Mining, the Environment, and Indigenous Development Conflicts

Mining, the Environment, and Indigenous Development Conflicts
Author: Saleem H. Ali
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816546886

From sun-baked Black Mesa to the icy coast of Labrador, native lands for decades have endured mining ventures that have only lately been subject to environmental laws and a recognition of treaty rights. Yet conflicts surrounding mining development and indigenous peoples continue to challenge policy-makers. This book gets to the heart of resource conflicts and environmental impact assessment by asking why indigenous communities support environmental causes in some cases of mining development but not in others. Saleem Ali examines environmental conflicts between mining companies and indigenous communities and with rare objectivity offers a comparative study of the factors leading to those conflicts. Mining, the Environment, and Indigenous Development Conflicts presents four cases from the United States and Canada: the Navajos and Hopis with Peabody Coal in Arizona; the Chippewas with the Crandon Mine proposal in Wisconsin; the Chipewyan Inuits, Déné and Cree with Cameco in Saskatchewan; and the Innu and Inuits with Inco in Labrador. These cases exemplify different historical relationships with government and industry and provide an instance of high and low levels of Native resistance in each country. Through these cases, Ali analyzes why and under what circumstances tribes agree to negotiated mining agreements on their lands, and why some negotiations are successful and others not. Ali challenges conventional theories of conflict based on economic or environmental cost-benefit analysis, which do not fully capture the dynamics of resistance. He proposes that the underlying issue has less to do with environmental concerns than with sovereignty, which often complicates relationships between tribes and environmental organizations. Activist groups, he observes, fail to understand such tribal concerns and often have problems working with tribes on issues where they may presume a common environmental interest. This book goes beyond popular perceptions of environmentalism to provide a detailed picture of how and when the concerns of industry, society, and tribal governments may converge and when they conflict. As demands for domestic energy exploration increase, it offers clear guidance for such endeavors when native lands are involved.

Indigenous Environmental Justice

Indigenous Environmental Justice
Author: Karen Jarratt-Snider
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816541299

This volume clearly distinguishes Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ) from the broader idea of environmental justice (EJ) while offering detailed examples from recent history of environmental injustices that have occurred in Indian Country. With connections to traditional homelands being at the heart of Native identity, environmental justice is of heightened importance to Indigenous communities. Not only do irresponsible and exploitative environmental policies harm the physical and financial health of Indigenous communities, they also cause spiritual harm by destroying land held in a place of exceptional reverence for Indigenous peoples. With focused essays on important topics such as the uranium mining on Navajo and Hopi lands, the Dakota Access Pipeline dispute on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, environmental cleanup efforts in Alaska, and many other pertinent examples, this volume offers a timely view of the environmental devastation that occurs in Indian Country. It also serves to emphasize the importance of self-determination and sovereignty in victories of Indigenous environmental justice. The book explores the ongoing effects of colonization and emphasizes Native American tribes as governments rather than ethnic minorities. Combining elements of legal issues, human rights issues, and sovereignty issues, Indigenous Environmental Justice creates a clear example of community resilience in the face of corporate greed and state indifference.

In the Way of Development

In the Way of Development
Author: Mario Blaser
Publisher: IDRC
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2004
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1552500047

Authored as a result of a remarkable collaboration between indigenous people's own leaders, other social activists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this volume explores what is happening today to indigenous peoples as they are enmeshed, almost inevitably, in the remorseless expansion of the modern economy and development, at the behest of the pressures of the market-place and government. It is particularly timely, given the rise in criticism of free market capitalism generally, as well as of development. The volume seeks to capture the complex, power-laden, often contradictory features of indigenous agency and relationships. It shows how peoples do not just resist or react to the pressures of market and state, but also initiate and sustain "life projects" of their own which embody local history and incorporate plans to improve their social and economic ways of living.

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean
Author: Jakob Kronik
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2010-06-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0821383817

This book addresses the social implications of climate change and climatic variability on indigenous peoples and communities living in the highlands, lowlands, and coastal areas of Latin America and the Caribbean. Across the region, indigenous people already perceive and experience negative effects of climate change and variability. Many indigenous communities find it difficult to adapt in a culturally sustainable manner. In fact, indigenous peoples often blame themselves for the changes they observe in nature, despite their limited emission of green house gasses. Not only is the viability of their livelihoods threatened, resulting in food insecurity and poor health, but also their cultural integrity is being challenged, eroding the confidence in solutions provided by traditional institutions and authorities. The book is based on field research among indigenous communities in three major eco-geographical regions: the Amazon; the Andes and Sub-Andes; and the Caribbean and Mesoamerica. It finds major inter-regional differences in the impacts observed between areas prone to rapid- and slow-onset natural hazards. In Mesoamerican and the Caribbean, increasingly severe storms and hurricanes damage infrastructure and property, and even cause loss of land, reducing access to livelihood resources. In the Columbian Amazon, changes in precipitation and seasonality have direct immediate effects on livelihoods and health, as crops often fail and the reproduction of fish stock is threatened by changes in the river ebb and flow. In the Andean region, water scarcity for crops and livestock, erosion of ecosystems and changes in biodiversity threatens food security, both within indigenous villages and among populations who depend on indigenous agriculture, causing widespread migration to already crowded urban areas. The study aims to increase understanding on the complexity of how indigenous communities are impacted by climate change and the options for improving their resilience and adaptability to these phenomena. The goal is to improve indigenous peoples rights and opportunities in climate change adaptation, and guide efforts to design effective and sustainable adaptation initiatives.

