Indigenous Rights

Mining Investment Won’t Switch from Chile to Peru

By Marianela Jarroud
The Chilean government has warned of the potential flight of mining and energy investments to Peru because of court rulings that have paralysed large-scale mining projects in the north of the country. But this fear is unfounded, at least in the short term.

Group Warns of “Natural Resources Giveaway” in Latin America

By Joe Hitchon
Researchers have unveiled new data warning that governments in Latin America are infringing on the rights of their indigenous populations in a bid to fuel development through the extraction of natural resources.

PERU: Stepping Up Protection for Native Groups in Voluntary Isolation

By Milagros Salazar
In the dense Amazon rainforest of Peru, there are five reserves inhabited by indigenous groups who have chosen to remain totally or partially isolated from the rest of society. But these areas are not officially demarcated as indigenous lands, and only one is protected with a control post.

Ranchers Try to Drive Tsimané Indians Off Their Land

By Rafael Acuña Coaquira
“We can’t take any more abuse,” Carmelo Tayo, the head of this small Tsimané indigenous village, says sadly. The community has lived for decades on land in Bolivia’s Amazon jungle that outsiders are now trying to gain control of.

Cameroonian Farmers Find Justice in Fair Fruit

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
The fruit farmers in Njombe, a small town in the coastal Littoral Region of Cameroon, learned a life lesson about “making lemonade out of lemons” - or rather “dried fruit out of fruit” when their land was taken from them by the government and leased to an international farming company.

Native Women Bring Solar Energy to Chile’s Atacama Desert

By Marianela Jarroud
Three indigenous communities from the Chilean highlands have just received solar panels, which will be set up and maintained by unlikely solar engineers: five native women who travelled halfway around the world to India and overcame language and other barriers to bring photovoltaic energy to their villages.

A “Golden Age” for Native Cinema

By Francesca Dziadek
Indigenous filmmakers and audiovisual artists worldwide are celebrating their growing visibility, as native voices and stories edge their way onto the big screen, gaining international recognition both artistically and commercially.

U.S. Abstains on Controversial World Bank Mongolia Mine Project

By Carey L. Biron
The United States has refused to vote for involvement by the World Bank Group in a massive but controversial mining project in Mongolia.

Indigenous Community Takes Forest Law into Own Hands

By Fabíola Ortiz
An indigenous community in Brazil has decided to single-handedly take action against illegal loggers who are moving into their territory in search of highly valued timber.

U.S. Finally Passes Stronger Protections for Women against Abuse

By Carey L. Biron
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday ended more than a year of stonewalling a piece of legislation that for two decades has offered legal protections for women against sexual violence, harassment and abuse.

‘Media Needs an Alliance With Minorities’

By Pavol Stracansky
Amid calls from world leaders for media diversity and plurality to be strengthened to combat a rising tide of extremism and intolerance, media experts have warned that change should not be expected overnight and that governments and states have a crucial role to play in the process.

India Undercuts Tribal Rights

By Ed McKenna
Over a decade ago, the Dongria Kondh tribe – tucked away in the Niyamgiri hills, a mountain range in the eastern Indian state of Orissa – found itself under attack.
IMG_4654EditWeb

Q&A: Building a Post-2015 Global Development Agenda

By Mathieu Vaas
As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, different United Nations agencies are beginning to discuss what the post-2015 Development Agenda will encompass.

Indigenous Youth Step up to Protect Their Roots

By Marzieh Goudarzi
Indigenous youth from some of the world's oldest living cultures are stepping forward to steer their communities past the threat of disappearance and into an age of coexistence with an increasingly globalised world.

Virtually At Sea in the Pacific

By Catherine Wilson
The Pacific Islands have some of the lowest rates of Internet penetration in the world, yet tech-savvy urbanites are behind the emergence of a number of social media sites dedicated to generating public debate and demanding government accountability. However, without real action, online forums speaking truth to power are constrained in impacting political and social reforms in the region.
Native leaders from the Amazon at the meeting of the Congressional working group. Credit: Puinamudt

Native Peoples Say: No Consultations, No Concessions

By Milagros Salazar
Representatives of native communities in the Amazon region of Peru, where the first ever "prior consultation" about a project affecting their territory will be held, have pressured the authorities into promising that their views will be taken into account every step of the way. But the government's word is no longer enough to assuage their mistrust.

In the Land of Gas, the Residents Have None

By Franz Chávez
The 19,000 inhabitants of the municipality of Caraparí, the area supplying a third of Bolivia’s gas exports, do not have access to gas or petrol, six years after the nationalisation of the mega deposit and almost a quarter century after its discovery.

Hydroelectric Project Threatens Chile’s Lake Neltume

By Marianela Jarroud
“This is paradise and they want to destroy it. This has had an enormous psychological impact on us,” says Guido Melinao, leader of the Mapuche indigenous community of Valeriano Cayicul, referring to the Neltume hydroelectric power plant project planned by the Spanish-Italian consortium Endesa-Enel.

Pakistan Tribes Turn Against Army

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
–“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”

Two Luthiers Emerge From Deep Bolivian Amazon

By Anna Infantas
They belong to the Amazon of Bolivia, where their people, the Moxena nation, are found, and they are brothers. Francisco and Alfonso Ichu Tamo came to this southern city to become the premier makers of musical instruments.

Historic Mapuche Land Conflict Flares Up

By Marianela Jarroud
A string of attacks in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía, where native Mapuche people are struggling for their land rights, puts the spotlight squarely on what analysts call the "supine ignorance" displayed by authorities about the country's history.
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