indigenous

Saturday, October 28, 2023, Mexico City. On the night of October 27, 2023; at approximately 11: 00 PM, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), together with the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), launched a communiqué titled "In support of our Original Brothers in Guerrero" through the Zapatista web portal in which they called on "men and women of good heart, the collectives of the National and International Sexta and the peoples of Mexico and the world" to be in solidarity with the situation that the Guerrero population is living through as a result of Hurricane Otis.

Hurricane Otis entered the coasts of Guerrero as a category 5 hurricane in the early morning of Wednesday, October 24. Its winds of 260 to 315 kilometers per hour devastated almost everything. The most affected area was Acapulco, where houses, hotels, businesses, schools and many other goods were destroyed by the aggressiveness of these winds, winds that the EZLN dismisses as atypical, since, in their opinion, "it is a direct product of the destruction caused by capitalism, by the ever-increasing damage that large companies and government policies cause to our Mother Earth".

One of the greatest concerns expressed in the communiqué is that, "In the face of these serious events in Guerrero, we observe how the government of the misnamed fourth transformation concentrates its support on the large hoteliers and merchants of the port of Acapulco, while forgetting the thousands of poor families, mainly peasants, who are being affected by Otis." Therefore, both the EZLN and the CNI urge everyone to join in the collection of supplies, which will be directed mostly to the native peoples of Guerrero who have suffered from the ravages of this natural disaster.

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The Penobscot Nation has plans to reclaim more than 30,000 acres of their homeland in Maine from a national nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL), according to a press release from the organization.

The transfer will put the acreage— taken from the Penobscot Nation in the nineteenth century in the Katahdin region of Maine— back into tribal stewardship, the nonprofit said. TPL purchased the land when it went up for sale in 2022.

“We are very excited to work with TPL towards this common goal of returning a portion of unceded lands back to the governance of the Penobscot Nation,” said Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis in a statement. “We are also ecstatic for the opportunity to explore and improve the aquatic and wildlife habitat within this parcel to conserve more land in the Katahdin region for our future generations.”

The 31,367 acres going back to the Nation sit within the Penobscot River watershed and include forests, recreational trails, wetlands, and more than 50 miles of streams.

The nonprofit and tribe will work together to: re-establish the Penobscot Nation as legal stewards of the land, create public access to the southern portion of the land, and boost local economies through the creation of public access, TPL said.

Trust for Public Land President and CEO Diane Regas said the land back announcement isn’t “just an isolated act, but a deep acknowledgment and reaffirmation of a timeless bond, a rich history, and a promising future.”

As we collaborate with the Penobscot Nation, the National Park Service, and local communities, we are driven by a shared vision: to honor and help restore the rich tapestry of Wabanaki connection to land and ensure that Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument can be accessed and enjoyed by all."

• Malaysian timber giant Samling has held logging concessions in the Bornean state of Sarawak since the 1970s, many of them overlapping with Indigenous customary lands.
• In a recently settled lawsuit, Samling described complaints against its operations in Sarawak as defamatory.
• Mongabay recently traveled to Sarawak to meet with Indigenous and local leaders, who said that while the company has recently made more efforts to meet with villages affected by logging, it’s not doing much to address their complaints and suggestions.

UPPER BARAM, Malaysia — When James Nyurang became headman of Tanjong Tepalit village in 2008, he learned from his predecessor — and father — of the terms set by timber giant Samling Group.

When the company began cutting trees and leveling roads in Tanjong Tepalit in the 1990s, the headman of this Kenyah Indigenous village along Sarawak’s Baram River signed a deal with Samling. They agreed that the company would pay a commission of 0.50 ringgit (10.5 U.S. cents) for every metric ton of timber extracted and transported out along the edges of newly built logging roads. Timber cleared from the wider areas that branched off these roads were excluded from the community’s compensation deal.

As Samling Group grew into an international timber conglomerate, Tanjong Tepalit modernized slowly alongside it, but Nyurang felt his community had been compelled into making that deal and should have received more for the dense forests and clean waters they lost three decades ago.