Global Governance of the Environment, Indigenous Peoples and the Rights of Nature

Global Governance of the Environment, Indigenous Peoples and the Rights of Nature
Author: Linda Etchart
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-01-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9783030815219

This book explores the obstacles facing indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, governments, and international institutions in their attempts to protect the cultures of indigenous peoples and the world’s remaining rainforests. Indigenous peoples are essential as guardians of the world’s wild places for the maintenance of ecosystems and the prevention of climate change. The Amazonian/Andean indigenous philosophies of sumac kawsay/suma qamaña (buen vivir) were the inspiration for the incorporation of the Rights of Nature into the Ecuadorian and Bolivian constitutions of 2008 and 2009. Yet despite the creation of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2000), and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), indigenous peoples have been marginalized from intergovernmental environmental negotiations. Indigenous environment protectors’ lives are in danger while the Amazon rainforests continue to burn. By the third decade of the 21st century, the dawn of “woke” capitalism was accompanied by the expansion of ethical investment, with BlackRock leading the field in the “greening” of investment management, while Big Oil sought a career change in sustainable energy production. The final chapters explain the confluence of forces that has resulted in the continued expansion of the extractive frontier into indigenous territory in the Amazon, including areas occupied by peoples living in voluntary isolation. Among these forces are legal and extracurricular payments made to individuals, within indigenous communities and in state entities, and the use of tax havens to deposit unofficial payments made to secure public contracts. Solutions to loss of biodiversity and climate change may be found as much in the transformation of global financial and tax systems in terms of transparency and accountability, as in efforts by states, intergovernmental institutions and private foundations to protect wild areas through the designation of national parks, through climate finance, and other “sustainable” investment strategies.

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States
Author: Julie Koppel Maldonado
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2014-04-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319052667

With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013.

The Land Within

The Land Within
Author: Pedro García Hierro
Publisher: IWGIA
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2005
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9788791563119

By describing the fabric of relationships indigenous peoples weave with their environment, The Land Within attempts to define a more precise notion of indigenous territoriality. A large part of the work of titling the South American indigenous territories may now be completed but this book aims to demonstrate that, in addition to management, these territories involve many other complex aspects that must not be overlooked if the risk of losing these areas to settlers or extraction companies is to be avoided. Alexandre Surralls holds a doctorate in anthropology from the School for Higher Studies in Social Sciences and is a researcher on the staff of the National Centre for Scientific Research. Pedro Garca Hierro is a lawyer from Madrid Complutense University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He has worked with various indigenous organizations, on issues related to the identification and development of collective rights and the promotion of intercultural democratic reforms.

Indigenous Cultures and Sustainable Development in Latin America

Indigenous Cultures and Sustainable Development in Latin America
Author: Timothy MacNeill
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-10-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781013277108

This open access book outlines development theory and practice over time as well as critically interrogates the "cultural turn" in development policy in Latin American indigenous communities, specifically, in Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, and Bolivia. It becomes apparent that culturally sustainable development is both a new and old idea, which is simultaneously traditional and modern, and that it is a necessary iteration in thinking on development. This new strain of thought could inform not only the work of development practitioners, graduate students, and theorists working in the Global South, but in the Global North as well. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Indigenous Resurgence

Indigenous Resurgence
Author: Jaskiran Dhillon
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2022-03-31
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1800732465

From the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s resistance against the Dakota Access pipeline to the Nepalese Newar community’s protest of the Fast Track Road Project, Indigenous peoples around the world are standing up and speaking out against global capitalism to protect the land, water, and air. By reminding us of the fundamental importance of placing Indigenous politics, histories, and ontologies at the center of our social movements, Indigenous Resurgence positions environmental justice within historical, social, political, and economic contexts, exploring the troubling relationship between colonial and environmental violence and reframing climate change and environmental degradation through an anticolonial lens.

Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
Author: Fabien Girard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2022-04-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000593657

This volume presents a comprehensive overview of biocultural rights, examining how we can promote the role of indigenous peoples and local communities as environmental stewards and how we can ensure that their ways of life are protected. With Biocultural Community Protocols (BCPs) or Community Protocols (CPs) being increasingly seen as a powerful way of tackling this immense challenge, this book investigates these new instruments and considers the lessons that can be learnt about the situation of indigenous peoples and local communities. It opens with theoretical insights which provide the reader with foundational concepts such as biocultural diversity, biocultural rights and community rule-making. In Part Two, the book moves on to community protocols within the Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) context, while taking a glimpse into the nature and role of community protocols beyond issues of access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge. A thorough review of specific cases drawn from field-based research around the world is presented in this part. Comprehensive chapters also explore the negotiation process and raise stimulating questions about the role of international brokers and organizations and the way they can use BCPs/CPs as disciplinary tools for national and regional planning or to serve powerful institutional interests. Finally, the third part of the book considers whether BCPs/CPs, notably through their emphasis on "stewardship of nature" and "tradition", can be seen as problematic arrangements that constrain indigenous peoples within the Western imagination, without any hope of them reconstructing their identities according to their own visions, or whether they can be seen as political tools and representational strategies used by indigenous peoples in their struggle for greater rights to their land, territories and resources, and for more political space. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental law, indigenous peoples, biodiversity conservation and environmental anthropology. It will also be of great use to professionals and policymakers involved in environmental management and the protection of indigenous rights. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license