Costa Rica, the subject of this article, is an upper middle income country that is widely regarded as having a generally positive human rights record. It has also avoided the violent conflicts and political instability that have characterised most of its closest neighbours in the last decades of the 20th century. However, as with almost all other countries considered to have good track records on human rights, the situation of indigenous peoples stands out as a major blemish.

The Kol tribals of Chitrakoot district live a life of abject poverty, exploitation and almost complete subjugation to the feudal landowners, locally known as Dadus. A local civil society organisation, the Akhil Bhartiya Samaj Sewa Sansthan (ABSSS) has adopted a multi-pronged approach to simultaneously address three sets of issues which it felt were crucial for improving the lot of the Kols.

This paper argues that mining can not be considered ‘sustainable’ if indigenous cultures are rendered unsustainable in the process. Given that many remaining unexploited ores lie under indigenous lands, there is increasing pressure to mine on or near indigenous lands.

Ensuring the collective survival of indigenous peoples requires guaranteeing their rights and access to traditional lands. In Colombia, indigenous peoples’ struggle for ancestral land rights has been ongoing for more than four centuries, marked by collective mobilization and pressure before official entities.

Humanitarian and development organizations working in conflict-affected settings have a particular responsibility to do no harm and contribute to the wellbeing of the population without bias. The highly complex, politicized realities of work in conflict- and post-conflict settings often require quick, pragmatic and results-oriented decisions, the foundations of which remain frequently implicit. Such decisions might follow an intrinsic logic or situational pragmatism rather than intensive deliberation.

The Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), was developed under the Committee on World Food Security as a result of collaboration among different groups of stakeholders – governments, civil society, private sector, academia. The VGGT is intended to provide a framework for responsible tenure governance that supports food security, poverty alleviation, sustainable resource use and environmental protection.

As reservas extrativistas, um dos legados do movimento organizado dos seringueiros do qual Chico Mendes foi um dos grandes protagonistas, foram idealizadas como proposta de desenvolvimento para Amazônia e para os povos da floresta, alternativa ao modelo estatal hegemônico, de características ambientalmente predatórias e socialmente excludentes. Desde o assassinato de Chico Mendes em 1988 foram criadas 88 reservas extrativistas (sendo 62 federais e 26 estaduais).

Memoria del Conversatorio Acceso a la tierra y territorio en Sudamérica. Necesidades de visibilización, realizado en el marco del IV Encuentro Internacional del Movimiento Regional por la Tierra y Territorio.

A iniciativa de las autoridades de la Nación Qhara Qhara, el caso 110 Caso 110 Luchas de los ayllus de Quila Quila tendrá una versión física para la promoción y defensa de su territorio y agenda reivindicativa que tiene como perspectiva, la autonomía indígena.

Desde el Instituto Para el Desarrollo Rural de Sudamérica (IPDRS) nos acercamos a la discusión sobre las autonomías y gobiernos indígenas, a través del trabajo que realizamosde manera puntual en el acceso a la tierra y territorio y de manera más general en la innovación de discursos y prácticas de desarrollo rural.

La siguiente es la trascripción casi literal de una larga conversación sostenida con Juana Payaba, expresidenta de la Comunidad Nativa Tres Islas, la única comunidad del departamento de Madre de Dios, en el sureste peruano, que ha logrado el reconocimiento de sus derechos consuetudinarios como pueblo indígena. La lucha de los comuneros de Tres Islas contra los mineros ilegales que invadieron