Cycle of Destruction: Energy Exploitation on Sacred Native Lands
By Clayton Thomas-Muller
The link between unsustainable energy consumption in the Americas and the
destruction and desecration of
Indigenous homelands and culture is undeniable. As Indigenous peoples, we
reject the proposition that our
traditional lands should be sacrificed at the altar of irresponsible energy
policies.
Indigenous peoples in the United States, Canada, and throughout the
Americas have experienced systematic and
repeated violations by oil, gas, mining, and energy industries of our
treaty rights, particularly those that protect our
traditional lands. Oil and gas developments have consistently violated our
human rights and caused unconscionable
damage to traditional territories that have sustained us since time
immemorial.
In the United States, in contrast to other regions of the world, about 2/3
of all oil use is for transportation. (In most
of the rest of the world, oil is more commonly used for space heating and
power generation than for transportation.)
Obviously, a transportation and energy policy that is so heavily dependent
upon fossil fuel is unsustainable. Fossil
fuels have a destructive life cycle, which encompasses extraction,
transportation of these raw materials via pipeline,
truck, and tanker to refineries, and the processing and shipment of the
final product.
For the Indigenous peoples historically traumatized by colonial conquest
and subsequent treaty violations, an energy
policy dependent upon fossil fuels creates yet another cycle of destruction
characterized by the devastation of
sacred sites, the drying up of aquifers, micro-climate changes, and the
poisoning of our air and soil with toxins.
With the birth of the environmental justice movement over twenty years ago,
Indigenous grassroots activist groups,
traditional societies, and organizations, such as the Indigenous
Environmental Network (IEN), answered a call to
action in support of indigenous communities disproportionately targeted for
energy resource extraction and
development. These groups have recently developed campaign strategies to
help tribal community organizers
working to either halt energy resource development on Native lands
altogether, or force it to be more
environmentally and culturally responsible. The strategies often involve
providing long-term support to grassroots
leaders as they pressure their tribal governments to make informed choices
about the direction tribal economies
ought to take, especially in regard to dependency on a fossil fuel energy
paradigm.
Most consumers in the United States are unaware that the price they pay for
gasoline does not reflect the cost of the
devastation caused by the oil and gas extraction and refining process to
the livelihoods and economies of
Indigenous and other low-income communities. Most U.S. consumers simply
take what they need to feed their
addiction to energy and ignore the disproportionately large price that
Indigenous and other low-income
communities pay for a fossil fuel–based energy policy. Nor do they fully
comprehend the true implications of this
policy in terms of catastrophic global warming and severe climatic changes.
Natural Gas: Not an “Alternative” Fuel
Despite the failure of the Bush administration to endorse the Kyoto
Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide releases, many
cities are adopting their own standards for good climate stewardship, fuel
efficiency initiatives, and energy
conservation measures. Some cities with diesel-fueled transportation
systems are seeking more environmentally
friendly alternatives, such as compressed natural gas buses, or light rail
and bus systems that run on electricity. This
could do wonders for reducing carbon dioxide, other toxic emissions, and
smog created by fossil fuel–dependent
transit systems. These changes would be first steps towards addressing the
environmental injustices experienced by
low-income and urban Indigenous communities in our inner cities.
However, we often fail to take into account the fact that mass transit
systems powered by electricity are connected to
a grid that gets its power from the burning of fossil fuels. In short,
America’s reliance on centralized power for
heating, transportation, and water services only results in more pressure
on Indigenous peoples and our lands.
Contrary to corporate claims and media spin, there is no such thing as
clean coal or clean natural gas. And despite
the new technologies around cleaner, coal-fired power plants and
cleaner-burning natural gas options, the fossil
fuel industry and its economic system is steering us towards catastrophic
environmental destruction.
With 35 percent of the United States’ fossil fuel located either directly
on or near Indigenous lands, we are the target
of a renewed form of colonization characterized by largely unrestrained
corporate exploitation of Native lands and
peoples, resulting in ecological devastation and gross violations of human
rights. An apt metaphor for the current
situation is the period, about 300 years ago, when Jesuit Priests in black
robes came into Indigenous communities
promising a better quality of life through Christianity. At the time,
church and state were virtually inseparable.
Today, the same may be said of the relationship between states and
corporations, with capitalism as the new
religion. The Jesuit Priests have been replaced by corporate Chief
Executive Officers in black suits who come into our
homelands promising our communities and tribal leaders a better life
through industrialization. What results is a
change in our attitudes towards the sacredness of Mother Earth.
The chain of oil production, from exploration and transport to refining and
distribution, is also a chain of
destruction. First, forests are cut for seismic exploration, holes are
drilled, and sludge pits filled. Next, the refining
process releases deadly toxins into the air. Finally, vehicles contribute
to smog and pollution. These environmental
costs go largely unaccounted for, conveniently masking the actual costs
people in the United States and around the
world pay for profits amassed by a few. In recent years, Indigenous
communities in North America have begun to
document the environmental destruction caused by energy industries, in an
attempt to expose the real price of oil.
