Colonial Extraction as Intellectual Property Theft

Sor Juana's intellectual work was claimed, edited, and controlled by male ecclesiastical authorities, her ideas credited to others or suppressed entirely. This same colonial pattern continues in environmental exploitation: corporations patent indigenous plant medicines, pharmaceutical companies extract genetic resources from the Global South while paying nothing, and developed nations profit from technologies built on stolen knowledge. Climate justice requires naming biopiracy and biocolonialism as extensions of historical intellectual property theft. When Western corporations claim ownership of crop varieties developed by peasant farmers over generations, or when conservation projects exclude indigenous peoples from ancestral lands in the name of environmental protection, this replicates Sor Juana's silencing. The climate crisis itself stems from colonial extraction: wealthy nations built prosperity on stealing resources and externalizing environmental costs onto colonized territories. Addressing climate responsibility means repatriating intellectual and material resources: recognizing indigenous peoples' property rights to genetic material and land, ensuring benefit-sharing when their knowledge is commercialized, and rejecting the assumption that Western industrial models represent progress. Decolonial climate justice insists on returning stolen knowledge and sovereignty.