Nyurang says he was surprised to meet Samling again last year. Though he’s no longer a headman, he says the company sought him out to discuss complaints raised by residents of his and neighboring villages against one of the company’s concessions, the Gerenai Forest Management Unit, which abuts Nyurang’s village.

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• The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
• The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
• The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO. In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.

JAKARTA — An Indigenous community in Indonesian Borneo that has waged a decades-long legal battle against a palm oil giant has slammed a decision to absolve the company of allegations of land rights violations.

The Dayak Hibun community in Sanggau district, West Kalimantan province, had brought a complaint in 2012 to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) against PT Mitra Austral Sejahtera (MAS), at the time owned by Malaysian palm oil company Sime Darby Plantation Bhd.

The company had first arrived in the area in 1996, wielding a permit to the location, despite never having obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the community. A subsequent permit, known as an HGU and issued in 2000, granted it an 8,741-hectare (21,600-acre) concession, which includes 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of ancestral Dayak Hibun land.

The RSPO finally ruled on the complaint in August this year, dismissing it due to “insufficient evidence” that MAS had obtained its HGU permit irregularly.

“A Company that has obtained a certificate of HGU means that the company has fulfilled all its obligations to the State,” the RSPO wrote in its decision.

At a recent press conference in Jakarta responding to the decision, representatives for the Dayak Hibun slammed the RSPO for essentially ignoring the rights and pleas of the community.

“We are very disappointed and furious with the RSPO,” said Redatus Musa, a community member.

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Dolores Cacuango, also known as Mamá Doloreyuk, was a leader in the fight for indigenous rights in Ecuador born on this day in 1881. She was active in the Glorious May Revolution of 1944 and co-founded the Indigenous Federation of Ecuador (FEI).

Cacuango was born to enslaved people in San Pablourco who worked the Pesillo Hacienda near Cayambe without being paid. She had no access to education due to her lack of resources, and learned Spanish while working as a housemaid.

In 1930, Cacuango was among the leaders of the historic workers' strike at the Pesillo hacienda in Cayambe, which was a milestone for indigenous and peasant rights. During the Glorious May Revolution in Ecuador, Cacuango personally led an assault on a government military base.

The same year, with the help of Ecuador's Communist Party, Cacuango co-founded the Indigenous Federation of Ecuador (FEI), an early group in the fight for indigenous rights. She also helped establish some of the first bilingual indigenous schools.

Dolores Cacuango, la rebelde líder indígena ecuatoriana que luchó por la educación y la tierra

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• Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva partially blocked a controversial bill that dramatically violates Indigenous rights, a month after the Supreme Court ruled out its core article.
• While some Indigenous activists lament that the bill wasn’t fully rejected, many hail the partial veto as a win for human rights and the protection of the Constitution.
• The vetoed bill now returns to Congress, where Lula’s decision will be upheld or rejected; if rejected, the time frame bill will be enacted, in a major blow to Indigenous rights and environmental protection, experts say.
• The veto sparked outrage among Brazil’s powerful rural lobby, which vowed to reject Lula’s changes to the bill, although any decision made in Congress can be challenged in the Supreme Court.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva partially vetoed the controversial time frame bill in a move that quashed efforts in Congress to strip back Indigenous rights. It’s a temporary victory for activists, who now wait on tenterhooks as the president’s decision goes back to Congress for a new chapter, where some experts fear the vetoed points will be rejected and the bill will become ratified.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the time frame bill (PL 2903) on Sept. 27, defying the decision of the Supreme Court, which had, just a week earlier, decided that the time frame, thesis, known as marco temporal in Portuguese, was unconstitutional. One of the most contended points within the bill prevents Indigenous people from claiming territories that they were not physically occupying on Oct. 5, 1988, the date of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution — the same thesis nine justices from the Supreme Court ruled out in September, against only two votes. On Oct. 20, Lula vetoed this point in the bill along with several other clauses considered major setbacks to Indigenous rights.

In a statement made to the Federal Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, Lula declared the bill “contrary to the public interest and unconstitutional.”

The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, called the partial veto “a great victory” and an indication of the “coherence of the government with the Indigenous agenda.” Indigenous organizations along with the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples itself had previously called for a total veto, and some activists lament the president’s decision to not fully reject the bill.

