GEOG 1050 - Resources 1: Introduction to Resource Geography

Vocabulary flashcards covering fundamental definitions, historical trends (the Anthropocene and Great Acceleration), analytical lenses, and the Nunavik/Raglan Mine case study in resource geography.

Resource

Ecological "goods and services" consumed by humans in the form of energy or materials, reflecting human-attributed use value and/or exchange value that can change over time.

Natural Resources

Energy or materials produced by biological, geological, or other environmental processes that serve as inputs to the economy.

Renewable Resources

Resources that replenish themselves naturally or are replenishable over time.

Non-Renewable Resources

Finite resources that do not replenish within a human time-scale.

The Great Acceleration

The period beginning around 1950 characterized by an exponential increase in global resource production, consumption, and related socio-economic activity.

Global Material Groups

The four main categories of global domestic resource extraction: biomass, non-metallic minerals, fossil fuels, and metal ores.

Resource Geography

A subfield of geography that analyzes the processes and systems through which things become "resources," focusing on resource flows, consumption, politics, and resulting socioecological effects.

Uneven geography of resources

The concept that resources are distributed unevenly across the globe, leading to disparities in access, use, and economic development among different regions.

Economic Geography Lens

A geographic perspective concerned with how economic value is generated and flows through processes of resource extraction, transformation, and use (commodification).

Social Geography Lens

A geographic perspective concerned with how people engage in, organize, or resist resource extraction and use, including resource communities, land use, and work.

Environmental Geography Lens

A geographic perspective concerned with ecological impacts of resource extraction, degradation, and waste (pollution), as well as resource conservation efforts.

Value Chain

The sequenced series of processes involved in extracting, transforming, and trading a resource (e.g., Voisey's Bay nickel extraction, Long Harbour processing, and international export for stainless steel production).

Fly-in Fly-Out (FIFO) Work

An employment practice in remote resource sectors (such as mining or oil sands) where workers are flown temporarily to extraction sites, creating socio-economic impacts on both source and destination communities.

Raglan Mine

A nickel and copper ($\text{Ni/Cu}$) mine located in Nunavik between the Inuit communities of Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq.

Raglan Agreement (1995)

The first Impact and Benefit Agreement (IBA) signed between a mining corporation and an Indigenous community in Canada.

Glencore

The Swiss multinational company that currently operates the Raglan Mine, taking over operations from the Canadian company Falconbridge in 2006.

Mikigiarniavik

The traditional name and identity/soul of the land in Nunavik that local Inuit leaders, including Charlie Arngak, sought to protect when negotiating with mining operators.

Closure Plan

A framework outlining a resource company's legal and ecological obligations to report, mitigate, and rehabilitate environmental impacts once extraction operations conclude.