Human rights groups demand Kenyan government halt forced evictions of Ogiek community from Mau forest
Human rights groups are calling for the Kenyan government to halt forced evictions of the Indigenous Ogiek community from their ancestral land in the Rift Valley.
“We are calling for an immediate cessation of ongoing demolitions and the evictions,” said Cyrus Maweu, deputy director of Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
Continue reading...New documentary threatens to tarnish folk singer’s reputation as a cultural icon who fought tirelessly for social justice movements
Allegations in a documentary that the popular American folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie misrepresented her Indigenous roots have rattled First Nations communities in Canada, where she claims to have been born, highlighting the complex legacy of an artist whose decades-long career is defined by advocating for Indigenous rights.
Sainte-Marie describes herself as a “Cree singer-songwriter” has long traced her identity to the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan, where she claims she was born in 1941. Sainte-Marie says she was taken from her biological mother when she was an infant and raised by a white family in the US.
Continue reading...Singer calls allegations ‘deeply hurtful’ after documentary questions ‘shifting narrative’ surrounding her Cree roots
Folk singer and social justice advocate Buffy Sainte-Marie has denied allegations that she misled the public about her Indigenous ancestry, after a Canadian documentary questioned the “shifting narrative” surrounding her Cree roots.
On Friday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s investigative wing, the Fifth Estate, published an investigation into the singer’s ancestry, alleging her life story is part of a broader narrative “full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies”.
Continue reading...Campaigners use traditional Sámi tents to block roads in Norwegian capital in protest against turbines on reindeer pastures
Hundreds of Indigenous and environmental campaigners have blocked a main thoroughfare in Oslo to demand the demolition of two windfarms that have been described by the Norwegian government as a “violation of human rights”.
The Wednesday protest traces its roots to a landmark 2021 decision by Norway’s supreme court that found 151 wind turbines in the western region of Fosen had trampled on the rights of Sámi reindeer herders by encroaching on their pastures.
Continue reading...Banning of Yatama party leaves ruling Sandinistas unchallenged in upcoming elections
Nicaraguan electoral authorities have barred an Indigenous party that has clashed with President Daniel Ortega in the past, leaving the ruling Sandinistas with no opposition in upcoming local elections in two regions.
The Yatama party has been disqualified from participating in all future elections, including a local vote scheduled for March, according to a Facebook post by Sammy Allen Cubero, a Yatama youth leader.
Continue reading...Voters elect Wab Kinew, 41-year-old leader of the leftwing New Democratic party and a former rapper and broadcast journalist
The Canadian province of Manitoba has elected the country’s first First Nations premier, handing the progressive leader a legislative majority following a contentious election campaign.
Wab Kinew, the 41-year-old leader of the leftwing New Democratic party, has led the province’s party since 2017. A former rapper, broadcast journalist and university administrator, Kinew said his newly-elected government will focus on re-opening three emergency rooms shuttered in recent years. He also said the province would invest in more social housing.
Continue reading...Thousands affected as government vows to stamp out land grabs in protected areas
Brazil’s government has begun removing thousands of non-Indigenous people from two native territories in a move that will affect thousands who live in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
The Brazilian intelligence agency ABIN said in a statement that the goal was to return the Apyterewa and Trincheira Bacaja lands in Para state to the original peoples. It did not say whether or not the expulsion of non-Indigenous people had been entirely peaceful.
Continue reading...Court voted against agribusiness-backed attempt to prevent communities claiming land they did not physically occupy in 1988
Brazil’s supreme court has blocked efforts to dramatically strip back Indigenous land rights in what activists called a historic victory for the South American country’s original inhabitants.
Nine of the court’s 11 members voted against what rights groups had dubbed the “time limit trick” – an agribusiness-backed attempt to prevent Indigenous communities claiming land they did not physically occupy in 1988.
Continue reading...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.
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