fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

Two hundred and ninety one Papuan tribal people have died from cholera since April this year in West Papua, Indonesia, according to local church officials, sparking fears of a major epidemic.

In 1961, a global cholera pandemic began in Indonesia. It spread rapidly to other countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and finally, in 1991, to Latin America. There were nearly 400,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths from cholera in the Americas that year.

Indigenist Intelligence Review from Angry Indian.

IIR Editorial Policy:
"We called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information.... We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements but for our lives: this is a project of life, humanity -- humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information.."

A month-long blockade of logging roads by indigenous people in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia set to protest illegal logging on their communal lands is about to be broken up by police.

More than 100 indigenous Kenyah people gathered at the blockade site on the upper Moh River on the island of Borneo claim that the blockade is their only way of calling on representatives of the Samling Timber Company and government authorities to have a consultation and meet with them to listen to their problems and demands.

TOKYO -- Japan on Friday moved to recognize the Ainu as an indigenous people, pledging to support the traditionally nature-worshipping community that has endured centuries of discrimination

It is a landmark move for Japan, which has prided itself on being ethnically homogeneous but where the Ainu have sharply lower incomes and educational levels, according AFP.

The upper house of parliament voted 231-0 to adopt the resolution on the Ainu. The lower house was expected to follow suit with a unanimous vote later in the day, parliament officials and lawmakers said.

Report by the Environmental Investigation Agency & Telepak

Extract: Official complicity

For the full report, see:
http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports93-1. pdf

Companies involved in timber theft from Papua are aided every step of the way by officials from the military, police and forestry department, as long as the requisite bribe is paid.

Rome, Feb. 14, 2008 - This morning Indigenous Peoples’ representatives formally withdrew from meeting of the Working Group on Protected Areas of the International Convention on Biological Diversity to protest their suppression of their effective participation at the meeting, being held at FAO headquarters in the Italian capital.