Economies of Plunder: The Case of Rosewood Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Southern Belize

Abstract

New middle income countries in the Global South are leveraging established neocolonial structures of dependence to extract raw resources from other countries in the Global South. In Belize, China’s demand for tropical hardwoods has come face-to-face with an indigenous land rights movement. Using the extraction of rosewood from Belize as a case, this paper explores the following questions: (1) What do new patterns of neocolonial extraction look like? (2) Who are the actors at both ends of the relationship? (3) What tools have indigenous communities used to protect their economic and self-governing rights? and (4) Have they been successful?