By: Megan Rowling
BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indigenous people and local communities lack legal rights to almost three quarters of their traditional lands, sparking social conflict and undermining international plans to curb poverty, hunger and climate change, researchers said.
Via News.com.au
Indigenous Dayaks in a remote Borneo village fight BHP coal mine
AUGUST 11, 2015 8:28PM
AUSTRALIAN mining giant BHP Billiton has hit a roadblock on its coal mine in Indonesian Borneo after finally starting operations.
Success is rare among indigenous peoples' struggles for land rights in Guatemala. But the nearly 300 Poqomchi' Maya families that make up the Primavera communities in the department of Alta Verapaz have just won a significant victory.
Drones have become a revolutionary tool in the defense of property rights of disenfranchised people
When most people imagine what a drone expert looks like, more than likely they see a scene from TV or a film of a drone strike: a man in front of a screen controlling a joystick and then, an explosion. They almost certainly do not imagine Gregor MacLennan.
From Rhetoric to Action: Scaling Up Community and Indigenous Peoples’ Land and Resource Rights
Opportunities • Priorities • Action
SEPTEMBER 30 – OCTOBER 1, 2015
Bern Kursaal • Kornhausstrasse 3 • Bern, Switzerland
Program
"This is the last piece of land where we can feed our reindeer."
In West-Siberia’s Khanty-Mansi autonomous region, a region of the size of France, where much of Russia’s crude oil is extracted, a new conflict between indigenous Khanty reindeer herders and the powerful oil producers is unfolding. The Khanty are an indigenous nation of 30,000. Their language is related to modern Hungarian and their main subsistence activities are fishing, reindeer herding, hunting and gathering.
In a statement published in a national newspaper, the council of AIDESEP, which represents over 1800 communities in the Peruvian Amazon called for the repeal and shelving of recent legal reforms being pushed through Peru’s parliament that threaten to further weaken indigenous peoples’ rights to land in favour of development projects. They also announced that they will file a formal complaint to the Inter American Development Bank’s (IDB) complaint mechanism if promised changes to a nationwide land titling programme remain undelivered.
Almost 1,500 indigenous people from about 200 different tribes have been protesting in Brazil’s capital as part of a National Week of Indigenous Mobilization. These actions coincide with Brazil’s Day of the Indian on April 19.
In Asia, various legal instruments have been used to recognize indigenous peoples within the legal framework of State. States have recognized indigenous peoples through constitutional provision, special laws, and court decisions and/or through ratification or adoption of international instruments. However, legal recognition by states does not always guarantee the full range and enjoyment by indigenous peoples of their individual and collective rights as provided in international instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The indigenous U’wa people living in north-east Colombia have won what observers call an “historic” and “decisive” victory after state oil and gas company Ecopetrol dismantled a gas drilling site in their territories.
On 24 February 2015, Jatiya Adivasi Parishad and Kapaeeng Foundation jointly organized a press conference protesting ongoing violence, evictions, murder and rape, and demanded to ensure security of indigenous peoples of northern region of Bangladesh at Reporters Unity in Dhaka.
Rabindranath Soren, President of Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, presented a report on present situation of indigenous peoples in Northern part of Bangladesh while Pallab Chakma, Executive Director of Kapaeeng Foundation conducted the event.
