A clash of worldviews, values and lifestyles?

Mining, money, carbon and biodiversity

Long no talk but I've been busy writing. One of the topics that I've thinking about world views. ..and how this influences us, as humans to behave, think and organize their worlds (mental, mental, physical, social, economic etc). A while back I wrote this piece called “What is a Heritage River?” about how humans can view and are changing the way that they view rivers.

We could ask questions such as should promises of new roads (communication), minerals for greenhouse industries, and possible jobs be exchanged for short term profit for a few and environmental problems for the many? It’s a question but it reflects the fact that its being asked by someone who’s probably who’s highly educated with a perspective from the Global North.

Yes, this is a sweeping (perhaps simplistic) observation but at times its necessary to say so. Why? The first question operates on the basis that there’s an opposition in world views held by people who want to develop a given geographical region, which most probably has something which has a high economic value to others.

The point here is that when such questions are being asked we’re really not stating upfront that there is a clash of two world views: that of the Indigenous people and those of the rest of us. The word ‘us’ includes those are academics and researchers from the Global North, those who are neoliberals, those who are libertarians, those who call themselves environmentalists, who consider themselves educated but perhaps not those who live in the region, nor the people behind the corporate (which is also a group of people) who wish to exploit the economic resources of that region. So there's actually a mixture of different views on how a given geographical region should be considered.

So let’s take a concrete example as it’s always easier to understand something hypothetical with something.

“Last year, 2024, was the hottest year recorded on Earth and the first calendar year to exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold. The global mean temperature for the past twelve months, between February 2023 and January 2024, was 1.52C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. Just over a year ago, researchers established by studying tree rings from the past 2,000 years, that Europe hadn't had such a warm summer since the time of the Romans. Land temperatures have increased by as much as 2.2⁰C higher than they were millennia ago caused by a combination of rising greenhouse gas levels and El Niño.

This year, 2025 is even hotter but whether it beats last year's temperatures – let's see. This year's temperatures are caused by global warming, on top of the usual regular climatic events. It seems as if this is climate change and as more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, such sweltering summers will become the norm. People, companies and governments talk about carbon emissions, carbon footprints, and lowering the emissions from activities such as industrial processes, power generation, transport and intensive agriculture.

Increases in temperature drive demand for energy and green industries which in turn drives demand for copper and nickel. Why? These metals are a necessity for cleaner sources of green industries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make batteries and cell phones. Demand for copper, over the next two decades, is predicted to increase by 40% and nickel for 60% according to the International Energy Agency.

Such minerals exist in areas of the globe labelled 'remote' where those people called Indigenous peoples live. These people own, occupy, or utilise 20% of the world’s surface area and behave as stewards for 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. These peoples hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks over millennia. One such group is the Cree, one of Canada's Algonquian speaking peoples. For decades, the Cree and the region that they lived in, the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario were ignored by those in the southern part of the province as hard-to-navigate ‘wastelands', ‘the North’ is large peatbogs. So, the Cree and other Indigenous groups in this region were largely left to their own devices by white settlers and Canada's Federal and Provincial governments.

But mining prospectors discovered these peat bogs contain minerals with accepted units of value, nationally and globally. By the early 2000s, the Toronto based mining company, Noront Resources, uncovered significant deposits of chromite, copper, nickel, platinum and palladium, worth billions of dollars. These nickel group minerals touted as vital for Canada for cleaner sources of energy and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These nickel group minerals are incredibly valuable commodities on the national and international financial markets. In 2007 -2008 mining companies had discovered significant deposits of nickel and chromite in an area labelled the 'Ring of Fire', measuring 5,000-km². At the time, Noront Resources was considered the front runner mining corporation for the exploitation (extraction) in the Ring of Fire region. It appears that difficulties appear to exist from the perspective of those mining companies wishing to exploit these minerals. Such difficulties are suggested as the regional newspaper “Northern Ontario Business” labelled the region “the garden of agony” in an article dated on April 17, 2025 11:00 AM. By 2021, Noront Resources was bought out by Wyloo Metals, based in Perth, Western Australia, for $0.850 (C$1.10) per share. By April 2022, Wyloo Metals was Noront Resource's parent company and renamed Noront Resources as the “Ring of Fire Metals”.

Let's change our worldview.

The 'Ring of Fire' lies in the second largest peat bogs in the world. Bluntly peat stores carbon. It's a carbon sink, in other words, a vault, keeping the world cooler. The Hudson Bay Lowland peat bogs are the biggest land-based carbon vault in North America, and the second-largest in the world. It stores between 30 billion to 35 billion tons of carbon, more than all of Canada’s managed forests.

These peatlands are a means for making money from the worldview of the mining and green industries sectors despite the fact these places absorb carbon keeping the world's temperatures down. So why risk digging them up if any removal of the peat, for the mineral below in not so many words 'opens up the vault'? Remember these peatbogs are vast carbon sinks – vaults.

Let's change our worldview.

