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  • Documento del MINEM no considera pueblos afectados por la minería

    Peru Gives Continuity to Mining Policies without Guarantees to Human Rights

    FROM THE EDITORS: From Peru, Red Muqui shares an analysis of the Ministry of Energy’s new mining program under Pedro Castillo’s government, which essentially gives continuity to past mining policies. There is great concern about an obvious omission in recent documents of the human and social rights of indigenous and campesino communities, when Castillo had…

  • Mujeres celebran la despenalización del aborto

    Ecuador: Indigenous Women Speak Out on Abortion Rights

    FROM THE EDITORS: Patricia Yallico from ACAPANA hosts the show “Insurrectas,” a show posted regularly on their social media. We are featuring this conversation below with Paolina Vercoutere of the Otavalo people and Ana Cristina Vera of Surkuna, an organization that fights for women’s reproductive and access to abortion rights. In April of 2021, Ecuador’s…

  • Study Visibilizes Indigenous Languages in Los Angeles

    In the United States, those who emigrate from the south of the border are all labeled as Latinos, coming from a “Latin” culture for speaking the Spanish colonial language. But in Abya Yala, our origin is richly diverse, particularly when it comes to language. Thus, Indigenous Communities in Leadership (CIELO) has achieved a crucial step…

  • Amazon’s Ancestral Medicine Against COVID-19

    In Ecuador, like many Latin American countries, due to the global inequity of access to vaccines against COVID-19, only 10% of the population has so far received both doses of the vaccine. Indigenous peoples, with minimal access to clinical care, are particularly vulnerable populations that know very well they cannot lower their guard to the…

  • Brazil: “If we don’t die from the virus, Bolsonaro’s anti-indigenous policies will kill us”

    FROM THE EDITORS: The Bolsonaro government has shown an open violation of indigenous peoples’ rights either by omission or by undermining laws and institutions set to promote these rights. After all, Bolsonaro reached the presidency with ample support from agroindustry, and his anti-indigenous speeches were already apparent during his campaign. On June 22 and 23,…

  • Brazilian Court Calls for $1 Million Daily Fine to End Illegal Mining in Indigenous Lands

    A federal court in Brazil has ruled that unless illegal miners or garimpeiros are removed from Yanomami lands in the next 10 days, government institutions in Brazil will be fined $1 million reais (close to $182K in US dollars) until they comply with this order. This story has significant consequences on how Amazon forests are…

  • Apache Tribe’s Innovative Approach Lowers COVID-19 Deaths

    When the Indian Health Service medical team arrived in Whiteriver, Arizona, the population of the White Mountain Apache Tribe was facing a level of contagion ten times higher than the state’s average. The long distances between homes in this isolated territory was becoming a challenge to be able to control the pandemic effectively. The medical…

  • Peruvian Rainforest Is the Wampís Natural Hospital

    FROM THE EDITORS: At the beginning of the pandemic, several states opted to declare a state of emergency as a precautionary measure aimed at addressing the emergency. The indigenous organizations of the Wampís Nation in the Peruvian Amazon document that the measures in that country have not only been ineffective but have also generated a…