Resource justice

Factors leading to resource injustice

• Mining or oil drilling result in severe damage to the environment, for example through oil spills, environmental degradation, or contamination.
• The extraction of resources leads to extreme forms of exploitation of labour and / or creates very hazardous working conditions.
• Resources are being controlled by a small elite that makes or embezzles all the profits. This often goes along with corruption.
• People are forced off their land to make place for resource extraction or for large monocultural plantations.
• Resources in the developing world are being extracted by companies from industrialised countries, with most of the profits going to the latter.
• Companies extract genetic material, which is then commercially farmed or bred – and often patented.

  Approaches towards greater resource justice

• to "secure the rights of people and nature over markets and profits" and empower them to demand their rights;
• to return the "control over natural resources, financial capital and technologies into the hands of the people;
• to "transform production, consumption and livelihoods" in ways that enable people to live in a world of glbal equity.