![Sample our Urban Studies journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110826/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Urban-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Indigenous peoples are among the most affected by environmental injustices globally, however environmental justice theory has not yet meaningfully addressed decolonisation and the resistance of Indigenous communities against extractivism in the settler-colonial context. This paper suggests that informing environmental justice through decolonial analysis and decolonising practices can help transcend the Western ontological roots of environmental justice theories and inform a more radical and emancipatory environmental justice. The Unist’ot’en Resistance and Action Camp blocking pipelines in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, their “Reimagined Free Prior and Informed Consent protocol” and the Delgamuukw case are described to discuss limitations of the state and legal framework for accommodating a decolonial and transformative environmental justice. A decolonial analysis informed by these two moments of Wet’sewet’ten history suggests limits and adaptations to the trivalent EJ framework based on recognition, participation and distribution. It is argued that a decolonising and transformative approach to environmental justice must be based on self-governing authority, relational ontologies of nature and epistemic justice and the unsettling of power through the assertion of responsibility and care through direct action. This discussion is placed in the context of the expansion of the concept of ecological rights, for example through the enshrining of the “Rights of Nature” in the constitutions of countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador, to highlight the Inherent tensions in the translation of Indigenous cosmo-visions into legal systems based on universalist values.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at The Plurality and Politics of Environmental Justice workshop at the University of East Anglia. I would like to thank the Unist´ot´en for welcoming me, for their hospitality, knowledge, wisdom and vision. I would also like to thank Saskia Vermeylen and two anonymous reviewers for comments which have significantly improved the text. I take full responsibility for any errors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
2. The council system was set up with the Indian act of 1876 to govern the reserves. The Unist’ot’en clan repudiates their authority, and while Delgamuukw affirms the traditional system of hereditary chiefs as those who can take decisions over the Wet’suwet’en territories, energy companies often negotiate with band councils even though they don’t have the power to consent to development projects beyond the reserves. For example, Chevron has formed The First Nations Limited Partnership (http://bcfnlp.ca/) with band councils as the basis for an agreement on PTP. On 23 January 2015, the Moricetown band became the 16th band along the pipeline route to sign on to the partnership. Touted as a “$500 million + commercial partnership by and for First Nations”, the 16 bands will share 32 million Canadian dollars (U.S.$24.6 million) once construction begins, as well as CA$10 million ($7.7 million) per year while the pipeline is operating. Meanwhile on 6 August 2015, all five Unist’ot’en chiefs, along with four other Wet’suwet’en chiefs, signed the Unist’ot’en Declaration declaring that the land was unceded and that their consent was needed for any project on their territory.
3. This is perhaps best expressed in the words of the seringeuros of Brazil, quoted bv Porto-Goncalves: “nosotros no queremos tierra, nosotros queremos territorio”. We don’t want the land – we want the territory.
4. The force and legitimacy of the Royal Proclamation had just recently been re-affirmed by its incorporation into section 35 the Canadian constitution in 1982.
5. See O’Neill (Citation2006) for a discussion on The question of “who speaks for nature” for a discussion of the political implications of representing nature’s interests as well as Castree’s (Citation2003) discussion on moving towards a politics of politics of socionatural hybridity.