Environmental justice and harm to humans - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 49

in the systematic displacement, dispossession, and, in some
cases, destruction of native communities. (Gedicks, 2005:
168-9)
What is at threat is not only the immediate physical needs of indigenous
and traditional peoples, but a whole way of life that frequently includes
hunting, fishing and small-scale agriculture. In the United States, for
example, the Chippewa people have fought against mining operations
on their lands, knowing that mining on their ceded lands would lead
to environmental destruction of the land and water, thereby destroying
their means of subsistence (Clark, 2002). As with similar activities
elsewhere, contamination of the natural world constitutes an assault
that goes to the heart of indigenous culture and identity.
These kinds of struggles are symptomatic of a long historical process
of internal colonisation of which confiscation of land and natural
resources has been a central feature. This was evident, for example,
in the early days of European global dominance, which saw specific
trading companies (for example, Hudson Bay Company) given
exclusive monopolies to plunder the New World of animal and mineral
products. Resource colonisation threatened every facet of traditional
indigenous life. The broad ethos was that the environment was there
to be exploited; this, in turn, ran counter to a concept that understood
the environment in terms of a balanced relationship between humans
and the ecosystem.
Similar disrespect and exploitation continues today. In Canada,
governments are eager to allow extraction industries to enter into
and fully work lands occupied by indigenous peoples, regardless of
the wishes of the local people (Rush, 2002). Mining and logging
operations create major environmental damage, a process that directly
affects the indigenous population's health and well-being. Meanwhile,
in the United States, the history of repression of indigenous people is
such that they were forcibly relocated to previously unwanted lands
that contain some of the richest mineral deposits and other natural
resources in the country (such as uranium and low-sulphur coal). One
consequence of their forced removal to lands that are now wanted is that
'The quest for natural resources, then, imposes specific environmental
risks on peoples such as Native Americans who reside near, and are
dependent on, natural resources' (Field, 1998: 80). On the other hand,
pollution and contamination of water and fish in some regions directly
undermines the capacity of Native American culture and people to
continue to function and thrive (Schlosberg, 2007).