Summary 1: Indigenous People and Development

The following will analyze readings from Rosemary Thorpe et al.’s (2012) The Developmental Challenges of Mining and Oil: Lessons from Africa and Latin America, Suzanna Sawyer’s (2004) Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multicultural Oil and Neoliberalism in Ecuador, and T. Martin and S. Hoffman’s (2008) Power Struggles, Hydro Development, and First Nations in Manitoba and Quebec  to determine what exactly the term development means, how it is understood differently by indigenous people, and whether or not it can provide the necessary solution to prevailing problems in indigenous communities.

Because of the intimate relationship indigenous people have with their lands, development has inevitably resulted in this disruption of their traditional ways and has threatened their survival which depends on respecting the laws of nature in order to hunt, fish, and gather. The indigenous people to whom I will refer in this analysis are the Cree in Northern Manitoba, the Cree in James Bay in Northern Quebec, and the Amazon Indians in Ecuador. Indigenous people have been in Canada from time immemorial and have survived on this land as hunting and gathering societies. In Ecuador, the indigenous people have lived in the rain forest as hunting and gathering societies as well. Although indigenous lands tend to be rich in natural resources, making natural resource development seem like an obvious solution to poverty and unemployment, development may not be the answer because the very environment that corporations and governments are exploiting and so disrupting is the very source of living on which indigenous societies have long depended for their subsidence life styles. Governments and corporations have historically not treated indigenous people as equals, or on a nation to nation basis, leaving indigenous people with destroyed environments and broken promises.

Historically in Canada, governments and corporations have used methods of control, such as the Indian Act, to control every aspect of indigenous people`s lives, and with the most destructive and damaging effect, to take over their lands to which they were so culturally connected for their survival as a people. Not much has changed; instead, the government and corporations extend their reach to countries around the world under the guise of neoliberalism and globalization. Sawyer (2004) illustrates this in her description of the meeting between upper Amazon indigenous leaders and the corporate leaders of the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) who were trying to mine oil in the Pastaza region.  She stated that the Indian Federation members were opposed to corporate tactics that would divide indigenous communities, but that some were convinced to change their position by “buying the consciences of community leaders near its wells with insulting trinkets.” (p.4) Moreover, Sawyer claimed that in Ecuador there is no division in the territory, and that the corporation should stop propping up the Directive of the Independent Communities of Pastaza (DICIP), a make believe indigenous organization, which the corporation created; she further suggested that the ARCO should stop using divide and conquer tactics in the name of democracy. Divide and conquer tactics are applied to Canada as well: there is no development template employed by provincial or federal governments to address development impacts and compensation to affected communities, and no collective position taken by indigenous leadership in Canada when faced with development. For example, The Northern Flood Agreement (NFA) was signed by four out five affected indigenous communities in Northern Manitoba.

The federal and provincial governments fail to be accountable to First Nations people; moreover, Manitoba Hydro goes about its business as if they were the last imperial stronghold in North America, which never honoured indigenous treaty rights. According to Martin and Hoffman (2008), Treaty Five is seen as null because the First Nations ceded, released, and surrendered the land for the reserve land they now occupy. Martin and Hoffman (2008) compare this example to the experience of the Cree in Quebec, they hold up as a development model that has economically and politically empowered the James Bay Cree. According to Martin and Hoffman (2008), development has meant a "new social contract" for the James Bay Cree in contrast to the "business only partnerships" approach Manitoba Hydro has taken toward Manitoba Cree communities (p.3).

In Pastaza, Ecuador, the indigenous people of the region have learned from the devastation caused to the rain forest by the Company Texaco; initially the development deal appeared promising for the indigenous people; however, as the economy shifted, the price of oil changed, leaving the Amazon Indians in huge debt. According to Sawyer (2004), “in the early 1980s, the fall in the world price of crude oil and hikes in international lending rates spun Ecuador into an economic crisis just as the country returned to democratic rule” (p.11). Texaco destroyed the environment that once sustained the people and left the country with a huge national debt. As a result of their learning from this experience, the indigenous people created a political organization to prevent or stop corporations from extracting oil in their indigenous territories. According to Sawyer (2004), “Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP) community members and federation leaders vociferously challenged petroleum exploitation in their lands—condemning what they considered to be ARCO`s insidious instrumentality and manipulative method” (p. 10). Sawyer (2004) clearly demonstrated the promise of development in this case was false. “Promises of progress were disingenuous ploys. A quarter century of petroleum practices in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon had left the region plagued by poverty and environmental devastation” (p. 10).

Industrialized societies and governments continue the assault on the environment through neoliberalism and globalization to exploit the natural resources in indigenous territory, without compensating indigenous people equally. According to Sawyer (2004), “by ‘globalization,’ I am referring to the ever increasing and uneven production and consumption of capital, commodities, technologies, and imaginaries around the globe. By "neoliberalism," I am referring to a cluster of government policies that aim to privatize, liberalize, and deregulate the national economy so as to encourage foreign investment and intensify export production," (p.7). Both are foreign models that do not best fit with collective indigenous ways and rights.

Thus it is evident from these readings that the development of natural resources in indigenous territory

 does not always create opportunity or alleviate poverty and unemployment as it has in the instance of the

 James Bay Cree; rather than prosperity, devastated environments, destroyed traditional lifestyles, and

 further poverty have been the result of development in areas such as Pastaza, Ecuador and northern

 Manitoba. The wealth to be derived from the development of natural resources on indigenous lands is of

 foremost interest to the state and to non-indigenous companies.  They want to develop indigenous land

 and get rich off their natural resources—in the name of development for indigenous people but too often

 without any regard for its impacts on the indigenous people who live on these lands.