. 2001;Muradian et al. 2002; Pengue 2005; Munoz et al.2009).

Finally, MFAs have been analyzed by groupsof countries clustered according to developmentstatus and population density (Krausmann et al.2008). In figure 8, the metabolic profiles ofColombia and Ecuador are compared to those ofboth developing and industrialized countries andboth densely and sparsely populated countries.

Trends in material intensities of theeconomies are assessed by the quantity of ma-terials that the economic system uses to producea single unit of GDP. In Colombia, only 59%of the amount of materials employed (DMC) in1970 is currently used to produce one unit of the

Figure 8 Per capita material flow accounts compared. HDD = high-density developing; LDD = low-densitydeveloping; HDI = high-density industrial; LDI = low-density industrial; DE = domestic extraction; DMI =direct material input; DMC = domestic material consumption; PTB = physical trade balance. Sources:Krausmann and colleagues (2008), Sojo and colleagues (2007), Vallejo (2010), and authors’ estimations.



economic output. The fraction is 73% in the caseof DMI. Differences between the intensity of DMIand DMC are explained by export flows.14 Thediscrepancy shows an increment in the physicalaperture of the economy (Eurostat 2002).

A marked decreasing trend in the material in-tensity can be seen in figure 9. On average, GDPgrew by 3.9%, whereas DMC grew by 2.4%. Al-though the natural resources of the country aremore and more exploited and ecological conflictsarise all the time, the “resource curse” is not en-tirely verified in the sense that economic output isgrowing faster than the domestic use of materialresources. Of course, one could follow the vir-tuous but unwise path of relative dematerializa-tion until complete resource exhaustion. Thereare distant signs of this as regards the dimin-ishing surface of rainforests and a decline of oilreserves.

The economy is more efficient because ahigher economic value is added for every kilo-gram of material used. Dematerialization is onlytrue in relative terms, because the economy grew

by using and depleting its natural endowment. Acomparison of the aggregate MFA shows no evi-dence of absolute dematerialization of the econ-omy. DMI and DMC have changed in line withthe economic cycles.

Let us finally look at the material flows perhectare. The scale of the physical economy visa vis its natural environment (Eurostat 2007) isassessed by a comparison of MFA indicators andthe surface area. The amount of material used perunit of the Colombian land territory increasedfrom 1.2 to 2.9 tonnes/hectare between 1970and 2007. The Colombian physical economy hasexpanded with reference to its natural environ-ment more rapidly than countries with similareconomic and population structures (2.9 versus1.8 tonnes/hectare in Colombia and low-densitydeveloping countries, respectively). Its materialuse of the space is, however, much lower than theaverages of low-density industrial countries (4.6tonnes/hectare), highly populated developingcountries (14 tonnes/hectare), and high-densitydeveloped economies (26 tonnes/hectare).15

Figure 9 Material intensity trends of Colombia (1970–2007). Gross domestic product (GDP) figures inpurchasing power parity (PPP) dollars at 2005 constant prices. kg/US$ = kilograms per U.S. dollar ; DMI =direct material input; DMC = domestic material consumption; Mt = megatonnes. Sources: Penn World Table6.3 from Heston and colleagues (2009) and authors’ estimations.



Conclusions and PolicyImplications

One contribution of this article is the com-pilation of MFA for the Colombian economyover a nearly 40-year period. This constitutesan environmental “satellite” account, valuable tocomplement the System of National Accounts.This research completes the input side of directMFA, provides several indicators to analyze thepressure exerted on the natural resource endow-ment and the environmental conflicts related tosuch pressures, and identifies some of the forcesdriving such patterns. It provides evidence thatsupports a theory of “ecologically unequal ex-change.” At the time of writing, the United Na-tions’ ECLAC is not yet publishing MFAs for thecountries that belong to this organization, despitethe fact that work on material flows is so rele-vant to debates on international trade and eco-nomic policy. Leadership in this work has beentaken on by university researchers only—Giljum(2004), Russi and colleagues (2008), Gonzalezand Schandl (2008), Perez-Rincon (2006), andVallejo (2006)—hence the subtitle of Perez-Rincon’s (2006) analysis of Colombian inter-national trade: “Toward an Ecological ‘Prebischthesis.’” Prebisch (1950) was the ECLAC’s direc-tor; he analyzed the deterioration of the terms oftrade for primary exports but did not study envi-ronmental liabilities.

