Structural exploitation in the Colombian Amazon: a materialist study of forest carbon offsets

This article examines the exploitative nature of Indigenous peoples’ participation in forest carbon offset projects in the Colombian Amazon. The argument is that the exploitation charge against these projects persists even if they comply with human rights standards. The article builds on the concepts of structural exploitation, economic power of capital, and metabolic rift to examine the material relationship between capitalism and carbon offsets. The aim is to highlight that carbon offsets are instrumental in reproducing capital, the process of self-expansion of value that undermines social reproduction and life-sustaining conditions on Earth. Accordingly, forest carbon offset projects are structurally exploitative because they perpetuate the subordination of both nature and peoples to the logic of value within a fossil fuel-based capitalist economy, thereby deepening environmental harm and human suffering.