Book Notes

Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations, By Al Gedicks. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2001. Pp. 241. $18.00, paper.

Our planet is on the brink of ecological disaster. Fossil fuel emissions and rainforest destruction have combined to release enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to significantly warm the climate. Toxic chemicals pollute the air, ground and water that sustain us. Delicate ecosystems that nurture the diversity of life are being eradicated. In the existential struggle between human progress and the natural world, native peoples are on the front lines. In this struggle, as Al Gedicks tells it, the native peoples are the “miner’s canaries” warning the rest of us that the destruction of our environment will ultimately lead to the destruction of ourselves.

Much of this struggle is being fought over resources, as mining and oil corporations encroach upon native lands in an endless search of profit. In Resource Rebels, Gedicks describes the burgeoning indigenous movement against these companies. It is a movement that has brought together concerns about human rights and the environment and used an array of tactics against its more powerful adversaries. It has been rural-based, grassroots, multiracial and international. The book illuminates the origins of this movement by providing examples of native resistance from around the world. It discusses the connections between trade, militarization and resource extraction as well as the tactics used by corporations to counter popular opposition. It concludes by recommending a series of sustainable strategies to avert the current ecological and cultural crisis.

Underlying the threat to indigenous lands and the environment is the insatiable appetite for consumption in the industrialized states. Gedicks points out that while the industrial countries account for 20% of the world’s population; they consume 84% of all paper and 87% of all cars each year. Having exhausted the richest and most easily accessible resources, oil and mining companies have set their sights on indigenous lands to keep up with demand. From Ecuador to Nigeria to Indonesia to the United States, native peoples are subject to a “discourse of dominance” by corporations and governments, which leaves them out of decisions affecting their lands. This process has been exacerbated by a shift in project financing away from shareholders and states and toward multilateral development agencies and regional banks. The World Bank, Gedicks writes, has radically increased its lending for extractive projects and engages in “narrow, economic thinking [that] ignores any concern for people and the environment.”

An important part of the struggle has been the recognition and elucidation of the connections between environmental destruction and human rights abuses. Gedicks argues that native peoples’ close connection to the land makes them particularly vulnerable to ecological damage. Extractive activities can threaten patterns of subsistence, living conditions, and cultural practices. In addition, corporations often conspire with governments to deny native peoples’ civil and political rights in order to prevent them from re-

sisting the incursions. Gedicks points to Nigeria, where Shell Oil’s operations have devastated the Ogoni people, subjecting their homeland to gas flares, oil spills, pipeline explosions and other abuses. In the early 1990s, the Ogoni began to engage in nonviolent resistance to protect their lands, for which they became the targets of a campaign of political repression and violence by the Nigerian military. This campaign, Gedicks charges, was carried out with Shell’s knowledge, approval, and material support. The case gained widespread attention in 1995 when, despite international protests, Nigeria tried and executed Ogoni author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders. The struggle continues to this day.

Resource Rebels tells similar stories from around the world. From the U’wa in Colombia to the Amungme and Komoro in West Papua, indigenous peoples are building movements to protect their lands. The book is at its best when it tells these stories and uses them to draw broad conclusions about the evolution of native movements. Gedicks astutely points out that states that depend on outside investment are necessarily more vulnerable to pressure for human rights reform. Indigenous groups have begun to find and exploit these pressure points with varying degrees of success. The groups are pursuing multilateral strategies that include litigation, mass mobilizations, shareholder resolutions, and public education. They are refining their rhetoric by linking environmental concerns with traditional human rights issues. Perhaps the most important innovation has been the increased communication of information through transnational networks and electronic media. Native peoples are now often able to wage their local struggles on a global front and can alter the balance of power by working closely with allies.

Of course, multinational corporations are not sitting idly by while native peoples organize. Gedicks outlines a number of methods by which they seek to undermine the opposition, including mass media campaigns, attacks on tribal sovereignty and challenges to local zoning authority. Armed with money and political clout, oil and mining companies sometimes manage to pay off impoverished communities or get states to preempt local control. Yet the indigenous opposition remains vibrant and, Gedicks believes, effective.

The book’s primary shortcoming is its lack of depth. Numerous case studies are presented to illuminate the author’s basic point about the evolving movement, but they are generally sketched in broad strokes that may not offer much insight for the experienced practitioner. As an introduction to the issue, however, Resource Rebels performs ably. Gedicks clearly is passionate about his subject and makes no pretension of neutrality. His tone is guardedly optimistic and practical. Though native peoples continue to build their movement, Gedicks realizes that their cause—and that of humanity—depends on a revolutionary shift in patterns of consumption worldwide. In this vein he recommends a number of sustainable strategies such as banning exploration in pristine ecosystems, investing in renewable energy, improved product design and recycling. He exhorts us to remember that while native

peoples may be the “miner’s canaries,” we all stand to lose from unfettered consumption. In that respect at least, their struggle should be ours.

—Edward Grauman

Copyright © 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Harvard Human Rights Journal / Vol. 15, Spring 2002