Nature

The interconnections of natural resources, empire and labour run through the most central and conflict-ridden crises of our times: war, environmental degradation, impoverishment and plutocracy. Crucial to understand and to change the conditions that give rise to these crises is the critical study of resource development and, more broadly, the resources question, which is the subject of this volume. Intended for researchers, students and activists, the chapters in Resources, Empire and Labour illuminate key aspects of the resources question from a variety of angles through concrete analyses and histories focused on the extractive industries (mining, oil, gas) by examining such issues as: resource-dependency at the international, country and regional levels; the neglected role of metropolitanization; environmental impacts and limits; the colonial basis of and imperial patterns in today’s globalized resource exploitation system; lessons of Indigenous and working-class resistance to corporation resource extraction; the importance of democratic control and public ownership; new avenues in shifting the debate on resources and hinterlands.

The Answer Is Still No is an important, urgent book that compiles interviews with people who live along the route of the proposed Enbridge pipeline in Northern British Columbia. The oil pipeline and supertankers – linking the tar sands of Alberta to the demand of the growing Asian market – are a key component of Canada’s strategy of natural resource extraction. But for the people living along the proposed pipeline route, Enbridge poses a massive environmental risk, which threatens their way of life. This edited collection takes the passionate words and voices of twelve citizens and activists and results in one powerful position when it comes to blind economic development at the expense of our environment and communities: The answer is still “no.”

Winona LaDuke is a leader in cultural-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, sustainable food systems and Indigenous rights. Her new book, To Be a Water Protector: Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers, is an expansive, provocative engagement with issues that have been central to her many years of activism. LaDuke honours Mother Earth and her teachings while detailing global, Indigenous-led opposition to the enslavement and exploitation of the land and water. She discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and outlines the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker.

Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. She is executive director of Honor the Earth, a national Native advocacy and environmental organization. Her work at the White Earth Land Recovery Project spans thirty years of legal, policy and community development work, including the creation of one of the first tribal land trusts in the country. LaDuke has testified at the United Nations, US Congress and state hearings and is an expert witness on economics and the environment. She is the author of numerous acclaimed articles and books.

Animal rights is an important social justice movement, and the animal rights movement presents ethical and political challenges to deeply rooted structures of violence and exploitation, challenging ideologies of capitalism and speciesism. Corporate interests that form the animal industrial complex understand the animal rights movement as a threat to their profits and have mobilized to undermine it.
Informed by both critical animal studies and critical terrorism studies, John Sorenson analyzes ecoterrorism as a social construction. He examines how corporations that profit from animal exploitation fund and produce propaganda to portray the compassionate goals and nonviolent practices of animal activists as outlandish, anti-human campaigns that operate by violent means not only to destroy Western civilization but also to create actual genocide. The idea of concern for others is itself a dangerous one, and capitalism works by keeping people focused on individual interests and discouraging compassion and commitment to others.
Driven by powerful and wealthy industries founded upon the exploitation of nonhuman animals and the extraction of natural resources, the discourse of ecoterrorism is a useful mechanism to repress criticism of the institutionalized violence and cruelty of these industries as well as their destructive impact on the environment, their major contribution to global warming and ecological disaster, and their negative impacts on human health. Further, by deliberately constructing an image of activists as dangerous and violent terrorists, these corporations and their representatives in government have created a widespread climate of fear that is very useful in legitimizing calls for more policing and more repressive legislation, such as Bill C-51 in Canada.