Extraction Ecology: Environment and People in the Anthropocene

The uncontrollable pursuit of growth and benefits has dominated our society. In developed part of the planet people live in energy phase of modernity but it is marked by instability of social situations and culture forms. It is often closely related to issues such as climate change, the disappearance of agro-biodiversity, or the loss of animal biodiversity. The extreme climate flux that human beings face today can be linked to the human continuous need for energy. The constant appetite to consume more and more energy has resulted in environmental degradation, like collapsed impoundment dams, floods, dead zones in forests. It has not only affected the environment but also people. It has given rise to unemployment, crippling poverty, and diseases such as black lung disease. This paper operates at the intersection of ecocriticism and extractive fiction studies to study the impact of mining by examining The Upheaval by Pundalik Naik. By applying the theory of ecocriticism, this paper will study and highlight how these places are rich in resources but are places of environmental degradation, public health issues, poverty and social conflict.

There are two different methods of mining underground and opencast.
In Goa, open case mining takes place which has created serious environmental issues from deforestation, soil erosion, landslide and fine particle disposal on agricultural land, air pollution due to dust which is generated by vehicles carrying goods, and noise pollution due to heavy machinery . That road there that goes up to the mine at Shenori …during the rains, water gushes down that road into the lake bringing with it dust and stones and ore and the whole lake turns red like the paint we use on our walls. This is the water that runs into the fields leaving Mining destroys the physical and moral landscape of the village. Pandhari's association with mining ushers in upheaval at all levels "there is a poor harvest". These minerals fill up the pores not allowing water to reach the root as a result no crop can grow.
Rukmini who dedicatedly did farming was not able to properly harvest it because his land was near the road and soil instead of being clay and black turned into red soil. Grass which was realized long and rich was not growing. Due to this extraction small streams died and the entire idyllic village is turned into a dry valley . During the rains, water gushes down that road into the lake bringing with it dust and stones and ore and the whole lake turns red like the paint we use on our walls. This is the water that runs into the fields leaving behind a thick layer of mud that destroys the earth so no amount of manure or fertilizer can have any effect.
The fields around Surla village were destroyed in this way. One stoke modernization turned the form of mining swipes away the age-old nature of the land. The landscape of Kollamba is reduced to a veritable wasteland. People were unaware of the environmental degradation coming with mining because they had little or no inform the process. For them, mining on their land was a buried treasure a path from pay check to pay check. Thus environment in the extractive economy I treated as an object of biopolitics and as ecopolitics. The community suffered what Rob Nixon calls the replacement of vernacular landscape by an official landscape.
Rob Nixon in slow violence and environmentalism of poor writes that "environmental degradation is a process that occurs both gradually and out of sight". The Upheaval is a rich text that explores the metaphor of extractive industries that thrive on obfuscation. When people started working in the mines they never took notice of their surroundings and how it was changing slowly. Water contamination is a prime concern during mining. The growing scientific studies pose the idea that fracking has significant environmental risks. Fracturing and its ecological impact happen out of sight first. Mandovri the sacred river of the village was slowly turning into poison. The river Mandovri was chocked with pollution and water from the mini .No fishes were there in the water everything died in and outside the river.
Leaving the only water source of the village poisoned. Contaminated tends to unfold slowly and is unspectacled to detect. It can only be detected by rigorous scientific studies that take years to complete Chemicals of the mini have slowly entered the life of villagers and before they can understand it. It destroyed Nanu and his wife. They worked in the mini for years.
Later an unknown disease infected his wife and she was bedridden. Nanu himself was not physically fit he use to cough and was not able to lift anything above his waist. Rumika who comes from a mining family she witnesses her father dying due to black lung disease.
While many enjoyed the new found wealth the long term result of such ecological exploitation are detected by two characters Abu and Pandhari. These two characters lived most closely to the environment and thus they try to keep the cultural meaning of their landscape vernacular. They know that Human beings live in a state of the false assumption that earth is infinite; it is inexhaustible in both space and time. That is air, water soil and weather are gifts to human beings. Abu the old man of the village has an intimate knowledge of the tropical rainforest ecosystem that allowed him to register serious imbalance "One should not trample with nature, it takes revenge". He was deeply disturbed by the activities in the village. Abu wanted to save the land from pollution and the Mandovri river from contamination. "Oh ! move away from the river ! Abu scolded a small boy who was throwing garbage in the river . Rs a month if he gives his cart to carry stone chips from Naveli . Pandhani replied "But the bullocks will have a hard time hauling such a load" Pandhani concern for animals is aptly reflected in his reply. He acknowledges the close relationship in which humans and nonhuman live and he regarded land and animal as kin but he finally gave up on farming due to rain waste on the road washed into his field chocking the paddy field soil . He asks an important question in the novel "How are we going to grow anything?". The pathetic condition of a farmer is shown here. Ultimately he started working in the mining with his bullock-cart. The pollution of mining, contracted tuberculosis and his bullock also died due to air pollution.
The extraction economy treats native laborers as a resource to be extracted with the environment. They extract labor-power ripping of their life and treating their bodies as resources. Nanu a young 15-year-old boy was forced by his father to take up mining work.
Nanu was buried much interested in studies. One day when Nanu parked his son in the scorching sun near the worksite was waiting for workers to unload the sun. He wanted to take a rest in the shade but all the trees in and around the forest were cleared. He finally takes shelter under the mound, all of a sudden mound sided and he was buried under sand and dies.
The mining agency did not take any notice of his death nor was any compensation paid to his family.
The novel ends with a question "When this mine is exhausted and closed down, what will we Kolambkars eat? We begged the Sarpanch to talk to the mine owners …….? 'And then…….?' '………Those bastards declared that if the fields turned barren they were willing to buy the land! What will we do with the money we get by selling our land? Pile it on our graves? After the last flesh of the earth is shunted by mining companies, the trackers have taken the last tree standing on the land, the dead lies on the floor like hero's. The extraction industry is done with its work. What is left behind is an uncertain future for a rotten land and culture.

Conclusion
In the essay, I have argued how the novel "The Upheaval" set in extraction zone emanates provisional realism of extraction boom adapted tempol. As novelistic depicts extraction implementation on the environment, and they express how human lives with nonhuman, and how both if one is affected it leads to the destruction of both. By applying the theory of ecocriticism to extraction fiction one can challenge the epistemological foundation of extractive capitalism by making visible hidden social-ecological consequences.