Columbans around the world see how the massive extraction of natural resources is the root cause of many other injustices: species extinction, climate change, and community displacement, to name a few. Examples of extractive industries include coal and oil drilling, fracking, cash crop plantations, and even hydroelectric dams and profit-driven renewable energy.
What extractive industries do is turn God’s glorious creation into a cheap commodity, violating the sacred relationship between God, humans, and all creation (cf. Gen 9: 8-17).
As people of faith, we believe that we must create a new way of producing and consuming that acts in harmony with nature and prioritizes the dignity of marginalized communities. This new economy must be about life over death, generosity over exploitation, and the common good over profit.
The resources and articles on this webpage will help you better understand the pervasive and often hidden impacts of extractive industries. They will invite you to listen and respond to the cries of our wounded earth and vulnerable communities.
Host an Environmental Justice Workshop
Learn how your community can stand in solidarity with the exploited earth and marginalized communities
Download our consumer examination to better understand the connection between the stuff we buy and extractive industries
Tell the Senate: Protect Environmental Defenders
Ever years, dozens of people are killed defending the environment from extractive projects. Tell the Senate to protect them.
Extractive industries should respect and support the dignity of the human person, including the right to safeguard the global commons and sustainably develop natural resources.
Extractivism is a short-sighted model of development seen around the world that exploits natural resources on a massive scale, creating significant economic profits for the powerful few in the short term, but too often resulting in minimal benefits for the communities where these resources are found.
Columban missionaries see close-up the growing threat of a massive depletion of natural resources and destruction of the environment caused by Extractive Industries. We challenge the model of development promoted by many multinational corporations, governments and international financial institutions that is based on the intensive exploitation of natural resources.
Extractive industries are a bedrock of our current economic model. In order to stop the damage being caused by these industries, we need to reimagine what our economic looks like.
St. Columban, known for his mystical relationship with the natural world, is quoted as saying, "if you want to know the Creator, know Creation." Today, Columban missionaries carry this spirituality of care and respect for Creation as integral to our missionary identity and way of participating in God’s mission.
“There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced” (LS, 26).
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