MANILA — In the Philippines, the fishing industry has long been considered male territory, with fathers, sons and brothers taking their boats out to sea each day in hopes of…
At just 25 years old, Camila Chindoy is seen by many in her community as a possible future governor of the Inga Indigenous reserve of Yunguillo in the Colombian Amazon.…
QUITO, Ecuador — Katy Mochoa marched down the streets of Quito on Oct. 12, holding in one hand the corner of a large Wiphala flag — the rainbow-hued banner of…
MINDANAO, Philippines — In his 52 years, Vicente Bandojo says, he has never been admitted to a hospital or consulted a medical doctor for any ailment that afflicted him. Bandojo…
QUITO, Ecuador — It was a historic moment in April of 2019. Dozens of Indigenous Waorani plaintiffs filled a small courtroom in Ecuador’s Amazon city of Puyo, many of them…
674 major Amazon fires were detected between May 28 and September 2, with the Brazilian government failing to control most blazes. Remote Indigenous communities are especially threatened.
While COVID-19 caught most of the world off guard, Indigenous environmental leader Levi Sucre Romero says he foresaw the potential for a pandemic all along. “There is an understanding with…
"This pandemic is taking away our wise men," Zebelio Kayap, the Indigenous leader of the Organization of Border Communities of Cenepa (ODEFROC), says in a broken voice. Kayap speaks with…
A group of more than 100 Peruvian and international non-profit organizations has written a letter to Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra, asking him to deliver emergency support to the Indigenous communities…
A new indigenous geo-storytelling platform, Tribal Stories, launched on Aug. 9, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. The new platform, by Netherlands-based nonprofit People’s Planet Project (PPP), features…
MINDORO, Philippines — On May 12, the Philippine island of Mindoro reported its first confirmed case of a tribal resident being infected with COVID-19. The patient, a 4-year-old Indigenous Mangyan…
A gunshot ended the life of Indigenous leader Arbildo Meléndez Grandes in Peru. On a Sunday in early April this year, he went hunting and fishing for his family and…
In early July, the Ashaninka indigenous people from Brazil launched a fundraising campaign to encourage food production in communities living near their territory. The “Ashaninka for the Peoples of the Forest” campaign plans to raise $200,000 to distribute food, farming tools and fishing gear to 1,800 local families, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
Juma Xipaya, a young indigenous woman, medical student and fierce activist, fought the Belo Monte dam and exposed corruption; now she lives in daily terror of two thugs in a white pickup.
QUITO — As COVID-19 sweeps across communities in the Amazon rainforest, the Indigenous Waorani in Ecuador are celebrating a bittersweet victory after a provincial court ruled in their favor in…
Scientists have discovered a new insect-eating pitcher plant, Nepenthes cabanae, in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region. Thriving in a small area within a known conflict zone, the pitcher plant has…
Forest peoples in the Brazilian Amazon rely on their elders as key decision makers and culture keepers; COVID-19 is already killing indigenous elders at a high rate. All fear worse lies ahead.
Hawaiian myth says that ‘ōhi‘a lehua trees were created by Pele, the goddess of fire and creator of the Hawaiian islands. Spurned by a handsome young warrior, ʻŌhiʻa, she turned…
JAKARTA — Activists have condemned the conviction and jailing of an indigenous farmer in Sumatra whose community is embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with paper giant Asia Pulp &…
Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
Ricardo Lopes Dias, an anthropologist and Christian Evangelical pastor, appointed to head Brazil’s isolated indigenous tribes department, has been removed due to a “conflict of interest”
Some 600 indigenous people have seen their crops die due to the expansion of agribusiness in the state of Pará, Brazil. The streams used by the Munduruku have also been damaged, if not dried up.
In Brazil, indigenous lands make up 13.5% of the national territory and are home to half a million indigenous peoples speaking 280 distinct languages. New research, published in the journal…
On any given morning, women from Brazil’s Moygu and Arayó villages can be found gathering baskets, bags and machetes. They pack water and beiju, a bread made from manioc flour,…
PUCARÁ ALTO, Ecuador — Bellowing winds thrashed the farmers’ corn stocks and the wild patches of eucalyptus cropping up the largest hill in Pucará Alto. Then there was a crack,…
In the rural Indonesian village of Hongoi*, indigenous Dayak Modang women like Lina* have had to come up with creative ways to continue their long-held tradition of weaving. Some Dayak…
For the first time last August, indigenous groups felt the global community was taking seriously their potential contributions to climate crisis policy. Indigenous peoples have long been labeled among the…
Some 400 indigenous people displaced from an informal settlement in Manaus have struggled to make a living amid scarce jobs and limited income sources during the COVID-19 crisis. The capital of Amazonas state, Manaus accounts for Brazil’s fourth-highest number of deaths due to COVID-19; authorities warn that the state’s health system is close to its limit.
BONTOC, Philippines — Each weekend since March, no one has crossed the boundary into the town of Bauko, in the northern Philippine region of Cordillera. The prohibition, a municipal advisory,…
Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA has stepped up efforts to fight environmental crimes during the COVID-19 crisis. But the fate of these operations is now uncertain, following the firing of IBAMA’s enforcement director.