The Cree, the Indigenous people who live in the Hudson Bay Lowlands, consider the Ring of Fire region, and the larger geographical region in which it exists as 'home'. They are stewards for the region's remaining biodiversity. Their spiritual, economic, social and cultural way of life is grounded in this region of the world. They practice animism, a contrasting worldview to that held by many of those people in the country's southern cities (and the mining companies), and have the expertise to adapt, mitigate, reduce climate and disaster risks as they have done for millennia. They call these peatlands ‘Yehewin Aski’, or “the Breathing Lands,” as they are the lungs of Mother Earth. They're aware that the Canadian Federal Government, as part of its plan to tackle climate change, pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 by shifting toward clean energy and using natural climate solutions. The government stated that Canada either must emit no greenhouse gas emissions or offsets its emissions. So, why are people who are part of the Federal and Provincial governments enabling mining companies, such as Noront Resources/now Wyloo Metals, to explore the region from the perspective of the regions' rare minerals when they know that mining only disturbs the peat, causing the carbon to be released?

There's a lack of logic here.

Little data exists regarding how either mining activities or the construction of building infrastructure impacts the Hudson Bay lowland peatlands’ current carbon storage. Research indicates that Canada's biggest opportunity to mitigate emissions is to avoid disturbances (i.e. mining) in its peatlands. The Cree know the consequences of the exploitation by corporate interests in the Ring of Fire region. So, is the peat and the minerals within it as an economic commodity? Or do the First Peoples who live and who come from this region have any rights as to what's happening? Any mining development in the 'Ring of Fire' risks releasing 1.6 billion tons of sequestered carbon (CO2) and methane into the atmosphere.

In April 2021, the Attawapiskat, Fort Albany and Neskantaga First Nations declared a moratorium against the Ring of Fire projects given the lack of consultation on several projects, as signatories of Treaty 9, often called the James Bay Treaty. The Attawapiskat sought a court injunction against exploration by Juno, a mining company, citing the lack of consultation. The treaty, which was signed in 1905/6, covers the area in Ontario, north of the height of land, dividing the drainage basins of the James and Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes. The Treaty purchased the interests of the Algonquian speaking peoples, the Cree and Ojibwe, for lands and resources for white settlement and resource development. Treaty 9, like the other numbered treaties, contained provisions for cash treaty payments, created reserves, contained legislation regarding their education, hunting, fishing and trapping rights.

Mining claims, since 2022 and the end of 2024, for nickel-copper-platinum group metals in the 'Ring of Fire’ peat lands has increased by 30%. More than 31,000 mining claims have been registered to date, an increase of 28 per cent in a year, according to analysis by Wildlands League, a Canadian non-profit conservation charity. Corporations are using mining claims, in northern Ontario, to acquire further early exploration permits. Such permits allow companies to undertake (I) line cutting a grid through a given area, removing trees and other vegetation in the process, (2) mechanized surface stripping involving heavy equipment such as bulldozers, backhoes or excavators removing soil from on top of the bedrock, and (3) drilling into the bedrock using large drill rigs to extract core samples.

The rise in the number of mining claims coincides with more land being taken up by surface rights owners. In 2023, the claims covered 626,000 hectares of the remote northern landscape, up 30 per cent from September 2022. This size is equivalent to nearly 10 times the size of the City of Toronto, or double the Greater Sudbury area, two cities hundreds of kilometres to the south, in southern Ontario.

So, what's the view of Wayloo Metals Canada, probably the most well known of the mining companies in the region? Development i.e. mining and exploitation of the region for Wayloo Metals Canada means according to their website “ ensuring our success means progress for everyone”. Yes, success is important but who is the “everyone”? The tag line of Wayloo Metals, “What we can’t grow or recycle, we have to mine[.]” is a valid observation as global demand for metals is soaring and only a proportion of metals can be recycled. But whose 'progress' is being referenced and refereed? How is this progress achieved i.e. whose worldview is being referenced? That of the Cree, Cree, the region's Indigenous peoples or that of held by Wayloo Metals Canada's shareholders and Directors, or those who live in province's urban areas?

Wyloo's website states, “We believe in a future that is truly sustainable – where technology unlocks new horizons and green energy preserves our planet for every generation to come”. This is the view, the perspective on the world held by those who work for and manage this company in the green energy sector, the mining sector. Wyloo's statement might be a 'tag line' but it's view from a world view at odds from the world view from the Indigenous Peoples who live in this region as they risk losing their homelands and the region loses its biodiversity in exchange for jobs and roads.

Memories here are long. The De Beers Group developed Victor Mine, an open cast diamond mine and marketed it as a place for potential employment, but failed to contribute much in terms of promised jobs and prosperity. This pit, situated 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat in the Ring of Fire region, opened in February 2006 but it closed in 2019 failing to contribute much in terms of promised jobs and prosperity.

The First Nations in this region are neither against road development nor economic development in the region. They wish to be involved in and consulted about these development projects so that they are able to understand their impacts. They know the consequences of the exploitation by corporate interests. These communities like those communities elsewhere across the globe have the right to request comprehensive, in-depth regional impact assessments led by all affected First Nations in the area. Mining, the extraction of a substance becoming a unit of value to be traded as a commodity. These minerals are arguably the 21st century equivalents to furs, pelts, the principal commodity of 19th century Canada.

So, balances need to be achieved for all, not just the few. Such minerals are required but the question must be debated: what's important, life for the many or profits for the few? Uncontrolled exploitation of this region poses risks for human life and health not just in this geographical region, but globally.

Conclusion: This is the clash of world views, values, ethics – even lifestyles.