Ecologically unequal exchange, deterioratingterms of trade, absolute increases in material use,reprimarization of the economy, and resource ex-traction conflicts are the most relevant issues dis-cussed in this article on the negative side. Onthe positive side, relative dematerialization (orincreased resource productivity) has made someprogress. This metabolic profile provides simpleand understandable images of the functioning ofthe economic system through standardized MFAmethods, which are not only interesting for aca-demic purposes but are also relevant to the debateon the environmental sustainability of the econ-omy. A baseline of biophysical indicators and en-vironmental conflicts will be useful to study theenvironmental and social costs of increasing ma-terial use and exports, as also for environmentaland economic historians.

These accounts give support to the hypoth-esis of polarization between extractive and pro-ductive economies proposed by Bunker (1985).The global market structure induces an export-led model in extractive economies to exploitan increasing amount of raw material inputsto cover the metabolic requirements of devel-oped economies (Hornborg 1998), whereas thedomestic necessities are frequently relegated.At the same time, the environmental liabili-ties related to these exploitation patterns arenot recognized in market prices. They becomevisible only through conflicts, and they are ev-idence of an ecologically unequal exchange. InColombia as elsewhere, most of the materials re-quired for economic activities are domesticallyconsumed—mainly building materials and agri-cultural products—but an increasing fraction isexported. This shows a higher dependency onexports, accentuated since the economic policyfavoring international trade of the 1990s.

Colombia’s material use has doubled since1970, driven largely but not only by populationgrowth. Its composition shows an increasing par-ticipation altered by the incremental participa-tion of the nonrenewable sector. According toKrausmann and colleagues (2009), this is a signalof the transition toward an industrial-type socialmetabolism. Colombia has not developed a largeand strong industrial sector, however. Instead ofindustrializing, the country has expanded extrac-tive and services activities.

An economy traditionally based on agricul-tural activities requiring the establishment of ex-tensive monocrops and pastures has definitivelycaused deforestation at a large scale, the irre-versible loss of biodiversity, a disruption of sensi-tive environments, and a higher intensity in theuse of land and agrochemicals. Soil degradationand water pollution are collateral effects of thismodel, as well as contributing to increased risksto food security because many exportable crops(e.g., flowers, agrofuels) sacrifice food production.Likewise, open cast mining of coal or other min-erals is also a source of hazardous wastes, whichthreaten human health and the environment.

These forms of disruption of the environ-ment are frequently undertaken in sensitive areas,



where threats to indigenous and peasant commu-nities originate environmental conflicts, whichin the Colombian context are often solved byviolence from the military or illegal groups (guer-rillas, paramilitary groups, drug dealers and theirarmies). These conflicts emerge because of thephysical scarcity of some vital resources and a de-teriorated quality in other cases. The increasingdepletion of the environmental wealth, togetherwith resource extraction conflicts, could be inter-preted as evidence of a relative resource curse—that is, not only an economic curse but also a so-cial and political curse. From an economic pointof view, economic output has not stagnated dur-ing the period. In fact, it has grown faster thanmaterial use. So there is no resource curse. From asocial and political point of view, however, therehave been an increasing number of violent eco-logical distribution conflicts because indigenousand peasant communities see their livelihoodsunder threat. This is not only a Colombian phe-nomenon. Conflicts analyzed by political ecol-ogy arise everywhere at the “commodity fron-tiers” in the extraction of oil, mining products,and biomass (Martinez-Alier 2002). Distinctiveto Colombia is, unfortunately, the high level ofviolence.

As in other resource-intensive countries in thesouth, not just domestic efforts to improve ma-terial productivity are required. The total surfacearea of some ecosystems (forests with their bio-diversity, mangroves, coral reefs, paramos) mustnot decrease below agreed limits. Resources suchas oil and coal must be preserved for the future,and there are also world-scale arguments to slowdown their current rate of extraction because ofclimate change. In addition, Colombia could ex-plore new policies taxing natural resource exportswhile asking for compensation for the environ-mental liabilities, either from its own companiesor from companies from the importing industrialcountries.

Which instruments of environmental-economic policy could be applied? First,eco-taxes on the depletion of natural resources(sometimes called “natural capital depletiontaxes”) have been suggested as a remedy againstunsustainable exploitation rates and negativeexternalities with local or global effects (Daly2007). Second, Colombia could restrict or even

suspend the exploitation of natural resourcesin some sensitive areas because of social orenvironmental reasons. For instance, Colombiacould promote an OPEC of coal exporters. Itcould also stop the production of coal in theenvironmentally most sensitive paramos, asproposed by environmental nongovernmentalorganizations (NGOs), on the model of theYasuni ITT proposal in Ecuador (Finer et al.2010; Larrea and Warnars 2009). Industrialeconomies’ compensations could be assessedas avoided environmental impacts, such asdeforestation, loss of biodiversity, greenhousegas emissions, and pollution. Finally, in a stageof transition toward a sociometabolic industrialpattern, a more efficient use of materials shouldbe promoted by a reduced quantity per unit ofGDP—in total amounts and by unit of land.