“There is no way to celebrate President Lula’s ‘partial vetoes’ of this aberration that is PL 2903,” Beto Marubo, a member of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley, wrote on social media. “Brazil lives at the mercy of a few anachronistic agribusinesses that change the laws at their pleasure.”

A celebration of the partial veto fails to consider that although the bill was mostly blocked, Indigenous rights didn’t progress, Miguel Aparício, president of the Observatory of the Human Rights of Uncontacted and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples, told Mongabay. “It’s apparently a victory because the time frame was rejected, but that only puts us in the situation of the Constitution, which we were already in,” he said. “Conquest means achievement. There is no achievement. It’s staying as we were.”

Despite the dissatisfaction demonstrated by some organizations that defended a total rejection of the bill, the partial block is a triumph, said Kenzo Jucá, a socioenvironmental consultant who has worked with environmental legislation in the National Congress for more than 20 years.

“It was a victory for the legality and constitutionality of the legal regime protecting the territories traditionally occupied by the 266 Indigenous ethnicities of Brazil,” he told Mongabay. “Serious and flagrantly unconstitutional points were vetoed, [including] a thesis that would enable the annihilation of territories and Indigenous peoples in the country in a few years.”

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• The Indigenous Paiter Suruí people of Brazil have reclaimed the coffee farms established by invaders on their land, in the process opening up a new source of livelihood and strengthening community bonds.
• Through training and partnerships, this Indigenous community has learned how to process coffee beans to specialty standards, yielding a high-quality and highly valued product.
• Today, coffee production is a significant source of income for 132 families of various Indigenous ethnicities living in Rondônia state.
• Growing coffee has also become an opportunity for the Suruí to tell their own story, through ethnotourism and the training of Indigenous baristas like Celesty Suruí.
• Coffee was not a crop traditionally grown by the Paiter Suruí people, an Indigenous community in the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Territory, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. The Suruí’s first contact with the plant was in 1969, which was also their first contact with non-Indigenous people.

At the time, Brazil’s federal government was encouraging settlement in the country’s Amazonian region, with promises of land concessions and better living conditions. The region was soon occupied by loggers, miners and others taking advantage of the opportunity. Hundreds of Indigenous people died, mostly from introduced diseases like measles.

“The people who invaded the territory planted some coffee trees. But they weren’t good plants, they damaged our soil,” says environmental engineer and community leader Xener Paiter Suruí, son of Chief Almir Suruí, a well-known figure in the fight for sustainability.

Following many conflicts with the settlers who had exploited their land, and with the government, the Suruí eventually won official demarcation for their Indigenous territory in 1976; the land was permanently handed over to them, albeit partially, in 1983.

That was when the Suruí began to reforest the degraded areas and learned to cultivate coffee. The plantations inherited from the people who had colonized the territory gave the Suruí their first experience as merchants — they started by selling the beans, unprocessed, in neighboring cities.

Based on their knowledge of the forest’s dynamics, the Suruí understood that coffee needs shade. They began planting coffee alongside other crops such as cacao, Brazil nuts, bananas and cassava, all without the use of pesticides. The agroforestry areas contrast starkly with the deforested landscapes surrounding the territory.

“They don’t plant large areas, but rather small patches and always at the edge of the forest. That way, the coffee absorbs everything the forest can provide, including water,” says Indigenous technical consultant Thamyres Ribeiro, who works for the Kanindé Ethno-environmental Defense Association and who has also worked with the Paiter Suruí for about 25 years. “The dynamic of this forest is nothing more than the much-studied agroforestry system, of which the Suruí possess authentic, ancestral understanding.”

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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: Let's talk and keep working so that we continue to have, as we do today, legal security and also respect for the rights of the original people

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday vetoed the core aspects of a bill passed by Congress that threatened to undo protections of Indigenous peoples' land rights.

The bill proposed to enshrine a legal theory that argues the date Brazil's Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — should be the deadline for when Indigenous peoples already had to be physically occupying land or be legally fighting to reoccupy territory.

That legal theory was rejected by Brazil's Supreme Court in September. A week later, the Senate — dominated by conservative lawmakers backed by Brazil's powerful agribusiness — approved the bill on a vote of 43 in favor and 21 against.

