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Tuesday, November 10, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
KENYA: Like a Fish Belongs to Water, the Ogiek Belong to the Mau Forest
The resettlement of evictees from Kenya’s Mau Forest remains a humanitarian and environmental concern for the country as more than 25,000 people continue to live in camps around the forest.
AFRICA: Change the Donors Climate
When donor-funded horticultural projects failed in Kalacha village at the edge of the Chalbi Desert in North Eastern Province, Kenya, the local pastoralist community proposed their own idea, which turned out to be the solution to their problems.
GUATEMALA: Incoming Government Has Its Job Cut Out
One of the highest poverty levels in Latin America, one of the highest murder rates in the world, and much-needed political and tax reforms are some of the pressing challenges that will face Guatemalan president-elect Otto Pérez Molina.
CLIMATE CHANGE-PERU: Rural Women Share Their Trials and Wisdom
"This year the freeze killed my crops, our small livestock died, and now I can't even sleep because I'm worried sick thinking about how to put food on my family's table, since I'm a widow," said Rosaura Huatay, an indigenous farmer in Peru's northern Andes highlands.
GUATEMALA: “We Want Girls to Be Visible”
"I learned to not be afraid, and to love myself. Before, I never wanted to talk to people because I felt like they looked down on me and that I was no good," says 12-year-old Hilda Tura, one of the participants in a programme fostering leadership among indigenous girls in Guatemala.
COLOMBIA: Amazonas 2030 – Indicators for the Climate Crisis
"It's great news" that the Colombian government is studying the cancellation of mining titles that have been granted in protected areas and in border zones declared national security areas, anthropologist Martín von Hildebrand, director of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation, told Tierrramérica.
U.S.: Who is the 99 Percent? – Part 2
While the Occupy movements sweeping the U.S. have become almost synonymous with democracy, consensus-based processes, human microphones and other symbols of unity, many populations in the country have felt isolated by the language and tactics of the movement.MEXICO: Wixaritari Indians Fight Mining in Sacred Desert Site
Some 200 Wixáritari or Huichol men, women and children travelled 20 hours from western Mexico to the capital to defend their sacred ceremonial sites from silver mining.
BRAZIL: Boycott of Dam Hearing Shows ‘Radical’ Foreign Policy Shift
Activists opposed to the construction of the Belo Monte hydropower dam in the Amazon jungle say the Brazilian government's decision to boycott an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights hearing represents a "radical" shift in the country's foreign policy.MIDEAST: Israel Evicting the Indigenous
As Israel moves ahead with a plan to forcibly displace tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank, Mohammad Al-Korshan and his family are facing the real prospect of not only losing their home, but their traditional way of life.VENEZUELA: Government Distributes Land to Yukpa Indians
The Venezuelan government's decision to expropriate 25 ranches to distribute 15,800 hectares of land to communities of Yukpa Indians in the northwest of the country partially makes up a long-standing debt to the native group.BOLIVIA: Native Protesters Celebrate Law Cancelling Rainforest Road
With victory cheers and predictions of future campaigns in defence of their ancestral territory, indigenous protesters from Bolivia's Amazon jungle region celebrated the new law that banned the construction of the road through their rainforest reserve.
COLOMBIA: When Humanitarian Law Is Just Rhetoric
The constant violations of international humanitarian law in Colombia claimed the life of an 11-year-old indigenous girl a month ago in the mountains of the southwest province of Cauca.
COLOMBIA: “I Was Ready for Anything – Except for Mourning a Daughter”
In the wooden, sheet-metal roofed house, the exact spot where Vanesa Coicué, an 11-year-old Nasa Indian girl, fell is marked by white and yellow chrysanthemums in a plastic soda bottle, along with a lit candle and an orange tree seedling.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Women Call the Shots on Mega Copper Mine
Whether the world’s largest open-cut mine on this island territory of Papua New Guinea (PNG) will resume copper and gold production, after being mothballed for 22 years, will depend on how satisfied matrilineal landowners are with the proposals.
PERU: Campesinas Protect Traditional Diversity of Food Crops
Dina Apomayta is heir to the 3,500-year legacy of the Andean cultures of Tiwanaku and Lupaca, which venerated the land. And she and many other rural women in Peru continue to nurture the agricultural biodiversity that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Women in Rural Argentina Speak Out on Climate Change
Rural and indigenous women in northern Argentina, hit hard by the expanding agricultural frontier, deforestation and the spraying of toxic pesticides, spoke out about their problems and set forth proposals for discussion at the next global summit on climate change.Liberian Muslims Allege Disenfranchisement
It seems all of Liberia is paying close attention to the campaign for the Oct. 11 presidential and legislative elections. But Sekou Camara is one exception.
COLOMBIA: Nasa Indians: “The Armed Groups Won’t Let Us Live in Peace”
Indigenous children in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca do not know what peace is. For the government forces and the leftwing guerrillas, the territory of the Nasa people is a strategic battleground.
NAMIBIA: German Extermination Marginalised Ethnic Groups
Over 100 years after the attempted extermination of Namibia’s indigenous men, women and children, 20 of the 300 skulls that had been stolen for racial research have finally returned home from Germany.
NAMIBIA: Skulls Repatriated – But No Official German Apology
A delegation of Namibian government representatives and leaders of the indigenous Herero and Nama people who came to Germany to repatriate 20 skulls of their ancestors were once again disappointed in their hopes for dialogue and an official apology.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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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