Languages
Friday, April 17, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
Another Nobel for Anglocentric Neoliberal Institutional Economics
New institutional economics (NIE) has received another so-called Nobel prize, ostensibly for again claiming that good institutions and democratic governance ensure growth, development, equity and democracy.
Empowering Indigenous Communities: A Path to Sustainable and Just Development
In a world where the fight for land rights often pits the powerful against the marginalized, Indigenous communities stand as resilient defenders of their ancestral lands.
Higher Education Course Rescues Indigenous Guarani Culture in Argentina
A few years ago, Bernardo Olivera moved to Posadas, the capital of the Argentinean province of Misiones, to study mathematics at the public university. Interested in numbers and keen to progress, he felt, however, that the education system put a barrier in his way because of his indigenous origin.
‘Australia Must Turn Its Climate Rhetoric into Action’
CIVICUS discusses the recent Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting in Tonga with Jacynta Fa’amau, Pacific Campaigner at 350.org, a global civil society organisation campaigning for climate action.
Rural Survival: Guardians of Mother Earth Saving Mau, Revitalizing Native Lands
The Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south. A breathtaking, diverse mix of natural beauty that includes dramatic escarpments, highland mountains, cliffs and gorges, lakes and savannas. It is also home to one of Africa’s greatest wildlife reserves—the Maasai Mara National Reserve.
New Zealand: Māori Rights in the Firing Line
A New Zealand bill that would roll back Indigenous rights is unlikely to pass – but it’s emblematic of a growing climate of hostility from governing politicians. A recent survey shows that almost half of New Zealanders believe racial tensions have worsened under the right-wing government in power since December 2023.
Various Uncertainties Block Indigenous Land Rights in Brazil
A never-ending battle threatens the indigenous rights that seemed clear and secure in Brazil, until the extreme right emerged in 2018 with a force challenging the civilisational advances set out in the Constitution.
US Flails in GM Corn Dispute with Mexico
Closing arguments are in in the U.S. trade complaint against Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn, with the three-arbitrator tribunal set to rule on the matter in November. The legitimacy of the trade agreement itself hangs in the balance.
Indigenous Peoples — An Antidote in a World of Crisis
This year’s Equator Prize winners are the antidote we need in a world of crisis. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum released its annual Risk Report. The key findings highlighted the inescapable trend over the past decade that we are facing a global polycrisis, in which problems of biodiversity loss, climate change, inequality, water scarcity and conflict are increasingly indivisible, simultaneous, and systemic.
ECUADOR: ‘We demand that the violation of the rights of nature be recognised and reversed’
CIVICUS speaks with Darío Iza Pilaquinga, president of the Kitu Kara People of the Kichwa nationality of Ecuador, about a historic court ruling that applied a constitutional provision recognising the rights of nature.
Cambodia’s Young Environmental Activists Pay a Heavy Price
It’s risky to try to protect the environment in authoritarian Cambodia. Ten young activists from the Mother Nature environmental group have recently been given long jail sentences. Two were sentenced to eight years on charges of plotting and insulting the king. Another seven were sentenced to six years for plotting, while one, a Spanish national banned from entering Cambodia, was sentenced in absentia.
Life or Energy: The Hydroelectric Dilemma in Amazonian Brazil
The decade-and-a-half-long battle for life in the so-called Volta Grande (Big Bend) of the Xingu river, a stretch of the river dewatered by the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Amazon, has a possible solution, albeit a partial one.
Government Indifferent to Invasion of Drug Traffickers in the Peruvian Amazon
The invasion of lands inhabited by Amazon indigenous communities is growing in Peru, due to drug trafficking mafias that are expanding coca crops to produce and export cocaine, while deforestation and insecurity for the native populations and their advocates are increasing
Kanak Ambition for Independence Is Defiant Following Political Turmoil in New Caledonia
It's been 26 years since a peace agreement, the Noumea Accord, was signed following an outbreak of conflict in the 1980s between Kanak islanders and French armed forces in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.
How Climate-Smart Strategies Revitalized Tanzania’s Livestock Sector
As the sun sets, its golden hues piece through the dusty haze, creating a dazzling display when a herd of livestock lazily roams on the arid landscape as they return home from grazing. Dressed in shiny red robes, the youthful Maasai pastoralists routinely whistle as they steer cattle, goats and sheep to maintain a unified path.
Justice, not Impunity, for Sexually Assaulted Indigenous Girls in Peru
The main fear facing women leaders who have denounced the systematic rape of girls from the Awajún indigenous people in the northeastern Peruvian department of Amazonas is that, despite the media coverage and sanctions announced by the authorities, it will all come to nothing.
New Caledonia: Time to Talk about Decolonisation
The violence that rocked New Caledonia last month has subsided. French President Emmanuel Macron has recently announced the suspension of changes to voting rights in the Pacific island nation, annexed by his country in 1853. His attempt to introduce these changes sparked weeks of violence.
Land Grabs Squeeze Rural Poor Worldwide
Since 2008, farmland acquisitions have doubled prices worldwide, squeezing family farmers and other poor rural communities. Such land grabs are worsening inequality, poverty, and food insecurity.
Democracy, Civic Space and Fundamental Freedoms Are under Attack, but Civil Society Is Here to Stay
During the Forus network’s General Assembly which took place in Gaborone, Botswana, civil society organisations from across 65 countries highlighted the challenges facing them globally in an increasingly polarised and crisis-hit world.
Ocean Action on Global Agenda as Negotiations to Save Biodiversity Deepen
The oceans are as fascinating as they are mysterious. Home to the largest animals to ever live on Earth and billions of the tiniest, the top 100 meters of the open oceans host the majority of sea life, such as fish, turtles, and marine mammals. But there is another world far below the surface. In the belly of the ocean, there are seamounts—underwater mountains that rise 1,000 meters or more from the seafloor.
Biodiversity Masterplan: Negotiations on Crucial Science, Technology for Implementation Underway
The triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste are escalating. At the current pace, the world is on track to lose one quarter of all plant and animal species by 2030, with one species already dying out every 10 minutes. One million species face extinction. Human activity has already altered three-quarters of the land on Earth and two-thirds of the ocean.« 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.
The Week with IPS
NEXT STOP - SDGs
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
