Re: David Stannard, author of American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, up to one hundred million #AboriginalPeople lived in the #WesternHemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. Indigenous peoples #coexisted in relative harmony with nature, supported by #diversity of native plants & animals.
In the wake of the plastics treaty talks in Ottawa, a new report highlights the severe impacts of plastics and petrochemicals on Arctic Indigenous communities.
Indigenous delegates were left with bittersweet feelings that negotiations did not lead to commitments to cut plastic production, while oil companies and producing countries say more recycling is the answer.
In an interview with Mongabay, Brasílio Priprá, one of the pioneers of the Free Land Camp, the largest event of the Brazilian Indigenous movement, looks back on its 20 years of existence.
Priprá, who has been active in the Indigenous movement for 40 years, has seen few changes, but enough to keep fighting for his rights.
In 2020, over 40 Kichwa women began organizing themselves to defend their territory and expel mining from the Ecuadorian Amazon. This is how Yuturi Warmi, the first Indigenous guard led by women in the region, began.
María José Andrade Cerda, one of the leaders of Yuturi Warmi, explains that Indigenous women have an integral vision for territorial defense.
In the last few years it is likely that PepsiCo has been using in its production palm oil from deforested land claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in eastern Peru, a new investigation has found.
'Confronted by the climate crisis and disruptions to global supply chains, people around the world have been searching for more sustainable and localized sources of food, driving a resurgence of Indigenous food practices. In few other places has the revival been as dramatic as in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the northwestern coast of Borneo..."
#PaperGenocide means that a people can be made to disappear on paper. The 1787 census in #PuertoRico lists 2,300 pure Indians in the population, but on the next census, in 1802, not a single Indian is listed. (The photography project here reimagines that census data.) Once something is put down on paper there is almost nothing you can do to change it.
Opinion: Why the birthplace of the Western #Apache religion shouldn’t be destroyed by a #CopperMine
by Luke Goodrich
February 6, 2024·
"A federal court is poised to decide whether a #NativeAmerican#sacred site will be destroyed by a massive #copper#mine. Mining proponents claim that destroying the #SacredSite is necessary for the development of #GreenEnergy. That claim is both factually wrong and morally repugnant. And recent polling shows that the vast majority of Americans agree with what the constitution requires: #Native sacred sites deserve the same protection as all other houses of worship.
"Since before European contact, #WesternApache and other Native tribes have lived and honored their #Creator at #OakFlat, or 'Chi’chil Bildagoteel.' The site is the birthplace of Western Apache religion and the site of ancient religious ceremonies that cannot take place anywhere else. Because of its religious and cultural significance, Oak Flat is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been protected from mining and other destructive practices for decades.
"That changed in 2014, when several members of Congress, supported by #corporate#mining#lobbyists, slipped an amendment into a must-pass defense bill authorizing the transfer of Oak Flat to a foreign-owned mining giant. That company, #ResolutionCopper, announced plans to obliterate the sacred ground by swallowing it in a mining crater nearly two miles wide and 1,100-feet deep, ending Apache religious practices forever. That was no surprise given the company’s sordid history dealing with #IndigenousPeoples. The majority owner of Resolution Copper is #RioTinto (the world’s second largest mining company), which sparked international outrage in 2020 when it destroyed a 46,000-year-old rock shelter with some of the most significant #Aboriginal artifacts in all of #Australia.
"The Apache and their allies, represented by my firm, the #BecketFundForReligiousLiberty, have been fighting in court to ensure that such an atrocity won’t repeat itself at Oak Flat. After initial court rulings against the Apache, a full panel of 11 judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reheard their appeal last spring. A decision on whether the government can execute the land transfer is expected any day.
"Resolution Copper and its backers want the public to believe that building the mine is essential for developing #renewable energy. Extracting the copper beneath Oak Flat, they say, will help to build batteries necessary for powering #ElectricVehicles and thus fight #ClimateChange. In other words, we have to destroy Oak Flat in order to save the planet.
"These claims, however, are false — and they are specifically designed to obscure the physical and cultural destruction the project would wreak on the land.
