By Brian McDermott

By Dr. S. Neyooxet Greymorning         

James Anaya, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, dedicated his official visit to Peru this December to learning about the situation of the country’s Indigenous Peoples, especially with respect to the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent regarding development projects and the effects of extractive industries on Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact. He met with government officials, Indigenous leaders, and corporate representatives in Lima, as well as in diverse towns and villages affected by resource extraction.

Thanks to your commitment, thousands of letters were sent to Federal Review Panel and Canadian government officials during the Panel Review of the proposed New Prosperity Mine at Fish Lake. 

By Forest Peoples Programme

The Kenyan government has sent police troops to Embobut forest area (in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Western Kenya) to forcefully evict thousands of the indigenous inhabitants of the Sengwer and Cherangany communities from their ancestral forestlands. The eviction is expected to commence as early as tomorrow.

The Court of First Instance Limbe has fined the New York based palm oil company US$4.5 Million after a lawsuit filed by former executive Blessed Okoye for his wrongful termination.

Cultural Survival’s Community Radio Program team is days away from the final event of our project aimed at improving participation and integration of Indigenous youth from Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador through community radio. With the generous support of our donors and FLACSO Costa Rica, FLACSO El Salvador, PNUD, Unión Europea, and PAIRCA II, we participated in and coordinated two successful events in the past five months and are excited to close our project with what we are hoping to be our most fruitful event yet.

By the Phnom Penn Post

The extent of the devastation of Cambodia’s forests was brought into sharp relief as 2013 drew to a close, with a series of detailed maps and satellite data released by NGOs showing the drastic depletion of the Kingdom’s woodland ecosystems.

Images released by Open Development Cambodia (ODC) earlier this month showed that the ratio of forest cover has fallen from about 72 percent in 1973 to only 46 per cent this year.

By Phoebe Farris

Tonto Canto Pocahontas. Tem Rose Publications. www.temrose.com 2013

Alexei Auld, an alum of Sundance’s Native Writing Workshop, read excerpts of his new novel, Tonto Canto Pocahontas, in November at Fondo del Sol Museum in Washington, DC. Surrounded by paintings and sculptures created by Indigenous artists, Alexei Auld held the multiethnic, multicultural audience spellbound with his humorous reading and insightful responses during the Q&A.

A Message from our Executive Director from Cultural Survival on Vimeo.

Peter Bol is a 22 year-old community radio volunteer from the Toledo District of Belize. He has been volunteering with the community radio Ak’Kutan Radio for just 4 months now, after meeting another community radio volunteer at a workshop on Mopan Mayan hieroglyphs in August of this year. He was interested in volunteering with the radio due to his awareness of the marginalization experienced by Indigenous communities of the Toledo District. According to Peter, “There have been a lot of barriers between the Mayan culture and the rest of the country, such as language and illiteracy.

December 13, 2013 marks ten years since the brutal massacre on 424 Indigenous Anuak in Gambella, Ethiopia by Ethiopian national forces and armed militia. The Anuak people have long been persecuted in Southern Ethiopia, and recently have been forcibly evicted from their homelands to make way for translational agriculture companies.