In a groundbreaking decision, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled last week that community consultations against mining projects should be considered as binding legal decisions. The government is now obligated to respect the results of consultas populares or community referendums regarding mining projects.
Press release by Greenpeace Africa and Oakland Institute:
Greenpeace Africa and the Oakland Institute are alarmed by the decision of the Cameroonian government to award US agribusiness company Herakles Farms a three-year provisional land lease to develop a palm oil plantation in the South West region of the country. The move disproves Herakles Farms’ claim that it had all the necessary permits from the start, and confirms that the company has in fact been operating illegally for more than three years.
Sixty five years ago, on December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declaring that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Yet, Indigenous Peoples worldwide still struggle to protect their basic rights and suffer gross human rights abuses.
Protests were held outside the Annual General Meeting of British mining company GCM Resources on December 4th over the company’s Phulbari coal mine in Bangladesh. The protests were held by UK solidarity groups the London Mining Network, Phulbari Solidarity Group, and the UK Committee to Protect Oil-Gas and Mineral Resources in Bangladesh.
Cultural Survival's Community Radio Project team is in the final planning phases of what will be our one of our largest community radio events to date. This upcoming Tuesday, November 26, in Santiago Atitlán, Sololá, Guatemala, we are holding a 3-day conference for Indigenous youth from Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, in coordination with three other Indigenous rights organizations, ADECCAP, Tumul K'in Centre of Learning/ Ak'Kutan Radio and Africa 70.
On October 31, 2013, Canada’s Federal Environmental Review Panel submitted an extensive report with their major findings regarding Taseko’s plan to mitigate adverse impacts of the “New Prosperity” gold-copper mine, a project proposed on the lands of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation. Weeks earlier, the Panel heard considerable testimony from members of the Tsilhqot’in community. The Panel was required to review information presented by Indigenous groups in British Columbia.
This week, a member of our Cultural Survival Community Radio Program team attended the Second Conference on the Process of Central American Integration for Marginalized and Excluded Social Groups, in Sonsonate, El Salvador.
On November 7, the Tsilhqot’in community members appeared in Canada’s Supreme Court to assert their title to traditional lands. This comes more than 20 years after a lawsuit was filed against the government of British Columbia over commercial logging on land the Tsilhqot’in claim as traditionally theirs.
Indigenous women demand that the States recognize the authority and competency of their communities in the management of their lands, territories, and resources.
They pledge to be part of the solution to the food crisis that will consequently result in climate change.
Unanimously, the Indigenous women of the world declared that if States did not restore the control that the women had over their land, territories, and resources, it would not only put the communities’ lives in danger, but all of humanity as well.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
