ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a range of ways that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women and children living in northern British Columbia (BC) are impacted by intensive resource extraction (IRE), and how these complex, regional dynamics need to be taken into account when seeking to understand the dynamics of climate change and health. It then focuses on the interrelated pathways that make women and children vulnerable to short-term social and ecological changes as well as to their long-term consequences, and why these populations may serve as sentinels which illustrate how sustainably communities are being developed. The chapter presents both evidence and conceptual tools intended to strengthen research on the interrelated factors influencing vulnerability within communities where intensive resource extracting occurs. It draws examples from the oil and gas sector in particular as this focus offers concrete examples of the ways in which extractive industries and their related processes affect real people and places in northern BC.
