Category Archives: Indigenous peoples

Brazilian police target indigenous leaders after government criticism

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Investigations into leaders closed after judges find no grounds for the cases and describe the situation as an ‘illegal embarrassment’

Human rights activists in Brazil have warned that the country’s authorities are targeting indigenous leaders after police launched investigations into two prominent critics of the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Sônia Guajajara, the head of Brazil’s largest indigenous organization, the Association of Indigenous Peoples (Apib), and Almir Suruí had been put under investigation last month over social media campaigns raising awareness of the threat that Covid-19 poses to Brazil’s indigenous population.

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Blackfeet tribe gives surplus vaccines to First Nations relatives in Canada

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Effort by illustrates the disparity with which the US and its northern neighbors are distributing doses

The Blackfeet tribe in northern Montana has provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines to its First Nations relatives and others in Canada, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the US and its northern neighbor are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the US are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.

Among those who received the vaccine at the Piegan-Carway border crossing were Sherry Cross Child and Shane Little Bear, of Stand Off, about 30 miles (50km ) north of the border.

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‘An indescribable moment’: Indigenous nation in US has right to lands in Canada, court rules

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Canada’s supreme court decision on the Sinixt people could affirm hunting rights for tens of thousands

For decades the Rick Desautel had been told by courts and governments that his people no longer exist in Canada.

But Desautel and others in his community in Washington state have long argued that they are descendants of the Sinixt, an Indigenous people whose territory once spanned Canada and the United States.

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It’s inspiring hope and change – but what is the IUCN’s green list?

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The red list of species at risk is well-known, but the list for protected sites is quietly helping to ‘paint the planet green’

When Kawésqar national park was formed in the Chilean part of Patagonia in 2019, just one ranger was responsible for an expanse the size of Belgium. Its fjords, forests and Andean peaks are a precious wilderness – one of the few remaining ecosystems undamaged by human activity, alongside parts of the Amazon, the Sahara and eastern Siberia.

Chilean officials hope that Kawésqar will, one day, meet the high standards for protected areas laid out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and make it on to the organisation’s “green list”.

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Yemen, Myanmar and George Floyd: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Peru

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The ‘forgotten’ people picking your Brazil nuts – for a fraction of the price

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Rich profits from the prized nut have failed to benefit those finding them. Now cooperatives hope to shake up the system

On a steamy March morning, Edivan Kaxarari walks with a few other villagers in single file down a trail in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil’s Rondônia state, near the border with Bolivia.

His sister-in-law Cleiciana carries her 11-month-old son in one arm and a rifle in the other, and his brother Edson clears the path ahead with a machete. It is hunting season for the seeds of the Amazonian Brazil nut tree.

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‘The Yanomami could disappear’ – photographer Claudia Andujar on a people under threat in Brazil

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Andujar lived with the tribe and fights for them. A timely show of her images comes to London soon


It is more than 50 years since Claudia Andujar began photographing the Yanomami, the people of the Amazon rainforest near Brazil’s border with Venezuela. Now 89, she is using her archive to increase their visibility, at a time when their survival is under renewed threat.

“The question of indigenous people should be more respected, more widely known. This is very important as it’s the only way the present [Brazilian] government will come to recognise their rights as human beings to occupy their land,” says Andujar, speaking from São Paulo. “This government isn’t interested in their rights.”

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‘She’s representing all of us’: the story behind Deb Haaland’s swearing-in dress

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The skirt, a traditional Native garment, outshone everything in the Eisenhower building – and there is a story of empowerment and survival behind it

It was a dress that triggered a flood of headlines. Standing in front of Vice-President Kamala Harris with her right hand raised, Deb Haaland was sworn in last week as the secretary of the interior dressed in a long rainbow ribbon skirt adorned with a corn stalk, butterflies and stars.

Related: Making history in style: Deb Haaland wears Indigenous dress at swearing-in

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Scathing report lambasts Canada police for handling of Indigenous man’s killing

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  • Police told Colten Boushie’s grieving mother to ‘get over it’
  • Officers accused of discrimination in 2016 case

Police in Canada told a grieving Indigenous mother to “get over it” after delivering news that her son had been killed, according to a scathing watchdog report that accused officers of discrimination and inflaming racial tensions during their investigation.

Colten Boushie, 22, was shot and killed in August 2016 after he and four friends drove on to a farm looking for help with their flat tyre. Nearly two years later, an all-white jury found Gerald Stanley, 56, not guilty of second-degree murder amid racial tensions in the Canadian prairies and deficiencies in the justice system.

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Activists demand sexual violence against Argentina’s indigenous people be classified a hate crime

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The attacks are common in northern Argentina against women and children – including one victim who was just four years old

Ana* was on her way home from school with her young cousin when it happened. “She managed to run away, but I didn’t,” she said, her voice trembling. “They put me in a car. They were white men. And they raped me.”

Ana’s ordeal wasn’t an isolated incident, but part of a horrific pattern of brutal sexual violence inflicted on indigenous children and women in northern Argentina by non-indigenous men, often in groups.

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Special brew: eco-friendly Peruvian coffee leaves others in the shade

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The Mayni people are harvesting shade-grown coffee from under the canopy of mature trees, with huge benefits for wildlife and the community

Deep within the Peruvian cloud forests, a six-hour drive from the town of Satipo, the remote Mayni community is busy growing organic coffee beneath the canopy of the native forest in order to preserve the rich mosaic of life there.

