By Melina Laboucan-Massimo, David Suzuki Foundation Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Change Fellow. This piece originally appeared on the David Suzuki Foundation website.
On International Women’s Day, I doubt industrial projects like Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline are top of mind for most. But there is a direct link between natural resource extraction and violence against largely Indigenous women and girls, which serves as an important reminder: violence against the land begets violence against women.
Along with pipelines and the extractive economic engines they support — like Alberta’s oilsands — come so-called “man camps.” Located near extraction sites, these are where (Read more…) male workers live in close quarters for weeks or months at a time.