Indigenous Rights

The Relentless March of Drought – That ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’

By Baher Kamal
By 2025 –that’s in less than 8 years from today-- 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions. Now it is feared that advancing drought and deserts, growing water scarcity and decreasing food security may provoke a huge ‘tsunami” of climate refugees and migrants.

Asia – Indigenous Women Fight for Justice, Influence and Equity

By Julie Koch
Indigenous women in Asia are setting examples in their efforts for a more peaceful, fair and equal world. But discrimination, poverty and lack of recognition still hinder indigenous women from fully participating in developing their societies.

Re-Connect with Nature Now… Before It Is Too Late!

By Baher Kamal
Now that president Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of the world’s largest polluter in history—the United States, from the Paris Accord, perhaps one of the most specific warnings is what a United Nations independent expert on rights and the environment has just said: “We should be fully aware that we cannot enjoy our basic human rights without a healthy environment.”

Large Landowners Jeopardise Indigenous Revival in Brazil

By Mario Osava
The attack with guns and machetes that left at least 10 Gamela indigenous people wounded, in the northeastern state of Maranhão, highlighted the growing threats against the resurgence and survival of native people in Brazil.

Asia: 260 Million Indigenous Peoples Marginalised, Discriminated

By Baher Kamal
Asia is home to the largest number of indigenous peoples on Earth, with an estimated 260 million of a total of 370 million original inhabitants worldwide. In spite of their huge number-equaling half of the combined population of Europe-- they are often victims of discrimination and denial of their rights.

Social Forum Calls for Fight Against Corruption, to Defend the Amazon

By Milagros Salazar
Corruption has penetrated the Amazon rainforest like an illness that infects everything, said Ruben Siqueira, coordinator of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), during the VIII Panamazonic Social Forum (FOSPA), which brought together in the Peruvian Amazon jungle representatives of civil society from eight Amazon basin countries.

The Very Survival of Africa’s Indigenous Peoples ‘Seriously Threatened’

By Baher Kamal
The cultures and very survival of indigenous peoples in Africa are seriously threatened. They are ignored, neglected and fall victims of land grabbing and land dispossession caused by extractive industries, agribusiness and other forms of business operations.

Indigenous Women: The Frontline Protectors of the Environment

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Indigenous women, while experiencing the first and worst effects of climate change globally, are often in the frontline in struggles to protect the environment.

Long Way to Go for Indigenous Rights Protection

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Despite progress, many gaps remain in international indigenous rights protection, said representatives during an annual UN meeting.

Indigenous Peoples – Best Allies or Worst Enemies?

By Baher Kamal
It all happened on the very same day—4 April. That day, indigenous peoples were simultaneously characterised as fundamental allies in the world’s war on hunger and poverty, while being declared as collective victims of a “tsunami” of imprisonments in Australia. See what happened.

Brazilian Dam Causes Too Much or Too Little Water in Amazon Villages

By Mario Osava
The Juruna indigenous village of Miratu mourned the death of Jarliel twice: once on October 26, when he drowned in the Xingu River, and the second time when the sacred burial ground was flooded by an unexpected rise in the river that crosses Brazil’s Amazon region.

The Indigenous ‘People of Wildlife’ Know How to Protect Nature

By Baher Kamal
In the northern part of Mount Kenya, there is an indigenous community -- the Il Lakipiak Maasai ("People of Wildlife") -- which owns and operates the only community-owned rhino sanctuary in the country.

These Women Cannot Celebrate Their Day

By Baher Kamal
This is a story that one would wish to never have to write—the story of hundreds of millions of life-givers whose production and productivity have systematically been ‘quantified’ in much detailed statistics, but whose abnegation, human suffering and denial of rights are subject to just words.

Expansion of Renewable Energies in Mexico Has Victims, Too

By Emilio Godoy
The growing number of wind and solar power projects in the southern Mexican state of Yucatán are part of a positive change in Mexico’s energy mix. But affected communities do not see it in the same way, due to the fact that they are not informed or consulted, and because of how the phenomenon changes their lives.

Indigenous Peoples Lands Guard 80 Per Cent of World’s Biodiversity

By Baher Kamal
They are more than 370 million self-identified peoples in some 70 countries around the world. In Latin America alone there are over 400 groups, each with a distinct language and culture, though the biggest concentration is in Asia and the Pacific– with an estimated 70 per cent. And their traditional lands guard over 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity.

Human Rights For Rohingya Worsening, Warns Special Rapporteur

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
A UN Special Rapporteur has expressed grave concern over escalating violence and discrimination against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.

Measures Are Proposed to Address Violence in Mapuche Land in Chile

By Orlando Milesi
The lands where the Mapuche indigenous people live in southern Chile are caught up in a spiral of violence, which a presidential commission is setting out to stop with 50 proposals, such as the constitutional recognition of indigenous people and their representation in parliament, in a first shift in the government´s treatment of native peoples.

“Serious Retreats” In Indigenous Rights Protection, Says UN Rapporteur

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
As the 10-year anniversary for the Declaration on Indigenous Rights approaches, UN indigenous rights activists came together to assess the many challenges that still remain on the ground.

Beyond Standing Rock: Extraction Harms Indigenous Water Sources

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Since the decision by the U.S. army to suspend the Dakota Access pipeline on 4 December, many are still unsure of the controversial pipeline's future or its implications for other mega infrastructure projects affecting indigenous communities across North America.

New Technologies in Debate in Biodiversity Conference

By Emilio Godoy
Synthetic biology, geoengineering and the recognition of ancestral knowledge are the issues that have generated the most heated debate in the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity, which ends in this Mexican resort city on Friday Dec. 17.

Developmentalism and Conservation Clash Out at Sea

By Emilio Godoy
“We don’t have access to marine areas, because most are protected areas or are in private hands. We indigenous people have been losing access to our territories, as this decision became a privilege of the state,” complained Donald Rojas, a member of the Brunka indigenous community in Costa Rica.
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