Members of US Board on Geographic Names voted to change name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue sky at request of tribes
Federal US officials renamed a Colorado mountain that was previously named after a disgraced governor of the state who led a massacre against Indigenous people.
Members of the US Board on Geographic Names voted to change the name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky, at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
Continue reading...Inaccurate statement by the International Union for Conservation of Nature made as part of the 1982 process for world heritage status for Tasmanian wilderness area
A UN agency was forced to remove a “hurtful” document that for more than 40 years publicly claimed Tasmanian Aboriginal people were extinct.
The inaccurate claim, stating that “Tasmanians are now an extinct race of humans”, was made as part of the nomination process for the declaration of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its addition to the world heritage list in 1982.
Continue reading...Referendum result protecting Yasuní reserve will benefit huge range of species as well as ‘uncontacted’ Indigenous peoples
Ecuadorians have voted in a historic referendum to halt the development of all new oilwells in the Yasuní national park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.
Voters opted to safeguard the unique biosphere by a margin of nearly 20% with more than 90% of the ballot counted – with more than 58% in favour and 41% against, according to Ecuador’s National Electoral Comission. Voting took place in the first round of presidential elections on Sunday.
Continue reading...Referendum alongside presidential election will decide whether to halt extraction in Amazon national park
As Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday they must not only decide between eight presidential candidates but also vote on an unprecedented referendum question that could set a new course for the oil-reliant nation.
The poll will decide whether to halt drilling at the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfield, also known as oil block 43, which lies in an Amazon national park and one of the world’s richest pockets of biodiversity. Ecuador’s largest protected area is also home to the Waorani people and the country’s last Indigenous communities in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and Taromenane.
Continue reading...If cutting continues along its current pace, most of the Moskitia forest – and the way of life it sustains – could be lost by 2050, much sooner for many parts
Several hours down a clandestine road that slithers through the rotting remains of what was once protected rainforest in north-eastern Honduras, a rusted bulldozer overgrown with vines and a locked gate appeared ahead.
A vinyl banner hanging from a wooden fence advertised the sale of cattle for breeding. Behind, a palm tree stood above an empty corral like a watchtower. The driver got out to retrieve a key, a pistol tucked inside his belt.
Continue reading...Residents hold on to hope for historic town that ‘represents transformation’ and is central to Indigenous culture
A week after wildfires ripped through western Maui and killed at least 99 people, residents and historians are still processing the full scope of destruction in Lahaina, an 18th-century coastal town that was, for a time, the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
Designated a national historic landmark in 1962, Lahaina is a place of incalculable importance for Native Hawaiians. In 1810, King Kamehameha I unified all the Hawaiian islands and made the town his royal residence for the next three decades.
Continue reading...Court rules judge can hear case that alleges appointment of Mary Simon violates constitutional rules for bilingualism
A group of Quebecers have cleared a major hurdle in their efforts to have Canada’s governor general removed because she does not speak French.
A Quebec superior court judge ruled that it could hear the case, which asserts that Queen Elizabeth II’s 2021 appointment of Mary Simon – Canada’s first Indigenous governor general – violates constitutional rules for bilingualism.
Continue reading...Lytton First Nation in British Columbia ordered to evacuate on Friday as out-of-control wildfire just 328 yards from reserve land
Members of a First Nation in British Columbia have once again been advised to flee their homes to escape record-setting wildfires, just two years after the community in western Canada was devastated in an earlier blaze.
Residents of the Lytton First Nation were ordered to evacuate late on Friday. By Sunday, the out-of-control Stein Mountain fire was just 300 meters (328 yards) from reserve land, burning its way down a steep slope that has stymied firefighting efforts, the community’s chief, Niakia Hanna, told Reuters.
Continue reading...A growing number of Brazilians are reclaiming their Indigenous identity, after years of fighting for rights
When a census taker came knocking on Vahnessa de Oliveira Ferreira’s door in Rio de Janeiro in 2010 and asked her how she identified racially, she replied “mixed”. Twelve years later, when asked the same question for Brazil’s 2022 census, she had changed her answer to “Indigenous”.
“Indigenous people learned to justify themselves [as mixed-race] because for a long time, being Indigenous was synonymous with being lazy, a good-for-nothing, a savage,” said Ferreira, a tour guide and social educator who now proudly identifies as a trans Indigenous woman.
Continue reading...Six months after Lula’s government cracked down on garimpeiros, a legacy of malnutrition and malaria is taking its toll on Yanomami
Six months after the Brazilian government launched an operation to turf out illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous reserve, the Yanomami population there continues to live in fear, battling a legacy of violence, destruction and disease.
