Embedded Files
Overview
Overview
Purpose for the course Indigenous Environmental Justice
Purpose for the course Indigenous Environmental Justice
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a solid understanding of crucial issues linked to Environmental Justice and Indigenous peoples, including water quality, mining, oil development, dumping and storage of toxic and radioactive waste, and use of traditional lands. Indigenous communities around the world have been disproportionate targets of activities that damage or destroy their local environments and lower their quality of life. Students in this course will focus on case studies that address such issues from the perspective of multiple stakeholders, e.g. mining and military interests, as well as other economic interests, contrasted with the perspective emerging from the cultural traditions and beliefs of Indigenous peoples and communities. This allows students to develop a knowledge base that will assist them in future work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and cultural practices, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and improving the relations among various groups and institutions.
Environmental Justice is a relatively new concept that has arisen largely from peoples and communities demanding that their interests be considered along with those emerging from military and economic interests. Many reserves, reservations, or homelands of Indigenous peoples are located in remote areas where the dominant culture has felt that it could act as it wished, because the land was “not being used”. As a consequence, such “empty” areas are often considered available for use as bombing ranges, sites for disposal of nuclear and toxic waste, and nuclear test sites. Virtually every nuclear test site in the history of such programs has required the removal of indigenous peoples from the area of testing. This course will emphasize how indigenous perspectives and demands influence environmental justice and security. We will deal with several case studies detailing how resources are managed in various Indigenous communities. These Case Studies may include:
Land appropriation in Canada and the US
Disposal of nuclear waste on Indigenous lands including Yucca Mountain and the Mescalero Apache
Mining for coal, uranium and other metals on Indigenous lands around the world
The location of major dams and how these are allowed to flood Indigenous lands, e.g. Missouri River, Katun River in Siberia, James Bay hydropower in Quebec, etc.
Use of the lands of Alaskan Natives for nuclear explosions, 6) Conservation refugees where indigenous people are removed from homelands to create “wilderness” areas and National parks
Destruction of Indigenous Forest lands in New Zealand, Norway, and Canada.
Emphasis on these case studies will serve two primary functions:
Allowing students to understand how Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous lands are important and must be taken seriously
Empowering indigenous students to stand up for themselves and their traditions both in their research and in the academic environment.
Educational Outcomes
Educational Outcomes
On completion of INS 873 (Environmental Justice) students will:
1. Be able to demonstrate a clear understanding and application of EJ issues both from an Indigenous and Western perspective.
2. Have a solid understanding of the ethical issues involved in EJ and how such considerations differ among cultures.
3. Be able to understand and critically evaluate scholarly and mainstream approaches to the study of EJ issues.
4. Be able to demonstrate clear and useful approaches and research skills to qualitatively or quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies involved in EJ.
5. Be able to discuss and write about tactics of EJ in a sophisticated manner appropriate or academic discourse.
6. Be able to recognize, address and hopefully resolve conflicts involved in EJ.
COURSE PROCESS
COURSE PROCESS
We are committed to effective discussion and respectful argument as a means of sharing knowledge. Each student is expected to participate in class discussions and activities, readings, and to prepare written or online products to demonstrate their accomplishments. There may be some traditional lecturing; however, this will be kept to a minimum. There is emphasis on each learner developing and expanding their critical consciousness regarding the major topic of the course, thereby enhancing your "critical thinking skills".
Students in this course should realize that they are partners in developing and enacting the success of the course and that they have considerable influence into the specific content of the course. To accomplish this, we must maintain a class dynamic that stresses MUTUAL RESPECT AND TOLERANCE for the diverse ideas and opinions of others. Some subject matter is quite sensitive and some may even be painful. Therefore, it is imperative that we remember that we are engaged in a learning environment and experience designed to expand and increase OUR COLLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING AND KNOWLEDGE BASE concerning Indigenous peoples.
This Presentation provides an overview of the general concept of Environmental Justice, including the history of the concept. Environmental Justice is one of those terms that has a reverse meeting, because it is about bias and injustice. EJ is the goal, not what exists in the current world. This goal is to ensure that indigenous peoples (or any other community) do not suffer unduly from the impacts of environmental damage, or that areas where noxious processes are carried out, do not take place primarily or exclusively in areas where non-white people live.
This meeting will cover the relationship between US Indian nations and the EPA, while also showing the mandate of the EPA and what it is designated to accomplish and regulate.
In this meeting, we will focus on issues involving water rights and water quality and how they are perceived and assessed by Indian nations.
This meeting focuses in the issues surrounding the Standing Rock Sioux nation and the pipeline that they fear will impact their land and water. This discussion will address treaty rights and environmental justice, including why the Nation is considered less important than a nearby white community.
The Petroleum industry has been problematic for Indian communities since oil was discovered as a source of fuel and other energy. This has included murder, extortion, and mob-style intimidation. The irony is that Indians used oil in a variety of ways for centuries or millennia. In the US these issues are best exemplified in the history of the state (territory) of Oklahoma, although Standing Rock has become important in the 21st Century.
Probably the major question in Conservation in the future will be whether or not humans can live with nature as part of it. This question is odd considering that humans have done this for over 100,000 years, and only in the last 300 years has this become an issue. Although humans impacted every place on earth except Antarctica in many areas the peoples who are Indigenous to certain areas are being removed from their land and sacred sites, for mining, for oil development, and most ironically, to create nature reserves or national parks where BINGOs (Big International Non-Governmental Organizations involved in Conservation) think that the presence of Indigenous peoples is a threat to their conservation efforts. In many cases the fact that these areas are important is a result of the presence of the Indigenous peoples and their management regimes. This has led to major EJ conflict over land, Indigenous rights, and how land should be managed/
In the late 1950s there was not much of an environmental movement, the Civil Rights Movement was just beginning, the EPA was at least 15 years in the future and there was not even a concept of Environmental Justice. In this context, less than a decade after the Second World War there was both excitement and concern over Nuclear weapons and the peacetime uses of nuclear power. In this context, an amazing and troubling set of factors converged to help jump start environmental concerns, especially those taking place within the US. The first EJ issue to arise, even before the concept existed, was a plan by the US to construct a deepwater harbor in the Bering Sea using nuclear explosions to create the space for the harbor, while ignoring the presence of an Indigenous community less than 25 miles from the planned explosion site.
One huge area involving Environmental Justice and Indian Nations has arisen in the last 30 years as First Nations in Canada have worked to re-establish land claims concerning their traditional lands. This is particularly important in the Province of British Columbia, where the Province seized lands without attempting to establish treaties with the First Nations. Recent Supreme Court Decisions in Canada have sided with the tribes, including the recognition that the Musqueum First Nation probably has title to the city of Vancouver, and the city and Nation have been negotiating what this means in a practical sense.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse