Plastics’ circular economy for the Galápagos Islands? Exploring plastics governance with implications for social and ocean equity in a UNESCO World Heritage Site

By Juan José Alava, María José Barragán-Paladines, Jessica Vandenberg, Gabriela Alonso-Yanez, Marcia Moreno-Báez, Nastenka Calle, Judith Denkinger, Ibrahim Issifu, Eduardo Espinoza, Nikita Gaibor, Mauricio Velásquez, Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor (Moreno-Báez is a Research Professor and Lecturer at the Fletcher School)

Introduction

In an era dominated by plastics (i.e., The ‘Plasticene’ Haram et al., 2020), where synthetic plastic materials and chemicals are pervasive in our daily lives, industries, and natural environments, it is crucial to focus on addressing the underlying structural causes of marine plastic pollution, particularly those affecting remote islands and coastal communities of the global ocean. Conversely, within the context of the Blue Economy transition, which emphasizes the sustainable use of ocean resources, integrating equity and sustainability into development policies presents a key opportunity to address the systemic and root structural causes of marine plastic pollution (Bennett et al., 2023; Cisneros-Montemayor et al., 2019, 2021; Simon et al., 2021). Plastic production and pollution policies are deeply intertwined with the legacies of colonialism and the persistence of global inequities, which have shaped the production, consumption, and disposal of plastics (Liboiron, 2021; Fuller et al., 2022). The unchecked proliferation of toxic and wasteful plastics, driven by monopoly capitalism and the influence of powerful multinational corporations (Jacques, 2023; Mah, 2022), drives these inequities, disproportionately affecting low-income and historically marginalized communities (Vandenberg and Ota, 2022; Vandenberg, 2024). Ineffective and inequitable waste management systems further entrench these disparities. Thus, developing a truly equitable and just circular economy for plastics necessitates critically examining these institutional and historical issues, ensuring that new policies do not perpetuate the same inequities they seek to resolve. An equitable circular economy requires bold solutions to eradicate the root causes of marine plastic pollution while championing sustainable management, environmental justice, and social equity.

The environmental management and ocean governance literature increasingly recognizes equity as a multidimensional concept that includes distributional, procedural, recognitional, and contextual dimensions, as defined elsewhere (Croft et al., 2024; Crosman et al., 2022; Friedman et al., 2018; Law et al., 2018; Pascual et al., 2014; McDermott et al., 2013; Ota et al., 2022). This call for advancing an equitable approach to environmental management emerges as a need to challenge how approaches to address global environmental change have often been developed in alignment with Eurocentric scientific and academic theories and methodologies. These approaches lack direct and meaningful engagement with diverse and plural forms of knowledge, values, actions, and practices that other cultural groups, especially in the Global South, apply to solve every day socio-ecological challenges. Hegemonic research-to-action strategies tend to be based on partial and limited design frameworks that marginalize the varied range of knowledges and practices of on-the-ground actors that are essential to advance partnerships and collaborations for more effective and innovative knowledge-action initiatives to address environmental change. In this context, the role of ocean equity frameworks – aimed to dismantle systemic inequity and inequality through the governance of oceans – is of paramount importance (Crosman et al., 2022; Ocean Nexus, 2022; Ota et al., 2022). In doing so, equitable interventions should recognize and address the systemic issues that cause inequities such as colonial oppressions, structural racism, and exploitative policies that benefit the already wealthy while worsening the poor, and building up plans and monitoring programs aimed to reverse these causes (Ocean Nexus, 2022). The diversity and heterogeneity of knowledge and value systems across different social actors and resource users particularly in the Global South, require a recognition of the existence of both ontological plurality (diversity in ways of existing in the world) and epistemic plurality (diversity of ways of knowing the world). Thus, collaborative forms of environmental governance must be able to accommodate equitable representation of diverse knowledges and value systems and provide spaces of inclusive dialogue and seats with equal voices at the table for social actors and rightsholders representing all facets of this plurality (Kovács and Pataki, 2016; Ludwig and Macnaghten, 2020). This is particularly important for addressing plastic pollution as it ensures that the perspectives of diverse stakeholders, rightsholders, and knowledge holders, including marginalized communities and those directly affected by it, are included and equitable solutions can be developed to tackle the root causes of the issue.

A specific showcase to study local ocean governance and equity to foster interventions that are socially equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable in remote islands is the Galápagos Islands, which are at the crossroads facing environmental changes because of the emerging and cumulative multiple-anthropogenic stressors, affecting the complex socio-ecological systems of both the Galápagos Marine Reserve and Galápagos National Park (Alava et al., 2022). Among the human-made stressors impacting the islands, plastic pollution (i.e., contamination by macro- and microplastics) in tandem with other toxic chemicals (e.g., persistent organic pollutants and mercury) is affecting the unique marine-coastal ecosystems, endemic species, and coastal fishing communities heavily reliant on seafood (Alava et al., 2014; Alava and Ross, 2018; Alava et al., 2022; Jones et al., 2021; McMullen et al., 2024; Muñoz-Abril et al., 2022; Muñoz-Pérez et al., 2023; Schofield et al., 2020). A transition from a traditional linear ‘cradle-to-grave’ economy to a circular system that reduces waste and leakage, embracing reduction, reusing, recycling, and recovering via a circular economy for plastics in Galápagos has been suggested (Jones et al., 2023); however, the consequences and social-ecological impacts of implementing such a circular approach have yet to be critically evaluated, especially with the introduction of plastic— a material not locally sourced from their Galápagos coastal communities’ land.

Aiming to address the plastic pollution problem impacting the socio-ecological systems of the Galápagos Islands, it is paramount to question and identify the potential inequities resulting from implementing a plastic circular economy model that resembles a complicated challenge. This not only includes objectives to better understand how plastics are affecting the structure and functions of natural and social systems (i.e., ecosystems, species, and coastal human communities), but also to explore the potential inequity and inequality gaps resulting from the implementation of a plastics’ circular economy model (Figure 1). Understanding these dynamics is the foundation of solution-oriented research and is necessary for developing a community-grounded equitable intervention framework. Within this premise and considering that ocean plastics affect coastal and developing nations more than developed nations, we: (1) Argue that implementing a circularity economy of plastics may be challenging in remote oceanic islands such as small island developing states (SIDS) and the Galápagos Islands, where plastics are not locally produced, and are difficult to be repaired or recycled, and where ocean plastic pollution disproportionately affects local communities who already face social and equity challenges; by, (2) Demonstrating that the circular economy model may not effectively ensure natural or marine resources availability and address ocean inequity in coastal communities impacted by plastic pollution, as the current and future generations from these communities are unable to fully participate in the plastic circularity economy, thereby exacerbating ocean inequity in remote islands. This issue is especially relevant within the framework of the blue economy, where ensuring ocean sustainability and equitable solutions are essential.

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(This post is republished from Frontiers.)