Indigenous Rights

Bridging the Digital Divide: How AI Risks Marginalizing Indigenous Peoples

By Oritro Karim
Although the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) yields numerous opportunities for progress—such as improved efficiency, enhanced decision-making, and innovative tools for climate reform—it also poses new risks for Indigenous peoples. With AI rapidly transforming the world, it is imperative that there are ethical and equitable frameworks that prioritize inclusivity and work to narrow the gaps in the digital divide.

Solar-Powered Fish Farming Feeds Indigenous Communities in the Peruvian Amazon

By Mariela Jara
"Our organization is showing that it is indeed possible to move toward energy transition and not depend on oil," said Elaina Shajian, president of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of San Lorenzo (Corpi-SL), in the Peruvian Amazon.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2025


 
Artificial Intelligence is changing how we live, learn, work - and who gets heard. It holds promise for humanity but, without safeguards, it risks becoming a new tool of domination.

HLPF 2025: Civil Society Is Not A Service Provider – We Are The Frontline Of Transformation

By Christelle Kalhoule and Sarah Strack
As delegates gather in New York over the coming weeks for the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), we see this moment as a test. A test of whether world leaders are serious about rescuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - or content to let the promises of Agenda 2030 drift quietly into irrelevance.

Can the Cali Fund Deliver on Its Billion-Dollar Biodiversity Pledge?

By Stella Paul
When the Cali Fund was unveiled in February on the sidelines of COP16.2 in Rome, the announcement sent ripples through the global conservation community. For the first time ever, companies that profit from digital sequence information (DSI)—the digitized genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms—will be expected to pay into a multilateral fund to protect the very biodiversity they benefit from.

How Mongolia Can Expedite It’s Just Transition Plans to Include Its Nomads

By Aatreyee Dhar
Youth activist Gereltuya Bayanmukh still reflects on the events in her formative years that inspired her to become a climate activist. When she was a child, she would visit her grandparents in a village 20 km to the south of the border between Russia and Mongolia.

Mexico’s Judicial Elections: A Democratic Mirage

By Inés M. Pousadela
On 1 June, Mexico made history by becoming the only country in the world to elect all its judges by popular vote, from local magistrates to Supreme Court justices. This unprecedented process saw Mexican voters choose candidates for 881 federal judicial positions, including all nine Supreme Court justices, plus thousands at local levels across 19 states. Yet what the government heralded as a transformation that made Mexico the ‘the most democratic country in the world’ may turn out to be a dangerous deception.

The Cost of Conservation—How Tanzania Is Erasing the Maasai Identity

By Kizito Makoye
On the vast plains of Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), the sight of young Maasai men in bright shawls, wielding sticks as they herd cattle, has long symbolized peaceful coexistence with nature. These herders, moving in harmony with zebras and wildebeests, are inseparable from the landscape. But today, that very identity—nurtured for generations—is under siege.

Nia Tero: Indigenous Guardianship the ‘Only Time-Tested Approach’ To Healthy Ocean Ecosystems

By Naureen Hossain
The 2025 UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) has seen a significant presence from Indigenous peoples, who insist that their perspective and guidance be taken into account in the global efforts for sustainable ocean use and conservation. The sense of responsibility to the ocean and recognition of its history is an example that the international community can learn from.

‘We Are Witnessing Ecocide in West Papua, One of the World’s Richest Biodiversity Centres’

By CIVICUS
CIVICUS discusses the devastating impact of palm oil extraction in West Papua with Tigor Hutapea, legal representative of Pusaka Bentala Rakyat, an organisation campaigning for Indigenous Papuan people’s rights to manage their customary lands and forests.

Explainer: What Rural Communities in Tanzania Need to Know about Carbon Trading and Land Rights

By Kizito Makoye
As global demand for carbon credits rises, Tanzania has become a magnet for carbon offset projects. From Loliondo in Arusha to Kiteto in Manyara, foreign firms and conservation groups are looking for land to capture carbon and sell credits to polluting industries in the Global North. The growing interest in carbon trading has sparked hope, confusion, and concern— putting millions of hectares of village land and the livelihoods of people who depend on it at risk.

