Indigenous Rights

Young militia members in Kufra. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS.

Peace Lost in the Libyan Desert

By Rebecca Murray
The recent outbreak of violence between the largely segregated Zwai and Tabu tribes in Libya’s remote, Saharan town of Kufra shattered the uneasy calm that held since last February’s clashes, resulting in more than 100 deaths. The clashes illustrate the challenges in building a new state.

Tribal Farming Beats Climate Change

By Manipadma Jena
Tribal farmer Harish Saraka has rediscovered the key to sustainable farming in this rain-dependent hinterland of eastern Odisha state – mixed cropping.
Increasing numbers of Malian women are being raped by Tuareg rebels and armed groups that have swept across the north of Mali since January. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Armed Groups in Northern Mali Raping Women

By William Lloyd-George
Increasing numbers of Malian women are being raped by Tuareg rebels and armed groups that have swept across the north of Mali since the beginning of year, expelling all government troops from the region.

Millennium Goals Mock Nepal’s Slave Girls

By Naresh Newar
Five years after Nepal abolished Kamalari, a system of girl slavery, thousands of young women are still awaiting promised rehabilitation and support from the new democratic republic.

Abya Yala Speaks

By Camilo Segura Álvarez
During the closing session of the Social Forum of the Sixth Summit of the Americas, the broadcast signal was cut off, triggering protests from participating indigenous leaders. But that did not stop the voice of Abya Yala - the ancestral name of the continent - from being heard.

OP-ED: Get Your Boot Off My Neck

By Kerry Kennedy
Last weekend, my 14-year-old daughter, Michaela, and I were en route to Easter Sunday mass in Acapulco. We were stopped, harassed, threatened, and detained by eight soldiers in battle fatigues brandishing automatic weapons.
Rio+20 could be an opportunity to empower forest communities, believes Jeffrey Hatcher. Credit: Rights and Resources Initiative

Brazil is a Model for the Rights of Forest Communities

By Fabíola Ortiz
Brazil is one of the most advanced countries in the world when it comes to legally guaranteeing the rights of forest communities and reducing deforestation, says economist Jeffrey Hatcher in this interview.
Traditional Bolivian textiles. Credit: Psyberartist/CC BY 2.0

Native Andean Women Weave a Future in Bolivia

By IPS Correspondents and - -
Their skill and dexterity in weaving textiles, to be worn on festive occasions or displayed in windows for sale to tourists, have become the mainstay of indigenous women and their families in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Tourism Goes Indigenous

By Neena Bhandari
As today’s conscientious travellers seek authentic experiences with the people of the lands they visit, tourism can be a vehicle for preserving ancient cultures, while socially and economically empowering marginalised or remote indigenous communities.
Indigenous people in Guatemala are being displaced from their land. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

Displaced Guatemalan Peasants Demand Answers

By Danilo Valladares
"We want land where we can live and grow food to feed ourselves," said Pedro Ichich, one of several thousand indigenous farmers who marched to the Guatemalan capital to demand solutions to the ageold conflict over land.
Salinas Grandes Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS

Native People in Argentina Demand a Say in Lithium Mining

By Marcela Valente
Native communities in northwest Argentina turned to the Supreme Court to claim their right to be consulted about projects for prospecting and mining of lithium, regarded as the mineral of the future, located under an enormous salt flat.
Native baby and mother in Mexico. Social movements want indigenous rights and gender equity included in the concept of sustainable development. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

More Ecology, Less Economy for Rio+20

By Fabíola Ortiz
Hundreds of non-governmental organisations and social movements from around the world hope to counter the failure of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which they consider inevitable, with the success of the alternative People’s Summit.
Emerald Energy oil well in Colombia. Credit: Elias Cabrera

Emerald Energy Exploits Colombian Andes

By IPS Correspondents and - -
A thick fog flows over the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Here and there, the constant wind lifts the clouds to reveal lagoons, cloud forests, and páramo, an Andean alpine ecosystem known as a "mountaintop sponge" for its massive water-holding capacity.
Guatemalan indigenous leader Rosalina Tuyuc. Credit: Danilo Valladares/IPS

Q&A: “We Are on the Road to Overcoming Impunity” in Guatemala

By Danilo Valladares and - -
"To achieve peace, it is necessary for the truth to come out, and for the victims to receive reparations. And part of this is that cases of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Maya people must come to trial," says Guatemalan indigenous leader Rosalina Tuyuc.

Myanmar Ethnic Groups Resist Forced Labour

By Marwaan Macan-Markar and - -
In a move expected to deepen political reform, the quasi-civilian government in Myanmar (also known as Burma) is permitting the distribution of leaflets that will help thousands of people in the country’s ethnic enclaves learn to resist forced labour.
Women washing clothes in a village in northern Peru. Credit: Elena Villanueva /IPS

PERU: Time to Adapt to Climate Change Impact on Women’s Lives

By Mariela Jara
This year’s unusually rainy season in Peru is having a negative effect on the wellbeing and health of women in rural areas who are forced, for example, to spend three times as much time walking to collect firewood and water. But the authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the problems they face.
Rio+20 is not a major conference on biodiversity, but everything discussed there will relate to biodiversity, said Braulio Ferreira de Souza. Credit: Courtesy of CDB

Q&A: No Magic Solutions for the Extinction of Species

By Stephen Leahy
The Earth's life support system, which generates the planet's air, water and food, is powered by 8.7 million living species, according to the latest best estimate. We know little about 99 percent of those unique species, except that far too many are rapidly going extinct.
Radio Pachamama is a community station in the highlands region of Puno. Credit: Radio Pachamama

Airwaves Cut Distances in Rural Peru

By Milagros Salazar and - -
The Onda Rural communication for development initiative in Peru has come up with a range of strategies to get information out to remote villages, to help them with decision-making on questions like climate change adaptation or disaster preparedness.
Farmers

DR CONGO: Farmers’ Organisations Slam New Agriculture Law

By Emmanuel Chaco
Farmers' organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country's new Agriculture Law – enacted last December – could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land.
NLD spokesman Nyan Win at a Feb. 20 press conference in Rangoon. Credit:Mizzima

Burmese Hinge Hopes on Free, Fair Polls

By Larry Jagan
As campaigning for the Apr. 1 poll in Burma (also Myanmar) gets into full-swing, there are misgivings on whether the National League for Democracy (NLD) party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will get a fair deal.

Paper Industry Decimating Indonesia’s Tigers

By Charundi Panagoda
The survival of Sumatra's tigers, elephants, orangutans, rhinos, as well as indigenous communities, is threatened by the "world's fastest deforestation rate", caused by none other than the pulp and paper industry, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
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