A new report released by three Indigenous organisations on Wednesday, applauds the success of the government’s crackdown but highlights the challenges that lie ahead in fully addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by the invasion of wildcat miners during the Jair Bolsonaro years.
Continue reading...Grassy Narrows’ exposure to toxic metal helped cause a suicide rate three times higher than other communities, research finds
Decades of mercury exposure has been linked to the high youth suicide rates in an Indigenous community in Canada, in the latest finding to underscore the catastrophic legacy of environmental contamination.
Researchers who studied three generations of mothers and their children from the community of Grassy Narrows, Ontario, have concluded that sustained exposure to the toxic metal helped cause a suicide rate three times higher than any other First Nations community – which are already far higher than among the country’s general population.
In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Translation into Nheengatu hailed as a historical moment for the country and its native populations
The Brazilian constitution has gained its first ever official translation into an Indigenous language, in what has been hailed as a historic moment for the country and its native populations.
The translation into Nheengatu was unveiled on Wednesday in São Gabriel da Cachoeira, a town deep in the Amazon, in a ceremony attended by Brazilian authorities and Indigenous leaders.
Continue reading...Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced
Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.
Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.
Continue reading...Police said man charged with assault, which could see him fined and jailed for a year
Indian authorities on Wednesday demolished the home of a man accused of publicly urinating on a member of a tribal community after footage of the alleged assault sparked public condemnation.
A video shared widely on social media appeared to show Pravesh Shukla urinating on his young victim in a dark street in the central Sidhi district while smoking a cigarette. The attack took place last year but came to public attention only this week.
Continue reading...Brazilian government warning comes as UN report says that flourishing organized crime groups are driving a boom in environmental devastation
The Brazilian government’s drug policy chief has admitted that the rapid advance of drug factions into the Amazon rainforest has produced a “a very difficult situation” in the region, as a UN report warned that flourishing organized crime groups were driving a boom in environmental devastation.
Marta Machado, the national secretary for drug affairs, said the previous administration’s intentional dismantling of Brazil’s environmental and Indigenous protection agencies had created a dangerous vacuum in the Amazon which had been occupied by powerful crime syndicates from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Continue reading...Authorities denied pregnant Indigenous girl her legal right to an abortion and ‘re-victimised’ her, UN child rights committee says
Peru violated the rights of a 13-year-old girl who had been repeatedly raped by her father by denying her an abortion after she became pregnant, the UN has ruled.
The United Nations child rights committee found this week that the Peruvian authorities had violated the rights to health and life of the girl, known by the pseudonym Camila, by failing to provide her with information and access to legal and safe abortion.
Continue reading...Wilson the Belgian shepherd featured prominently in drawings by Indigenous children as they recover in Bogotá hospital
The four Indigenous children who survived a plane crash and 40 days alone in the Colombian Amazon are continuing their recovery in Bogotá’s military hospital, and the oldest two have been well enough to pick up crayons.
In their first pictures released by Colombia’s armed forces, a four-legged figure jumps from the page: Wilson, the Belgian shepherd dog who helped lead rescuers to their location – and who remains missing in the jungle.
Continue reading...Details of woman’s final days emerge after four siblings rescued following almost six weeks in Amazon jungle
The mother of the four young Colombian siblings who managed to survive for almost six weeks in the Amazon jungle clung to life for four days after their plane crashed before telling her children to leave her in the hope of improving their chances of being rescued.
Details of the woman’s final days came as further information emerged about the children’s astonishing feat of endurance.
Continue reading...Relatives and Colombian president visit survivors in hospital, where grandfather says they are ‘shattered but in good hands’
The four young Colombian siblings who managed to survive for 40 days in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed have been reunited with their family as further details emerged of their astonishing feat of endurance.
The children’s grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, who visited them in the Bogotá hospital where they are recuperating, said they were “shattered but in good hands and it’s great they’re alive”.
Continue reading...How to Save the Amazon will be published so Dom Phillips’ work telling the stories of rainforest defenders does not die with him
One year after Dom Phillips was killed in the Brazilian Amazon, friends and colleagues have come together in a show of journalistic solidarity to keep his legacy alive and finish the book the British journalist was working on at the time of his death.
Phillips and his Brazilian companion, the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, were killed while returning from the remote Javari valley in the western Amazon last June. Three men have been charged with murder and are being held in high-security prisons while awaiting a decision on whether they will face trial.
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