Most of the forest is kept intact, with just a little undergrowth cleared to plant Coffea arabica trees. Dahlia Casancho, who is leading the Mayni in their eco-friendly coffee-growing endeavours, sees shade-grown coffee farming as a positive development for the community, who traditionally believe in a forest god and river god. “Nature is our home. Nature gives us water, feeds us and also allows us to grow our coffee,” she says. “That’s why we take great care of our forest and we want it to be sustainable so that our children can also enjoy it.

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‘Ecological island’: as Maasai herding lands shrink, so does space for Kenya’s elephants

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The collapse of ecotourism during the pandemic and moves to lease land to big farms threaten vital conservation corridors

Kenyan elephants risk a slow extinction in a bleak, ever-shrinking “ecological island” in one of the country’s most picturesque and photographed landscapes, according to a government report.

The animals face a grim future as habitat loss is exacerbated by the pandemic’s impact on tourism, which is pushing landowners to sell off areas for development, and a growing trend towards a sedentary lifestyle among the pastoralist Maasai people, says the new 10-year management plan.

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Indigenous peoples face rise in rights abuses during pandemic, report finds

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Increasing land grabs endangering forest communities and wildlife as governments expand mining and agriculture to combat economic impact of Covid

Indigenous communities in some of the world’s most forested tropical countries have faced a wave of human rights abuses during the Covid-19 pandemic as governments prioritise extractive industries in economic recovery plans, according to a new report.

New mines, infrastructure projects and agricultural plantations in Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Indonesia and Peru are driving land grabs and violence against indigenous peoples as governments seek to revive economies hit by the pandemic, research by the NGO Forest Peoples Programme has found.

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Brazil: missionaries ‘turning tribes against coronavirus vaccine’

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Health workers were reportedly attacked with bows and arrows after visiting an indigenous community in Amazonas

Medical teams working to immunise Brazil’s remote indigenous villages against the coronavirus have encountered fierce resistance in some communities where evangelical missionaries are stoking fears of the vaccine, say tribal leaders and advocates.

On the São Francisco reservation in the state of Amazonas, Jamamadi villagers sent health workers packing with bows and arrows when they visited by helicopter this month, said Claudemir da Silva, an Apurinã leader representing indigenous communities on the Purus river, a tributary of the Xingú.

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At least 331 human rights defenders were murdered in 2020, report finds

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Two-thirds of those killed worked to protect environmental, land and indigenous peoples’ rights, while those providing Covid relief also faced reprisals

At least 331 human rights defenders promoting social, environmental, racial and gender justice in 25 countries were murdered in 2020, with scores more beaten, detained and criminalised because of their work, analysis has found.

Latin America, the most dangerous continent in the world in which to protect environmental, land and human rights, accounted for more than three-quarters of all the murders of human rights defenders in 2020. In Colombia, where activists are routinely targeted by armed groups despite a 2016 peace deal, 177 such deaths were recorded, more than half of the global total. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 25 murders, followed by Honduras, Mexico, Afghanistan, Brazil and Guatemala.

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‘We want our riches back’ – the African activist taking treasures from Europe’s museums

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Mwazulu Diyabanza has been fined and jailed for entering museums and forcibly removing ‘pillaged’ African artefacts. He tells our writer why the British Museum is now in his sights

Mwazulu Diyabanza makes no secret of why he is in France. If coronavirus had not closed most of Europe’s museums, the Congolese activist would probably be inside one right now, wresting African objects from their displays to highlight what he sees as the mass pillaging of the continent by European colonialists.

And it’s not just the mighty museums. Diyabanza and his supporters also plan to include smaller galleries, private collections and auction houses in their campaign. “Wherever the riches of our heritage and culture have been stolen,” says the 42-year-old, “we will intervene.” As the leader of a pan-African movement called Yanka Nku (Unity, Dignity and Courage), Diyabanza is on a mission is to recover all works of art and culture taken from Africa to Europe. He calls his method “active diplomacy”.

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Canadian museum’s ancient carving is one I made earlier, says local artist

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A stone figure found on a beach was probably by a Lekwungen people artefact, the Royal British Columbia Museum said, but Ray Boudreau begged to differ

Early one morning last summer, walkers on a beach in western Canada spotted an oblong stone figure resting on the sand.

Weighing nearly 100kg, it bore a face with exaggerated features – a bulging eye, contorted nose and lips – and was covered in a thin layer of seaweed and algae.

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‘It disgusts me’: how a wealthy couple lied to get a vaccine meant for Indigenous people

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Canadian casino executive and his wife sneaked into remote town to get injections meant for older population

On a chilly morning in late January, three planes landed on the lone airstrip of a remote community in northern Canada.

Related: Backlash grows for ‘selfish millionaire’ who got vaccine meant for Indigenous people

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Jacinda Ardern faces Waitangi Day reckoning with Māori as progress stalls

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Three years after the prime minister asked Māori to hold her to account, many are disillusioned with her government

In an oft-repeated story New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has recalled how growing up in the small, largely Māori town of Murupara, she would see children going to school hungry, and with no shoes on their feet.

It was these scenes of entrenched inequality and poverty, often along racial lines, that drove a teenage Ardern into the Labour party, where she has dedicated herself to combating child poverty.

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‘We had no paper, no pens, but we had our bodies’: the sacred and symbolic in Pasifika tattoos | Lagipoiva Cherelle

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The New Zealand foreign minister’s moko has become international news, but beyond an identifier, our tatau are a link to ancestors, a vessel for our cultures’ stories, and a tribute to those who have gone before

Shortly before my interview with six Europeans at a roundtable in Germany, I gently covered my hand tattoo with a skin-toned foundation.

I knew that without the proper context, they would stereotype me in the western sense and presume me either a criminal or at least uneducated or unprofessional. A perception of tattooing common on that side of the world.

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