Category: Land

The Massacre of the Amazon Yanomami by Land Invaders

June 19, 2023

The Yanomami child stares with blank eyes out of a body reduced to skin and bones by extreme hunger. The image of the Yanomami humanitarian crisis circled the globe early this year. On Jan. 21, the Health Ministry of the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared a medical emergency in Yanomami Indigenous territory deep in the Amazon rainforest  that for years has been invaded by illegal miners and loggers, and more recently, organized crime.

Maya Villagers Resist Mega Hog Farms in Yucatán

June 8, 2023

More than 220 mega hog farms operate in the Yucatan territory, wreaking havoc on water reserves, traditional agriculture, food sovereignty and territorial control by local communities. This industry relies on exports and bases its operation on the looting of natural resources, the subjugation of indigenous peoples, and a low-cost operation based on the creation of precarious employment. These accelerated and intense socio-environmental impacts have multiplied the resistance of local Mayan communities.

Canada, U.S., Mexico Lithium Contagion Calls for Urgent Care

April 25, 2023

Stating that “oil and lithium belong to the nation”, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a decree “to nationalize lithium so that it cannot be exploited by foreigners, neither by Russia, nor by China nor by the United States” Americas Program columnist Talli Nauman argues that betting on lithium ‘is a buy-in to a doomed U.S. climate policy of incentives for electric passenger vehicles that is a myopic approach to rescuing the planet and endangers Mexican environmental stability.’

A Mining Lawsuit in Guatemala Shows How Trade Courts Put Big Corporations First

December 13, 2022

Nevada-based mining firm is suing Guatemala for more than $400 million, the first suit of its kind for the impoverished Central American country. The company contends that the Guatemalan government didn’t do enough to protect its investments in the country. But that’s news to my community and others who faced violent police repression when we nonviolently demonstrated to keep these mining operations from poisoning our health and water.

Native leadership, key to open climate justice door

April 18, 2022

With the release in April of the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the time is ripe to celebrate a breakthrough by Indigenous Peoples in participation on the scientific advisory board that guides global warming policy for 195 U.N. countries. Opinion leaders should push the envelope for more of the same.

Celebrating Water Defenders

March 7, 2022

In Central America communities are being thrust into life and death struggles against powerful interests to ensure clean water and health for future generations.

Indigenous Peoples in Latin America, between States’ criminalization and the violence of armed groups

December 20, 2021

Indigenous Peoples in Latin America are facing a profoundly grave situation. They are on the losing end in the gap between the development of national and international normative standards for the protection of their rights and their lack of implementation on the ground. They not only face the State’s force, imposing “development” projects and dispossessing them from their lands; but also illegal armed groups that dispute their territories with deadly force.

Yaqui pipeline fighters need immediate relief

August 12, 2021

In the Indigenous Yaqui territory of the Mexican state of Sonora on the northern border, water defenders who oppose pipelines  have to choose between self-exile or the likely outcome of imprisonment, kidnapping, disappearance, and murder. The defenders have called for ‘cease-fire’ in the long-running water war.

Organizational Sign-on Statement on David Castillo trial for murder of Berta Cáceres

June 23, 2021

The March 2, 2016 murder of Honduran indigenous rights defender Berta Cáceres, Coordinator of the Lenca organization COPINH, provoked indignation in Honduras and around the world. Berta was murdered while supporting Indigenous Lenca communities in opposing the Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project that was being advanced through a public limited company created for the project, Desarrollos Enérgeticos S.A. (DESA).