Tracing Food-Energy-Water-Material Interdependencies and Injustices in Transboundary Supply Chains Through Remote Sensing of Boreal Deforestation in Eeyou Istchee/Jamésie, Quebec

Abstract:

This study explores the food, energy, water, and material (FEWM) interdependencies in a near-Arctic ‘frontier’ region at the center of the Indigenous sovereignty movement in North America before, during, and after the 40-year construction of the James Bay hydropower complex, the largest series of dams in the Western hemisphere, with a total generating capacity of 16,500 MW. We structure this analysis around the boreal deforestation that has occurred in Eeyou Istchee/Jamésie, Quebec since the James Bay Project began in the early 1970s. Using the Landtrendr algorithm on the Google Earth Engine Platform and supplementary datasets, we document both the year and type of forest disturbance and identify interdependencies among five key disturbance types: hydropower, roads, logging, mining, and wildfire. We explore embodied injustices spanning FEW systems and material extraction in terms of inputs ‘for,’ impacts ‘on,’ access ‘to,’ and control ‘over’ FEW systems and material extraction. We also link embodied food, energy, water, and material injustices with transboundary resource consumption and resource control. We find that roughly 106,000 km² have been deforested since 1975, comprising 29% of the region. This result undermines narratives of ‘clean’ power and ‘sustainable' forestry exports from the region. Instead, these interlinked disturbances illustrate the unsustainability of current transboundary FEWM supply chains and demonstrate steadily intensifying non-Native control over and extraction of the region’s resources, reflecting larger patterns of embodied injustices that have recently culminated in sweeping new development initiatives and stand to further reinforce these historical trajectories.