Acknowledgements

Financial support for this research was pro-vided by the Research Centre on Latin Amer-ican Studies and International Cooperation(CeALCI) of the Fundacion Carolina, the LatinAmerican Faculty of Social Sciences FLACSO-Ecuador, and the Institute for Environmental Sci-ences and Technologies at the Autonomous Uni-versity of Barcelona, through Project SEJ2006–15219.

Notes

1. One tonne (t) = 103 kilograms (kg, SI) ≈ 1.102short tons.

2. The first publications on MFA were developed ata national scale for Austria (Steurer 1992), Japan(MEGJ 1992), and Germany (Schutz and Bringezu1993). Two subsequent harmonization efforts werethe Concerted Action “ConAccount” (Bringezu etal. 1997; Kleijn et al. 1999) and the internationallycomparable indicators from the World ResourcesInstitute (Adriaanse et al. 1997, Matthews et al.2000).

3. Estimations presented by Steiner (1997) show thataround 3 thousand tonnes of coca leaves were har-vested in 1980 and 30 thousand in 1990. Bernal(2003) reports 115.8 thousand tonnes in 2000, andthe USDS (2008) registers more than 154.1 thou-sand tonnes in 2006. Regarding marijuana and



heroin, Steiner presents export figures: 3.9 thou-sand tonnes of marijuana and 20 tonnes of heroinannually during the first half of the nineties.

4. The World Bank (WB 2006) calculates that 42%of the total production comprises an illegal extrac-tion. According to the official reports from ITTO(2008), legal production of wood in 2007 was 3.4million cubic meters (m3), which determines a to-tal extraction of 4.4 Mt (megatonnes, or milliontonnes) including the illegal activities (assuming awood density coefficient of 0.85 tonnes/m3). Con-trastingly, FAO figures report 10.1 Mt extracted inthe same year, taking into account the domesticconsumption of fuel wood, other industrial round-wood, and wood roughly prepared. Note: One cubicmeter (m3, SI) ≈ 35.3 cubic feet (ft3).

5. Baptiste and colleagues (2002) present estimationsof the indigenous Wuonaan’s hunting: about 1.8tonnes a year of biomass (mammals, reptiles, andbirds). This volume (0.2 kilograms per person), ex-trapolated to the indigenous population of Colom-bia dependent on hunting (about 154,000 people),determines a total amount of 31 tonnes a year forthe whole country.

6. A ratio of cement to concrete of 1:6.5 is assumedto compute the amount of sand and gravel used forconcrete. Likewise, a ratio of bitumen to asphalt of1:20 accounts for the volume of materials employedto produce asphalt. The rest of the building mate-rials required for different purposes are accountedfrom the USBM.

7. One square kilometer (km2, SI) ≈ 0.386 squaremiles.

8. One megatonne (Mt) = 106 tonnes (t) = one ter-agram (Tg, SI) ≈ 1.102 × 106 short tons.

9. The PTB disaggregated by the processing level ofmaterials was already presented in the work ofPerez-Rincon (2006).

10. This article does not attempt to develop Perez-Rincon’s (2006) analysis of the asymmetries inthe functioning of labor markets in the center andthe periphery (part of the so-called Prebisch’s the-sis). More information than made available in thepresent article would be needed for this. Both inter-national and internal aspects are relevant. For in-stance, more flexible labor markets have also beenintroduced in the world peripheries in a contextof commercial openness and therefore wider salaryspreads between qualified and less qualified labor.

11. One hectare (ha) = 0.01 square kilometers (km2,SI) ≈ 0.00386 square miles ≈ 2.47 acres.

12. One kilometer (km, SI) ≈ 0.621 miles (mi).13. In addition, other severe environmental impacts

affect tropical forests and populations: pollution

due to aerial herbicides fumigations used to eradi-cate crops, and contamination of water sources andsoil by the disposal of chemical wastes from drugsprocessing.

14. DMI − DMC = (DE + M) − (DE + M − X) = X.15. Figures are estimated from work by Krausmann and

colleagues (2008) and WB (2010).

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About the Authors

Maria Cristina Vallejo is a professor atthe Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences(FLACSO), Quito, Ecuador. Mario A. PerezRincon is a professor at the Universidad del Valle,Cali, Colombia. Joan Martinez-Alier is a profes-sor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona,Spain.


http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/

http://ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers elax & ignorespaces userid=1 elax &queryId=135

http://ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers elax & ignorespaces userid=1 elax &queryId=135

metabolic profile of the colombian economy from 1970 to 2007 · research and analysis figure 1...

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