On thin ice – The Arctic commodity extraction frontier and environmental conflicts

Ksenija Hanaček,Markus Kröger,Arnim Scheidel,Facundo Rojas,Joan Martinez-Alier

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107247

Abstract

This article contributes to the discussion on socio-environmental conflicts and extractive projects in the Arctic region. Fifty-three socio-environmental conflicts are analysed, using data from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Based on descriptive statistics, regression and network analysis, the paper reveals that socio-environmental conflicts predominantly overlap with Indigenous peoples' territories, from which a transversal opposition takes place, including Indigenous, non-Indigenous and international actors alike. The main commodities involved in these conflicts are related to fossil fuels, metals, and transport infrastructure. Associated large-scale extractive activities are bringing negative socio-environmental impacts at the expense of Indigenous groups, fishermen, and pastoralists, with loss of traditional knowledge and practices being significantly higher in Indigenous territories of high bio-cultural values associated to the environment. Our findings suggest that repression against activists is significantly more likely to occur in absence of preventive mobilization, and in Arctic countries with low rule of law. The chances to achieve the cancellation of a conflictive extractive project are significantly higher if dependency on natural resource rents in a country is low.

Highlights

The Arctic region is rapidly warming and experiencing vast sea ice and permafrost loss (Landrum and Holland, 2020)
Climate change and economic interests in the Arctic cannot be separated from local struggles against historically unjust and disproportionate socio-environmental impacts in areas predominantly inhabited by Indigenous groups (Avango and Peder, 2003; Cameron, 2012; Keil, 2014; Martinez-Alier, 2002)
Old and new commodities were and still are extracted at substantial social and environmental costs (Shadian, 2018). Arctic peoples, such as Indigenous groups, pastoralists and fishermen rely on the land and its natural resources (Stotts, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

The Arctic region is rapidly warming and experiencing vast sea ice and permafrost loss (Landrum and Holland, 2020). Old and new commodities (gold, oil, natural gas) were and still are extracted at substantial social and environmental costs (Shadian, 2018). Arctic peoples, such as Indigenous groups, pastoralists and fishermen rely on the land and its natural resources (Stotts, 2017). Such large-scale extractive investments, together with contemporary climate change, pose threats to the communities’ livelihood, socio-environmental, and cultural well-being (Alvarez et al, 2020). The threats manifest in the inability of communities to access their land, their loss of territorial rights, adverse effect on their health, biodiversity loss, as well as the loss of culture and identity linked to changes in their surrounding icescapes (Herrmann and Heinamaki, 2017; John, 2016; Kumpula et al, 2011)

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Discussion

Conclusion