The burning of oil, gas, and coal, known collectively as fossil fuels, is
the primary source of humaninduced climate
change. By burning these fuels, humans are releasing carbon that has been
sequestered in the ground for hundreds
of millions of years and are emitting carbon dioxide into the planet’s thin
and chemically volatile atmosphere at an
unprecedented rate. Climate change, if not halted, will result in increased
frequency and severity of storms, floods,
drought and water shortages, the spread of disease, increased hunger,
displacement and mass migration of people,
and social conflict. The homelands of the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic
regions are literally melting away before
their eyes.
The humans of Mother Earth have too much reliance on fossil fuels. To halt
the damage resulting from their use, the
industrialized countries must find more ecologically sound energy sources
that don’t threaten the delicate balance
that sustains all life. The people of the world need to re-evaluate their
energy consumption patterns and embrace a
transition away from dirty and destructive fossil fuels to clean, renewable
energy. Sustainable energy has a minimal
impact on the healthy functioning of the local and global ecosystems. It is
energy with very few negative social,
cultural, health, and environmental impacts, and which can be supplied
continuously to future generations on Earth.
Examples of Energy Exploitation
Alaska North Slope: Cumulative Impact
A classic example of the destructive nature of oil and gas development may
be seen in its impacts on Alaska Native
peoples and the sensitive Arctic ecosystem. Alaska’s North Slope industrial
complex is larger than Rhode Island and
emits more carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide than the
entire metropolitan Washington D.C. area
annually. After 35 years of oil and gas development in the North Slope,
only one percent of the proposed six billion
dollar remediation has been completed.
Powder River Montana: Coal Bed Methane
Indigenous tribal nations in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New
Mexico, and Oklahoma are currently being
pursued by the coal bed methane (CBM) industry promoting CBM development as
an economic solution for tribes.
This fossil fuel raises serious concerns about the protection of surface
and ground water supplies, irrigation
systems, wildlife, and the health and welfare of Indigenous communities,
plus, the social and cultural impacts.
CBM development requires miles of roads, pipelines and power lines, massive
reservoirs, and numerous noise-
polluting compressor stations. Montana, for example, can expect 10,000 to
26,000 CBM wells at its Powder River
Basin. A development of this size would also include 9,000 miles of new
roads, 28,000 miles of right-of-way for
power lines and pipelines, up to 4.7 million acres of land, and 4,000 high
sodium wastewater impoundments. These
wells are in addition to the 50,000 expected on Wyoming’s portion of the
Powder River Basin. Much of this rapid
expansion of the gas industry in America is a result of industry and
government having known for some time that
global oil production would peak, circa 2004.
Canada and Alaska: Natural Gas Pipelines
Currently there are two mega-infrastructure projects being pushed hard by
governments and energy corporations in
Canada and the United States—the Alaska and McKenzie Valley natural gas
pipelines. The projects are attempting to
bring millions of cubic feet of natural gas from the north slope of Alaska
and the northern region of Canada’s
Northwest Territories to consumers in the lower 49 states of the U.S. The
suspicion is that both these projects will
attempt to link up with the booming Alberta tar sands development, which is
believed to hold roughly 1.7 billion
barrels of shale oil. It is the intention of U.S. and Canadian energy
companies to expand the oil sands development
into a multi-region operation capable of providing the U.S. with enough oil
and gas to diversify its energy supply and
further solidify its energy security. This cannot happen without an energy
source large enough to support the
separation of oil from the sand deposits. Hence, the 40 billion dollar
price tag for these projects.
Fort McMurry, Alberta, Canada: Tar Sands
The Dene are the Indigenous people of Alberta and the Northwest Territories
of Canada. They have had their lands
fragmented and destroyed by the tar sands development—one of the most
energyintensive oil extraction processes.
Sand is mined and oil separated from it using fresh water from rivers and
lakes. The waste ponds created by this
toxic process covers vast tracks of land in the heart of the Dene territory
and can even be seen from outer space.
Most of the oil taken from Dene lands is sold directly to the U.S. market.
Fort Berthold North Dakota: Oil Refineries
The Fort Berthold Environmental Concerns Committee (North Dakota), a tribal
grassroots group of the Three
Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara), is trying to
stop a proposed oil refinery and production
facility on the Fort Berthold reservation. One of two refinery proposals in
the U.S. this project, if approved, would
produce fuel piped directly from the Alberta oil sands with severe
economic, environmental, social and spiritual
consequences for the Affiliated Tribes.
Clayton Thomas-Muller is a Cree Indian and a Native energy organizer for
the Indigenous Environmental Network.
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