On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Galina Angarova, executive director of Cultural Survival, an NGO based in the United States that fights for the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world.

Galina Angarova knows about the issues facing indigenous peoples around the world firsthand. She’s a member of the Buryat people, the largest indigenous group in Siberia. Her past work as an indigenous rights advocate and foundation program manager led her to recently being named the new executive director of Cultural Survival, an NGO based in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US that partners with indigenous communities around the world and helps them protect their rights to self-determination and their rights to their lands and cultures.

Indigenous peoples are widely regarded as superior stewards of the environment, and research has continually borne this assertion out. In just the past couple years, studies have shown that Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes, that Indigenous and protected lands in the Amazon emit far less carbon than other areas, and that Indigenous-managed lands harbor more biodiversity than even protected areas. Indigenous peoples control one-quarter of the world’s land surface, and two-thirds of that land is “essentially natural.”

Angarova appears on today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast to discuss her goals for Cultural Survival, how those goals relate to environmental conservation, the biggest challenges facing indigenous peoples today, and the solutions to those challenges.

Here’s this episode’s top news:

• Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
• Dam that threatens orangutan habitat is ‘wholly unnecessary’: Report
• Indigenous, protected lands in Amazon emit far less carbon than areas outside
• Belize officially declares wildlife corridor in key protected area complex

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Follow Mike Gaworecki on Twitter: @mikeg2001

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