Indigenous Rights

How a Small Tribe Turned Tragedy into Opportunity

By Malini Shankar
When the Asian tsunami washed over several Indian Ocean Rim countries on Boxing Day 2004, it left a trail of destruction in its wake, including a death toll that touched 230,000.

Canada Accused of Failing to Prevent Overseas Mining Abuses

By Carey L. Biron
The Canadian government is failing either to investigate or to hold the country’s massive extractives sector accountable for rights abuses committed in Latin American countries, according to petitioners who testified here Tuesday before an international tribunal.

They Say the Land is ‘Uninhabited’ but Indigenous Communities Disagree

By Amantha Perera
Disregarding the rights of indigenous people to their traditional lands is costing companies millions of dollars each year, and costing communities themselves their lives.

Guatemalan Officers Face Sexual Slavery Charges in Historic Trial

By Luz Mendez
On Oct. 14, Guatemala’s Court for High-Risk Crimes ruled that charges would be brought against two members of the Army for sexual slavery and domestic slavery against q’eqchís women in the military outpost of Sepur Zarco, and other serious crimes perpetrated in the framework of the government counterinsurgency policies during the armed conflict.

Bougainville Voices Say ‘No’ to Mining

By Catherine Wilson
The viability of reopening the controversial Panguna copper mine in the remote mountains of Central Bougainville, an autonomous region in the east of Papua New Guinea, has been the focus of discussions led by local political leaders and foreign mining interests over the past four years.

OPINION: The Front Line of Climate Change is Here and Now

By Kaio Tiira Taulu
The fate of my country rests in your hands: that was the message which Ian Fry, representing Tuvalu gave at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen five years ago. This is also the message that the Pacific Climate Warriors have come to Australia to bring.

The Nagoya Protocol: A Treaty Waiting to Happen

By Stella Paul
For over 20 years, Mote Bahadur Pun of Nepal’s western Myagdi district has been growing ‘Paris polyphylla’ - a Himalayan herb used to cure pain, burns and fevers.

Panama’s Indigenous People Want to Harness the Riches of Their Forests

By Emilio Godoy
For indigenous people in Panama, the rainforest where they live is not only their habitat but also their spiritual home, and their link to nature and their ancestors. The forest holds part of their essence and their identity.

Pacific Climate Change Warriors Block World’s Largest Coal Port

By Lyndal Rowlands
Climate Change Warriors from 12 Pacific Island nations paddled canoes into the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle, Australia, Friday to bring attention to their grave fears about the consequences of climate change on their home countries.

Israel Planning Mass Expulsion of Bedouins from West Bank

By Mel Frykberg
Thirty-year-old Naifa Youssef and 50 other members of her Bedouin community live a precarious life, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence alongside the main road which links Jerusalem with the Dead Sea and the ancient city of Jericho.

Vanishing Species: Local Communities Count their Losses

By Stella Paul
The Mountain Chicken isn’t a fowl, as its name suggests, but a frog. Kimisha Thomas, hailing from the Caribbean island nation of Dominica, remembers a time when she could find these amphibians or ‘crapaud’ as locals call them “just in the backyard”.

Vanuatu Puts Indigenous Rights First in Land Reform

By Catherine Wilson
Stemming widespread corruption in the leasing of customary land to investors is the aim of bold land reform, introduced this year in the Southwest Pacific Island state of Vanuatu, which puts the rights of traditional landowners above the discretionary powers of politicians.

New Global Declaration “Insufficient” to Tackle Deforestation

By Carey L. Biron
Heads of state, civil society groups and the leaders of some of the world’s largest companies this week urged their peers to sign on to a landmark new global agreement aimed at halting deforestation by 2030, even as others are warning the accord is too lax.

Environmental Funding Bypasses Indigenous Communities

By Amantha Perera
When she talks about the forests in her native Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo, Maridiana Deren’s facial expression changes. The calm, almost shy person is transformed into an emotionally charged woman, her fists clench and she stares wide-eyed at whoever is listening to her.

New Fund to Build on “Unprecedented Convergence” Around Land Rights

By Carey L. Biron
Starting next year, a new grant-making initiative will aim to fill what organisers say has been a longstanding gap in international coordination and funding around the recognition of community land rights.

World’s Most Unequal Region Sets Example in Fight Against Hunger

By Marianela Jarroud
Latin America and the Caribbean, the world’s most unequal region, has made the greatest progress towards improving food security and has become the region with the largest number of countries to have reached the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of undernourished people.

Panama Turns to Biofortification of Crops to Build Food Security

By Fabíola Ortiz
Panama is the first Latin American country to have adopted a national strategy to combat what is known as hidden hunger, with a plan aimed at eliminating micronutrient deficiencies among the most vulnerable segments of the population by means of biofortification of food crops.

A Flood of Energy Projects Clash with Mexican Communities

By Emilio Godoy
Since January, villagers and townspeople near the Los Pescados river in southeast Mexico have been blocking the construction of a dam, part of a multi-purpose project to supply potable water to Xalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz.

Majority of Consumer Products May Be Tainted by Illegal Deforestation

By Carey L. Biron
At least half of global deforestation is taking place illegally and in support of commercial agriculture, new analysis released Thursday finds – particularly to supply overseas markets.

Mexico’s Cocopah People Refuse to Disappear

By Daniela Pastrana
In their language, Cocopah means “river people”. For over 500 years the members of this Amerindian group have lived along the lower Colorado River and delta in the Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona.

Indigenous Peoples Seek Presence in Post-2015 Development Agenda

By Gloria Schiavi
The world's 370 million indigenous people, who say they were marginalised in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), want to play a key role in the U.N.'s post-2015 development agenda, which will be finalised next year.
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