In the Name of Wellness: Investigating Environmental Neocolonialism

Western food fads, the obsession with everything that is healthy, often has a human cost that no one imagines, especially because that human almost always lives out of sight, in Latin America.

Today, just like over 500 years ago, colonialism is still alive, although it adopts different forms and takes different names. The ships that used to sail off from the ports of Latin America loaded down with silver, gold, cacao, and rubber are now enormous freighters that carry off raw materials produced there, effectively depriving local people of water and productive land.

In the Name of Wellness is a project that investigates environmental neocolonialism, its mechanism, and its consequences on the ecosystems and local populations to support the market for a diet that is defined as healthy in Western countries. It's an exploration of the growth of these superfood crops and how it's affecting climate and agriculture in Latin America regions.

The demand for these resources is always increasing, pushing Western investors toward a greater exploitation that risks ruining irreversibly the environmental balance of those areas and of the entire planet.

The stories in this project might be "food for thought" for people who focus on their own personal wellness—and who now realize the planet might have a wellness issue with that popular diet. The goal is to give visibility to a global emergency.