Korchi a village of 3,256 people, most of whom are small and marginal farmers belonging to Gondi and Kawar indigenous communities, lies about 750 kilometres east of Mumbai, India. Here, women like Jam Bai, a 53-year-old indigenous farmer, have been leading a ground movement for years to own land.
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
Include Indigenous People in COVID-19 Response
In Nepal the COVID-19 crisis has been especially hard on indigenous peoples. We had to learn a new vocabulary and use words like quarantine, self-isolation, hand sanitizers and social distancing.
How Kenya’s Indigenous Ogiek are Using Modern Technology to Validate their Land Rights
The Ogiek community, indigenous peoples from Kenya’s Chepkitale National Reserve, are in the process of implementing a modern tool to inform and guide the conservation and management of the natural forest. The community has inhabited this area for many generations, long before Kenya was a republic. Through this process, they hope to get the government to formally recognise their customary tenure in line with the Community Land Act.
Beware the ‘Hunger’ to Access Indigenous Peoples’ Land and Resources for Post-COVID-19 Recovery
When governments and states begin their recovery journey from the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there might be a heightened threat to indigenous peoples, their land and resources. “The fear is [that] the economic recovery is based on access to land and natural resources,” Lola García-Alix, senior advisor on Global Governance at the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), told IPS.A look into the lives of Cambodia’s gentle giants
For generations, elephants have been inextricably tied to the lands of Mondulkiri in Cambodia. The people who call this place their home -- the indigenous Bunong community -- share a unique bond with the gentle giants of the land.
‘I Can’t Breathe!’ Australia Must Look in the Mirror to See our Own Deaths in Custody
I can’t breathe, please! Let me up, please! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! These words are not the words of George Floyd or Eric Garner. They weren’t uttered on the streets of Minneapolis or New York. These are the final words of a 26-year-old Dunghutti man who died in a prison in south-eastern Sydney.
Preserving World’s Biodiversity: Negotiations Convene at FAO Headquarters
“The world out there is watching and waiting for results,” Elizabeth Maruma Mrema warns while talking to IPS regarding the preservation of biodiversity of our planet.
Lithium and Clean Energy in Argentina: Development or Mirage?
The intense white brightness of the salt flats interrupts the arid monotony of the Puna in northwest Argentina, resembling postcards from the moon. Beneath its surface are concealed the world's largest reserves of lithium, the key mineral in the transition to clean energy, the mining of which has triggered controversy.
Social Summit Demands Stronger Commitments in Climate Talks
As the COP25 deliberations enter the decisive final week, representatives of environmental and social organisations gathered in a parallel summit are pressing the governments to adopt stronger commitments in the face of a worsening climate emergency.
Indigenous Knowledge, a Lesson for a Sustainable Food Future
Local knowledge systems rooted in traditional practices and culture passed down generations provide sustainable solutions to food and nutritional insecurity on the back of climate change, a conference heard this week.
Evo Morales: Hero or Villain?
To be president in a country like Bolivia might be like a precarious act performed by a tightrope-dancer between “the Devil and the deep blue sea”. After 23 years as Bolivia’s President, Evo Morales finally lost his foothold and ended up as political refugee in Mexico, adding his name to a long list of previous revolutionary exiles, like Augusto Sandino, Fidel Castro, and most prominently – Leon Trotsky. The last one was murdered, though the others came back, something Evo Morales has promised to do:
Climate Change and Loss of Species: Our Greatest Challenges
Mottled and reddish, the Lake Oku puddle frog has made its tragic debut on the Red List, a rapidly expanding roll call of threatened species. It was once abundant in the Kilum-Ijim rainforest of Cameroon but has not been seen since 2010 and is now listed as critically endangered and possibly extinct.
Rock Glaciers Supply Water to Highlands Communities in Argentina
In Argentina's Puna region, at 4,000 metres above sea level, the color green is rare in the arid landscape, which is dominated by different shades of brown and yellow. In this inhospitable environment, daily life has improved thanks to a system of piping water downhill from rock glaciers to local communities.
Rural Poverty Is Still a Scar on the Soul of Colombia, but a New Program Supporting Agri-Entrepreneurship Can Help Heal the Wounds
Rural poverty and inequality continue inflicting large swaths of population in Colombia, especially in rural areas. This situation, endemic since at least the beginning of the twentieth century, was at the root of the 50-year long conflict that shattered the country, leaving 220,000 deaths and 5.7 million displaced persons, and devastating a significant part of the rural areas, where government services and infrastructure vanished.
Justin Trudeau´s Blackface
Politics is a dodgy game, maybe even more so if you represent political views based on a moral approach. When the charismatic Justin Trudeau, son of a cosmopolitan liberal who served as Canada´s Prime Minister for 16 years, in 2015 was elected Prime Minister it was within a global political climate different from what it is today. Barack Obama was in the White House, Angela Merkel served her third period as German Chancellor, and the UK Government had not yet announced its country's withdrawal from the EU. Nevertheless, Russia had three months before Trudeau´s election annexed Crimea, while Viktor Orbán´s Hungarian government the month before initiated the construction of a 4 metres high barrier along its nation´s eastern and southern borders to keep immigrants out.
Kashmir: How Modi’s Aggressive ‘Hindutva’ Project has Brought India and Pakistan to the Brink – Again
August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India’s Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution.
Revitalizing Indigenous Languages Is Critical
Being fluent in a world language is a desirable skill in modern day society. However, some languages are suffering and in danger of extinction -- namely those of the indigenous peoples.
How India’s Indigenous Female Forest Dwellers Feel about Owning Their Own Land
Kumaribai Jamkatan, 51, has been fighting for women’s land rights since 1987.
Though the constitution of India grants equal rights to men and women, women first started to stake their claim for formal ownership of land only after 2005–the year the government accorded legal rights to daughters to be co-owners of family-owned land. 
In the Midst of Conflict, India’s Indigenous Female Forest Dwellers Own their Land
Jam Bai, an Indigenous farmer from Korchi village in western India, is a woman in hurry. After two months of waiting, the rains have finally come and the rice saplings for her paddy fields must be sown this week while the land is still soft.
Your Life or Your Freedom? The Ultimate Price to Defend the Environment
For the family of indigenous Guatemalan activist Jorge Juc, the announcement last week by US President Donald Trump of an agreement declaring Guatemala a “safe third country” could not be more bitterly ironic.
International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2019
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries. They live in all geographic regions and represent 5000 different cultures. These people are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to others yet are being forced to give up their ways of life.
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The planet's roughly 350 million indigenous peoples took notable steps on the international stage in the last decade. They got the world's governments to agree to create a body to represent them at the United Nations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to appoint a special rapporteur responsible for their human rights. In 2007 a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved by the UN. Yet the living conditions of most "tribal", "aboriginal", "native" or "first" peoples remain precarious. IPS, with its network of contributors at the UN and linked to indigenous communities worldwide, is committed to tracking the world community's efforts to do justice to the rights and aspirations of these peoples, with a special current focus on Latin America's 40 million rural indigenous peoples.
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