This is what Argentinian sociologist and political scientist, Atilio Boron, said at a conference held on Friday by Social Movements Towards ALBA – Argentina, in Buenos Aires, the capital city of the country. The activity, which included a panel of speakers and discussions, was organized in the context of the Peoples Summit that will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June. This summit will take place in parallel to the UN conference on sustainable development, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, also known as Rio+20.

The aim of the conference in Buenos Aires ahead of the celebration this Tuesday of World Environment Day, was to think about the ways natural resources are being looted in the framework of the capitalism crisis and the challenges faced by the peoples resisting, reads an article published by the Argentinian news website, Marcha.

Green economy “is not an alternative to solve the current crisis. On the contrary, it is just a cover so that nobody changes”, said Boron at the conference. The political scientist, who is very much respected in the Latin American social movements, highlights two important challenges faced by these movements. There’s one which has been taking place for years, which is the challenge of coordination, he said. "The movement still somehow rejects everything that means continental organization", he stated, and added that “we are fighting against highly organized enemies, and against which we can’t fight if we are not organized”.

The other challenge raised by Boron is related to the need to present alternatives for the exploitation of natural resources that "preserve nature". “This is not saying that we won’t exploit natural resources anymore, because that would mean an end to agriculture as well, because agriculture also alters Mother Earth”, he said. “We need to propose alternative ways to exploit resources that preserve nature and at the same time provide people with the resources we need to survive”, he said.

In his analysis, Boron said that “we need coal, iron, copper, which we don’t need is to extract them resorting to the technology of big capital”, which is considered by him as “predatory”. A “huge challenge” is to present new ways to exploit natural resources: “it is not true that they do not exist, they do exist, but maybe they aren’t as profitable”.
This is why the aim is to “stop capitalists, whose only technological criterion is profitability and not the wellbeing of the populations”, concluded Boron.

Photo: Frente Popular Darío Santillán.