New Forms of Power-Sharing are Needed to Uphold Rights of Indigenous Peoples

By Simone Galimberti
A UN groundbreaking report published in 1982 laid the legal ground for defining the inalienable rights of Indigenous Peoples. The document, written by José Martínez Cobo, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, analyzed the complex discrimination patterns faced by Indigenous Peoples.

Mexico Bans GM Corn Cultivation in Constitutional Reform: Action Follows Trade Ruling That Ignored Evidence of Genetic Contamination

By Timothy A. Wise
On March 17, Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum signed into law a constitutional reform banning the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) corn. The action followed a December ruling by a trade tribunal, under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement, in favor of a U.S. complaint that Mexico's 2023 presidential decree, with broader restrictions on the consumption of GM corn, constituted an unfair trade practice by prohibiting the use of GM corn in tortillas.

Standing Firm: Civil Society at the Forefront of the Climate Resistance

By Andrew Firmin
The recent US court case that ordered three Greenpeace organisations to pay damages of over US$660 million to an oil and gas company was a stunning blow against civil society’s efforts to stop runaway climate change and environmental degradation. The verdict, following a trial independent witnesses assessed to be grossly unfair, came in reaction to Indigenous-led anti-pipeline protests. It’s vital for any prospects of tackling the climate crisis that Greenpeace’s appeal succeeds, because without civil society pressure, there’s simply no hope of governments and corporations taking the action required.

‘Energy Transfer’s Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Is an Attempt to Drain Our Resources and Silence Dissent’

By CIVICUS

 
CIVICUS speaks with Daniel Simons, Senior Legal Counsel Strategic Defence for Greenpeace International, about the lawsuit brought by an oil and gas company against Greenpeace and its broader implications for civil society. Greenpeace is a global network of environmental organisations campaigning on issues such as climate change, disarmament, forests, organic farming and peace.

Royalties, a New Indigenous Right for Hydroelectric Damages in Brazil

By Mario Osava
Indigenous peoples in Brazil have won a new right: a share in the profits of hydroelectric plants that cause them harm when built on or near their lands. 

Strengthening Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ Knowledge and Access Opens up Opportunities for Climate, Biodiversity and Desertification Action

By Michael Stanley-Jones
The central role Indigenous Peoples and local communities in addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification has gained widespread recognition over the past decade. Indigenous Peoples’ close dependence on resources and ecosystems, exceptional tradition, and ancestral knowledge are invaluable assets for the sustainable management of our planet’s natural resources.

COP 16 Conference made Key Steps Towards a More Just Transition for Indigenous Peoples & Peasant Communities

By Caroline Delgado
With global temperatures continuing to break records and every global indicator of the health of the natural world showing decline, the need to quickly move away from fossil fuels and environmentally destructive practices has never been more apparent. But as has often been pointed out, how this ‘green transition’ is achieved matters.

Is the UN’s Human Rights Agenda in Jeopardy?

By Thalif Deen
The UN’s human rights agenda is in danger of faltering since the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) is planning to “restructure” the office, under the moniker OHCHR 2.0. But this proposal, if implemented, would result in the abolition of the Special Procedures Branch, established by the Human Rights Council (HRC), to report and advise on human rights from thematic and country-specific perspectives.

How Tanzania’s Farmers, Pastoralists Paid the Price for a World Bank Project

By Kizito Makoye
A hush had fallen over Mbarali District, but it was not the quiet of peace—it was the silence of uncertainty. Just months ago, the rolling plains were gripped by fear as government-backed rangers, dressed in olive green fatigues, roamed through villages, seizing cattle, torching homes, and forcing entire communities to the wobbly edge of survival. The REGROW project, a USD 150 million initiative funded by the World Bank to expand Ruaha National Park (RUNAPA), had promised tourism growth and environmental conservation. What it delivered was a brutal campaign of state-sanctioned land grabbing under the guise of protecting nature.

What is Not Good for Democracy in Peru is Not Good for Women

By Mariela Jara
"We are facing a deeply conservative government that is opening the doors to all kinds of setbacks. We have a failed state with a democracy that is no longer a democracy," said Gina Vargas, a Peruvian feminist internationally recognized for her contributions to women's rights.
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