• Last week on May 4, two bodyguards were wounded when armed gunmen tried to storm a meeting of Afro-Colombian activists that included 2018 Goldman Prize winner Francia Márquez.
• The community leaders had been meeting to discuss future actions following a massive land rights protests last month in Colombia’s Cauca region in which one protester was killed by armed forces.
• In March and April, Afro-Colombian activists participated in an indigenous-led protest with 20,000 people against the government’s environmental and social policies.

Myrna Cunningham is the first Miskitu woman to study at a university. In 1973, she received a degree in medicine and returned to her home region in the isolated northeast of Nicaragua, where she was born in a small village surrounded by lush forest. Working as a surgeon, she served in more than one hundred remote villages.

Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s personal crusade to extinguish indigenous rights and devastate indigenous territories just hit a wall. Two, actually. Both Brazil’s Supreme Court and Brazil’s top congressional leaders handed Bolsonaro setbacks over his executive decision to move control of protecting indigenous lands to the agriculture ministry, which is controlled by members of the agribusiness lobby known for its opposition to indigenous land rights.

SANTIAGO: With songs like “We’ll Beat the State,” Chilean rappers Wechekeche Ni Trawun are on a mission to support the Mapuche indigenous people’s fight for justice and land rights.

Before the Spanish arrived in 1541, the Mapuche – or “people of the earth” in the Mapudungun language – controlled a territory that stretched 500km south of central Chile’s Biobio River.

Ecuador's Waorani indigenous tribe won their first victory Friday against big oil companies in a ruling that blocks the companies' entry onto ancestral Amazonian lands for oil exploration activities.

After two weeks of deliberations, a criminal court in Puyo, central Ecuador, accepted a Waorani bid for court protection in Pastaza province to stop an oil bidding process after the government moved to open up around 180,000 hectares for exploration.

Escalation of violence against indigenous groups in Brazil pushes growing number of native women to lead the movement.

Sao Paulo, Brazil - Celia Xakriaba was 13 years old when she joined the fight for indigenous rights. Her indigenous Xakriaba community is one of the few who survived the advancement of colonisers and missionaries in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais during the 18th century.

Systematic racism and the failure of governments to recognize and respect land rights are at the root of violence leading to the murder of Indigenous peoples around the world, said Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on Tuesday. 

Waorani people accuse Ecuador of violating their rights and putting their territory up for international oil auction.

Puyo, Ecuador - More than 200 indigenous Waorani people and their supporters marched to the court in the Amazon city of Puyo on Thursday to begin their high-stakes hearing against the Ecuadorian government.

Despite a legal ruling and international attention, Kenya's Ogiek people have continued to face evictions, underlining the inherent difficulties in implementing judgments

The continued dominance of colonial-imposed laws over pre-existing customary legal systems, has been the bane of land rights disputes involving indigenous peoples across the globe for many years.

Post-colonial states have been unable to address such issues since formal law has continued to prevail over ancient customary systems even post-independence.

When countries revise their land and forest tenure laws, whereby rights are granted to people who depend on forests for their livelihoods, one goal is to reduce disputes over land and resources.

Despite this, conflicts persist, and sometimes new ones arise: why?

In a multi-country study, researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) sought to find the answer. In it they compared the views of officials responsible for implementing reforms in Peru, Indonesia, Uganda and Nepal, as well as the opinions of those in communities affected.

LA PAZ, Apr 2 2019 (IPS) - The ancient Qhara Qhara nation began a battle against the State of Bolivia in defence of its rich ancestral lands, in an open challenge to a government that came to power in 2006 on a platform founded on respect for the values and rights of indigenous peoples.

Men and women from the Qhara Qhara indigenous people marched nearly 700 km over the space of 41 days, between the official capital, Sucre, and La Paz, the country’s political hub, to protest that the fragmentation of their ancestral lands threatens their culture.