Erik Post is a PhD Candidate in Geography and part of the UBC Public Scholars Initiative with professional experience in governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental institutions. 

His research brings scholarship on extractivism, climate justice, and decolonization into a grounded conversation to investigate how Indigenous opposition to extractivism relates to racial, environmental, and climate justice in Latin America.   

In the Sierra Norte de Puebla region in Mexico, dozens of Nahua and Totonakú Indigenous communities are embroiled in violent socio-ecological conflicts with the Mexican government and transnational corporations over hydropower and mining projects. Whereas the government and corporations depict these projects as sustainable development crucial to climate change mitigation, Indigenous cooperatives and land and environmental defenders argue that these projects are Proyectos de Muerte (“Projects of Death”) that endanger Indigenous lives, livelihoods, and territories. Beyond resisting these projects, Nahua and Totonac community organizations propose and develop what they term Proyectos de Vida (“Projects of Life”) that aim to realize an alternative future that ensures Indigenous resurgence premised on racial, environmental, and climate justice.