Category: Extractive Industries
Extractive industries are another source human rights violations against indigenous peoples. In his final (2013) report as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya attributed this to the fact that a substantial amount of the remaining minerals and fossil fuels are found in indigenous peoples’ lands and territories. In most African countries, legal frameworks that are relics of colonialism heighten hardships of indigenous peoples. Specifically, laws provide that sub-surface resources are excluded from land rights and that once discovered, surface land rights come to an end, hence landowners must vacate it.
East African Crude Oil Pipeline
The EACOP, undertaken by Total Energies, has displaced thousands of indigenous peoples in Uganda and Tanzania from their homes
Eritrean Afar in Dankalia
Facing government-sanctioned ethnic violence, mass sexual abuse, and the seizure of property, the Eritrean Afar are an indigenous people trapped by a repressive government. Combined with a blockade of their homeland, the Afar condition only worsens.
Sahrawi vs Resource Extraction in the Western Sahara
As the Moroccan government illegally extracts mineral and agricultural wealth from occupied Sahrawi lands, indigenous communities suffer.
Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline vs. Bakola/Bagyeli
The large extraction project poses negative social, environmental, and health impacts on indigenous peoples in Cameroon.
Denial of Legal Recognition for Baka in Cameroon
Indigenous Baka face violence and precarious conditions from conservation, mining, logging, and rubber plantations.
San vs ReconAfrica
A fossil fuel company secured a deal to drill in search of a petroleum system in the Kavango Basin, posing a threat to San in the area.
Taoudeni Basin Oil Mining vs. Kel Tamasheq (Tuareg)
Local Kel Tamasheq are pushing back against international oil companies’ exploration of the basin.
Imider Silver Mine vs. Amazigh
Amazigh in Imider, Morocco have faced alarming depletion and contamination of their groundwater resources because of a large silver mine. Photo from Al Jazeera
Kel Tamasheq (Tuareg) vs. Mining in Niger
Kel Tamasheq find their nomadic pastoralist livelihoods increasingly under threat from a combination of uranium mining, government promotion of sedentarism and climate change. Photo Credit: NewIndianExpress