Competition for Access to Resources (DP IB Geography)

Role of Indigenous Groups

Resource competition

• A resource is anything that is useful to people

• They are limited and competition arises because of their usefulness

• As demand rises, the pressure to extract them from extreme environments increases

Resources in extreme environments are:

• Cultivable land in cold and arid regions is limited 

  • Mineral extraction and development damages these lands, leaving people import-dependent 

• Water resources are limited in both cold- and hot-arid regions

  • People in arid areas struggle to find water

  • In cold environments, frozen or poorly draining soil reduces accessibility to water 

  • Development needs significant amounts of water, leaving little for local communities

• Mineral resources in extreme environments offer opportunities for huge economic gains 

  • However, extraction has been costly and difficult in the past

  • Improved technology and rising demand now make these regions a viable proposition

• The competition for land, water and economic resources bring various stakeholders into conflict

Indigenous groups and their lands

• For Indigenous peoples, land has a spiritual and cultural value rather than an economic one

• Conflict between Indigenous groups, or between Indigenous groups, businesses and authorities, is long-standing and biased against Indigenous peoples

• Particularly where Indigenous law, including land rights, is separate from the country’s mainstream legal structure 

• In some instances, the government forcibly relocates Indigenous groups to areas away from their traditional lands and their opportunities to benefit from the wealth beneath their land

• Usually, they are relocated to land in worse locations and of poor quality, away from main populations

• In cold and arid areas, the forced relocation of disempowered Indigenous communities is common

  • In Australia, many Aboriginal communities that occupied productive lands that could be used for animal raising were either killed or forcibly relocated away from their traditional land to make way for the European settlers

  • Greenland, where the Uummannaq Inuit community was forcibly relocated to make way for a strategic US military base

  • In northern Siberia, the Yamal Peninsula is a remote, windblown tundra region

    • It has one of the world's largest natural gas reserve, at an estimated 55 trillion cubic metres

    • The Indigenous Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders that have used the Yamal Peninsula for over 1 000 years. 

    • They graze reindeer in the north during the summer and migrate south for the winter

    • Due to climate change and oil and gas exploration, the Nenets are under threat

    • Russia intends to exploit the region, putting the future of nomadic herding at considerable risk

    • Reindeer are unable to cross the roads and pipelines, affecting their migration routes and many have been shot

    • Oil spills damage the quality of the pasture and freshwater

    • The River Ob has seen a decline of fish yields as spawning grounds have been polluted

    • Nearly 30 fisheries on the tributaries of the Ob are gone

Role of Civil Society Groups

• Civil society groups, also known as civil society organisations (CSOs), are a wide range of organised groups, including NGOs, trade unions, social movements, grassroots organisations, networks and communities

• CSOs have created positive social change in numerous places throughout the world 

• They can start conversations that bring people together to take action as a group and get people to speak out about problems at the local, national, regional, and foreign levels

• Push for new laws, plans, policies, or strategies, and make sure that governments keep their promises

• CSOs can also offer services such as education and healthcare

CSO and the Himba tribe

• Semi-nomadic pastoralists, The Himba, live in the deserts of northern Namibia and southern Angola

• They raise cattle, sheep and goats and move with the availability of water

• Any threat to water access will endanger the tribe 

• The Kunene River flows through the middle of the Himba lands and forms a natural border between Angola and Namibia

• The Himba depend on these waters to provide drinking water for their animals and grow food

• In the mid-1990s, plans were made for a large hydropower dam on the river, but these were shelved

• In 2012, both governments announced that work would begin

• At least 5 000 people will be displaced because the dam will flood 290 square kilometres of land

• The dam lake will cover the ancestral burial grounds, which is a concern in a society that values honouring the dead and asking their advice before making any big decisions

• Direct protests by Himba leaders and followers have sparked efforts to stop the dam's construction, along with civil society groups such as:

  • Earth Peoples

  • International Rivers Network

  • Habitat International Coalition

• Despite the continued support, opposition to the dam has been ineffective

• The Himba don't have a political party and don't know how to officially or formally take part in the decision-making process of the government

• A number of international civil society groups have written on their websites about Himba's resistance to the dam and its environmental effects

• However, this hasn't changed the plans of the Angolan or Namibian governments 

Role of TNCs

• In places such as Sudan, Egypt, Mali, and Uzbekistan, there are financial pressures because big companies are willing to pay large sums of money to buy land to grow cotton to sell abroad

• Traditional farmers who grow food cannot compete with the financial pressures of transnational corporations (TNCs) that only care about making money

• As a result, land that used to grow food is now used to grow industrial raw materials like cotton

• This leads to reduced biodiversity because mixed crops are replaced by monoculture (plantings of only one plant type), such as coffee or palm oil

Role of Militia Groups

• In some arid and semi-arid environments, such as the Sahel and the Sahara, political militia groups have made it harder for people to get land and other resources by forcing local communities to live with them

  • Boko Haram, also called the 'Islamic State in West Africa,' is a terrorist group in the Sahel area of northeast Nigeria

  • They have killed over 20 000 people and forced about 2.5 million to flee to Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and other parts of Nigeria

• Other militias working in the Sahel region are:

  • GSPS (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) in southern Algeria

  • AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), which is linked to Tuareg fighters in northern Mali

  • MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad) in West Africa

• The Sahel region is less stable now because of these groups

• They have changed the way land is owned, as well as how farms and businesses are run

• They have also stopped many foreign companies from investing money into mining, oil, and gas projects

• As a result, many resources are undeveloped or not exploited