"The mine will destroy the #environment, not save it. It is undisputed that the mine will swallow the ecologically diverse landscape of Oak Flat in a massive crater, decimating the local #ecosystem. It will also leave behind approximately 1.37 billion tons of '#tailings,' or #MiningWaste, which, according to the government’s own environmental assessment, will pollute the #groundwater and scar the landscape permanently. And the mine will consume vast quantities of water at the time it is most needed by drought-stricken towns and #farmers.
"Supporters of the mine are also at odds with the majority of Americans. According to this year’s Religious Freedom Index, an annual survey conducted by Becket, 74% of Americans believe that Native sacred sites on federal land should be protected from mining projects, even when the projects are purportedly pro-jobs and pro-environment.
"That conclusion is both sensible and humane. America can transition to renewable energy without blasting the cradle of Western Apache religion into oblivion. And it should. For too long, our nation has made excuses for taking advantage of #IndigenousPeople and their land. Indeed, our nation drove the Western Apache off Oak Flat and surrounding lands in the 1800s precisely to make way for #MiningInterests. It shouldn’t repeat that #injustice again.
"It is past time to protect Indigenous sacred sites from further destruction. Basic fairness and our constitutional commitment to religious freedom require no less. And, happily, most Americans agree."
On Jan. 10, Peru’s Congress approved a new amendment to the country’s forest and wildlife law, which loosens restrictions on deforestation and may affect the rights of Indigenous peoples, experts warn.
According to opponents of this amendment, this change in legislation could pave the way for a large expansion of deforestation across Peru’s forests, with the Amazon at risk.
A new guidebook aims to assist tribal nations across the United States in adopting legal frameworks that recognize the rights of nature.
The growing rights-of-nature movement seeks to protect the environment by legally acknowledging its inherent right to exist and thrive independent of human use.
The Colombian government announced in December the creation of a new agrarian judiciary to resolve land conflicts in rural areas of the country, often between peasant farmers and large companies.
The first five agrarian courts will open in May in the cities of Cartagena, Quibdó, Popayán, Pasto and Tunja, with 65 more to come.
The Catimbau Valley, in the backlands of Pernambuco state, is one of the most biodiverse areas in the Caatinga dry forest and also an archaeological treasure, with the second-largest collection of rock inscriptions in Brazil.
It’s also the sacred and ancestral territory of the Kapinawá, a people who discovered their Indigenous identity in the mid-1970s amid a war against land-grabbers.
Forest communities in southwestern Ghana use 70 species of medicinal trees to treat up to 83 ailments, according to a recent study.
These plants contain high levels of bioactive compounds with pharmacological benefits, but many are also threatened by factors including overharvesting and agricultural expansion in the area that drives large-scale deforestation.
Research proposal written entirely in #Cree#language receives federal funding
A Faculty of #SocialWork research funding proposal written entirely in nêhiyawewin, the Cree language, has been approved for funding by the #SocialSciences and #Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to demonstrate their commitment to supporting #Indigenous languages in government-funded opportunities. This is the first proposal submitted exclusively in an Indigenous language to be funded by a federal funding agency. #science#Canada#IndigenousPeoples
A new fund, announced Oct. 30, plans to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous organizations in Bolivia’s Madidi Landscape. It has so far attracted $650,000 in initial support from the Bezos Earth Fund, and more funding from several other sources is now being explored.
The Māori people in New Zealand express solidarity with Palestinians through a ceremonial dance called the haka. Māori activists say their resistance movements from the 1970s onward have been inspired by Palestinians.
#Māori#Palestine#IndigenousPeoples
The Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Resighini Rancheria, and Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community designated the first ever Indigenous Marine Stewardship Area (IMSA) in the U.S. along the northern California coast.
The tribes plan to steward nearly 700 mi2 (1,800 km2) of their ancestral ocean and coastal territories from the California-Oregon border to Little River near the town of Trinidad, California.
Federal Regulations Prompt Closure of Native American Displays at American Museum of Natural History by Karen K. Ho #ARTNews
"The American Museum of Natural History recently announced it will close two major halls exhibiting Native American objects in response to new federal regulations regarding the display or research of cultural items.
“The halls we are closing are artifacts of an era when museums such as ours did not respect the values, perspectives and indeed shared humanity of Indigenous peoples,” museum president Sean Decatur wrote in a letter to the museum’s staff on the morning of January 26. “Actions that may feel sudden to some may seem long overdue to others.”"