The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations is accepting applications for financial assistance for any representatives of indigenous communities who wish to participate in the 2007 deliberations of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, or the Working Group on the Draft United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Applications must be submitted by October 1, and must be in English, French, or Spanish. The U.N.
Representatives of three Guatemala Radio Project partner organizations were in Washington, D.C. from March 7–11 as part of the Project’s effort to promote changes to Guatemala’s telecommunications law.
Navajo and Hopi families residing on Big Mountain and the surrounding area of the Black Mesa in northern Arizona may be forced to relocate as a new senate bill, S1003 "The Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act Amendments of 2005," goes before Congress.
Indigenous peoples concerned with bio-colonialism say they have ethical concerns about National Geographic's Genographic Project, which will study indigenous DNA to map human migratory history.
Launched in April and scheduled to span five years, the Genographic Project will be carried out by scholars in 10 regional centers around the world, lead by the National Geographic Society in partnership with IBM and the Waitt Family Foundation, which will provide technical and financial support.
On July 18, several leading civil society organizations along with the mayor of San Miguel Ixtahuacán unanimously decided to conduct direct consultations with community members regarding the impacts of the Marlin Project, an operation of Canadian company Glamis Gold, Ltd. in the department of San Marcos. The Guatemalan government awarded Glamis a license to practice open-pit mining for gold and silver and to use up to 250 liters of water per hour from the local aquifer according to the organization, Instancia Maya MAM AJPOP.