indigenous land rights

BRAZIL: Indigenous Groups Defend Constitutional Right to Land

Submitted by FdN on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 21:49
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MIRANDA and ANTONIO JOAO, Brazil, Feb 29 (IPS) - Thousands of indigenous people in the west-central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul are living in precarious camps or small overcrowded reservations, lacking the land they need to grow the food needed to overcome high levels of malnutrition.

But despite government recognition of their ancestral land, their claims are tied up in court. Meanwhile, their community leaders face the threat of being killed for attempting to secure respect for indigenous people’s constitutional right to their traditional lands.

Conservation refugees - When protecting nature means kicking people out.

Submitted by rains on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 21:36
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Mon, 11/19/2007: A LOW FOG ENVELOPES the steep and remote valleys of southwestern Uganda most mornings, as birds found only in this small corner of the continent rise in chorus and the great apes drink from clear streams. Days in the dense montane forest are quiet and steamy. Nights are an exaltation of insects and primate howling. For thousands of years the Batwa people thrived in this soundscape, in such close harmony with the forest that early-twentieth-century wildlife biologists who studied the flora and fauna of the region barely noticed their existence.

They Just Rotted Inside and Died: A Hadzabe Update

Submitted by FdN on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 21:03
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Mon, 07/23/2007 - 07:28 — An alert reader left a link to this article in the Daily Mail. By turns stereotypical and sensitive, the article reveals a few more details about the UAE trying to by Hadzabe land and the plight they are facing:

To the dismay of anthropologists and champions of the Earth's remaining tribal people, two wealthy Arab princes, who have made billions from oil and gas in the United Arab Emirates, are negotiating with the Tanzanian government to buy the Hadzabe's ancient lands to use as their own private hunting grounds.

The tears from my heart!? for the Hadzabe

Submitted by FdN on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:54
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Fri, 06/29/2007 - How come then, the living home land area for Innocent Hadzabe people being leased to United Arab Emirates royal family for the sake of establishing “personal safari play ground”! Calling them “backwards” now leasing their land! This is totally unfair and it violates human rights!

Where is democracy? Is it not for real that our Tanzanian Government a democratic government?! If the answer is yes, does it not follow and obey the definition postulated by Sir Abraham Lencollin; government for the people by the people!

Batwa demand land and aid from the Ugandan government

Submitted by FdN on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:09
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Sat, 05/12/2007 - 14:35 Forced out of their ancestral homes in the early 1990s, the Batwa now demand land and aid to the Ugandan government.

Below is an article published by All Africa.com:

The Batwa have appealed to the Government to resettle them after they were evicted from their ancestral homes in the forests, writes Darious Magara.

The Government forced the Batwa out of the forests in the early 1990s to gazette them as national parks for conservation. (fPcN's added comment: with the help of WWF)

Peru's rainforest: oil and gas run through it

Submitted by rains on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:05
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Indigenous groups are threatened as Peru gears up for an energy boom.

POROTOBANGO, PERU

Raised in palm huts deep in the Peruvian Amazon, Gregorio Torres never imagined that below his home was something called natural gas.

Now his Machiguengua Indian settlement in this rain-forest river clearing has solar-powered radio gifted by an international oil company, corrugated tin roofs, T-shirts with company logos, and a shelf of Western medicine.

But this incipient natural-gas boom is bringing new worries, too.

Once again, white Australia is reminded of life behind its picture postcard

Submitted by FdN on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 19:43
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Epidemics of disease ravage Aboriginal communities in Australia as they did the slums of 19th-century England. No wonder there are riots in Sydney.

WGIP 2006 - Benny Wenda on Utilization of indigenous peoples’ lands by non-indigenous for military purposes

Submitted by rains on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 19:24
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United Nations - Economic and Social Council

Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Twenty-fourth session
Geneva, 31st July - 4 th August 2006
Item (b) of the Agenda: Principal theme: “Utilization of indigenous peoples’ lands by non-indigenous authorities, groups or individuals for military purposes”
Dear Chairperson, Tribal & Indigenous Peoples, Secretariat, Government representatives, ladies & Gentleman,

Protect Akha Human Rights - Akha voices

Submitted by Akha on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 19:16
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My name is Michu Wurh Zurh. I am an Akha woman and I live in northern Thailand.

My husband helped the Akha people, that is all he did and the Thai government kicked him out of Thailand in April of 2004. They did not like that he helped my people. We are 70,000 in Thailand. He gave the Akha free medicine, milk for mother’s, vitamins, took people to the hospital. He did it all for free. He did not kill anyone, he did not sell drugs, so why has the Thai government kicked him out of Thailand?

Conservation Refugees

Submitted by rains on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 18:59
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A LOW FOG ENVELOPES the steep and remote valleys of southwestern Uganda most mornings, as birds found only in this small corner of the continent rise in chorus and the great apes drink from clear streams. Days in the dense montane forest are quiet and steamy. Nights are an exaltation of insects and primate howling. For thousands of years the Batwa people thrived in this soundscape, in such close harmony with the forest that early-twentieth-century wildlife biologists who studied the flora and fauna of the region barely noticed their existence.