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​Colonial and environmental double fracture
Malcom Ferdinand introduces the concept of the colonial and environmental double fracture to describe a separation between the analysis of and opposition to colonial and ecological injustices. Ferdinand argues that there is generally either a concern with social injustices related to a colonial fracture or with ecological destructions stemming from an environmental fracture but that the two colonial and environmental fractures are rarely thought about and opposed at the same time. He exemplifies this by pointing to the division and to the lack of alliances between anti-racist and ecological movements in the USA and Europe.

Colonial fracture
The colonial fracture refers to the valorization, hierarchization, and discrimination between humans based on constructed categories of social difference such as race, class, and gender. The colonial fracture has its origins in the onset of colonialism because racist ideologies were foundational to colonial conquests and used as a justification for the genocides and oppression of Indigenous, Black, and Peoples of Color by white European colonialists. The colonial fracture today materializes, among others, in structural racism, patriarchal violence, classism and ableism.

Environmental fracture
The environmental fracture rests on modernity's dualistic separation between Nature and Society. Human-centered ideologies place humans over nature and reduce non-human animals and ecosystems to exploitable resources, which fuels their exploitation and destruction.

Ferdinand argues that the ignorance of the interconnections between the environmental and colonial fractures is a major driver of ongoing social-ecological destruction because it hinders overcoming the colonial inhabitation of the Earth :

"'Yet, by leaving aside the colonial question, ecologists and green activists overlook the fact that both historical colonization and contemporary structural racism are at the center of destructive ways of inhabiting the Earth. Leaving aside the environmental and animal questions, antiracist and postcolonial movements miss the forms of violence that exacerbate the domination of the enslaved, the colonized, and racialized women.'"

Environmental racism
The term environmental racism was coined in the USA within the civil rights movement in the 1980s. Environmental racism describes that environmental burdens such as the locations of incinerators, toxic landfills and industrial plants are disproportionately placed upon communities of Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Within the environmental justice movement, the term environmental racism has been broadened to include global dimensions of environmental injustice in the form of imperial extractivism and unequal ecological exchange.

Environmental Racism is related to the field of decolonial (political) ecology because it emphasizes that the distribution of environmental burdens are not random and not distributed through "neutral" decisions but are linked to colonial histories and social-economic structures that discriminate on the basis of race, class and gender.

Decolonial ecology and praxis
Social movements and struggles that center interconnections between ecological, social, and spiritual deteriorations in their theory of change can be linked to the field of decolonial ecology. In practice, this means that the destruction of ecosystems and social injustices are, ideally, opposed as one and the same problem.

In his book, Decolonial Ecology, Ferdinand proposes that there are four overarching types of struggles that can be identified in relation to decolonial ecology.

As the first archetype, Ferdinand highlights struggles led by Indigenous Peoples such as the French Guiana mobilizing against the Montagne d'Or mine project or the Native American resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Indigenous peoples are deeply connected to the territories they inhabit, which is why their opposition to environmental destruction is always also a fight for cultural identities, alternative cosmologies and the right to self-determination.

Secondly, Ferdinand highlights anti-racist movements that are fighting for the emancipation of all racialized people from the legacies of the slave trade and racist ideologies. The intersection between structural racism and environmental destruction is particularly relevant to the field of decolonial ecology. The civil rights movement in the USA, for instance, gave rise to the environmental justice movement based on the recognition that structural racism and environmental pollution intersect to distribute environmental burdens and benefits along racialized lines.

Thirdly, Ferdinand links struggles that are informed by a feminist political ecology to the field of decolonial ecology. Movements such as the Chipko movement in India and the Green Belt Movement founded in Kenya, have in common that they expose links between colonialism, racism, the patriarchy and the destruction of ecosystems, which is why they are related to decolonial ecology.

Lastly, Ferdinand argues that while certain political-ecological injustices are specific to indigenous peoples, racialized individuals, and women, there are also situations in which other groups can practice decolonial ecology. He gives the example of Notre-Dame-des-Landes in France or the Hambacher Forst in Germany. Ferdinand argues that both protests oppose the colonialization of the local living environment by the state and corporations for a monetary benefit at the cost of local inhabitants. They are thereby opposing the continuation of the colonial inhabitation of the Earth that centers around the reduction of people and ecosystems to resources at the cost of destroying local as well as global commons.

The Environmental Justice Atlas Project is a database that includes environmental justice struggles around the world that can be explored from a decolonial (political) ecology perspective according to the degree to which they combine social and ecological perspectives in their activities and demands.