Friday was the deadline for Lula to act if he wanted to block all or parts of the legislation.

"Today I vetoed several articles (of the legislation) … in accordance with the Supreme Court's decision on the subject. Let's talk and keep working so that we continue to have, as we do today, legal security and also respect for the rights of the original people," Lula said on social media.

Backers of the legislation said it was needed to provide legal security to landowners, saying there is discomfort in rural areas due to a perceived lack of limits to the expansion of Indigenous territories.

Indigenous rights groups argue the concept of the deadline is unfair because it does not account for expulsions and forced displacements of Indigenous populations, particularly during Brazil's two-decade military dictatorship.

Lula vetoed all references to the deadline theory and other provisions deemed harmful to Indigenous rights, such as allowing mining and the cultivation of genetically modified organisms.

read more: https://ictnews.org/news/brazil-vetoes-core-part-of-legislation-threatening-indigenous-rights

The unique wildlife of Haida Gwaii’s 150 islands is under attack by invasive crabs, rats and deer – echoing how local people also became vulnerable to outside forces

It was Matt Peck’s first season of field work in the archipelago of Haida Gwaii when he found himself on a rocky island overflowing with oystercatchers, thousands of the orange-billed seabirds trilling and squawking in a riot of life.

As the researchers counted eggs on the islet off Canada’s west coast, they discovered an odd nest of twigs and grass nestled in the rocks. The team launched into a debate over which species of bird it could have housed.

“You get so excited about what it could be. But after a couple minutes, we realised what the nest was,” said Peck, a researcher with the Laskeek Bay Conservation Society. “It just hit so hard and my heart dropped.”

The nest belonged to a rat, signalling the arrival of a species that has overrun nearby islands in recent decades and killed millions of birds. For a moment, the researchers considered hurling the nest into the ocean below.

“These islands are such a beautiful, inspiring place. And some of them were so special because they’re supposed to the last places in Haida Gwaii free of invasive species. You just felt for all these birds because you knew what was coming – and it was devastating.”

The 150 islands of Haida Gwaii (“Islands of the People” in the Haida language) are under relentless attack by waves of invasive species, which threaten to upend a delicate ecosystem and erode the rich wildlife of the region.

The scourge of invasives is a global problem costing $423bn (£350bn) a year, but as local people work to fend off the intruders, the debate over their eradication raises larger questions about how ecosystems adapt over generations.

The archipelago, which the Indigenous Haida people say resembles a bear’s canine, was formed by successive volcanic upheavals. Geologists believe some of it was spared the most recent ice age, preserving several species that now exist only here: the largest black bears on the planet, and diverse subspecies of bats, ermine and otters.

But the rich genetic diversity is also increasingly being exposed to new predators, against which its millions of endemic birds, eelgrasses, berries and trees have no defence.

On nearby Lyell Island, also known as Athlii Gwaii, 30,000 pairs of ancient murrelets, a species of auk, once nested on a single rocky outcrop.

But rats got to the population, devouring eggs and chicks. Now, only a handful remain – an “unfathomable” decrease, says Peck.

“People used to talk about how the sky would turn black when millions of ancient murrelets returned to their nesting grounds,” he says. “That experience is gone.”

With the threat of rain hanging overhead, Bobby Parnell eases a skiff ashore outside the town of Daajing Giids.

Their haul is pulsating inside two plastic bins: more than 1,000 European green crabs, also known as shore crabs, drawn from a single bay.

Introduced to California more than three decades ago, the invasive and ruthless crustacean has been moving northward in recent years, devastating beds of clams and eelgrass ecosystems – a key source of shelter for young fish.

In 2020, the crabs were spotted in Haida Gwaii. Each year, the haul from locals exposes the tremendous speed of their takeover. Last year, about 30,000 were pulled from the ocean. This year, with the season not yet wrapped, more than 200,000 have been trapped. “It’s devastating,” Parnell says.

The crabs have also been spotted more than a mile up the Tlell River, an important salmon spawning ground, where the crustacea could put a vital food source – and keystone species – at risk. The Council of the Haida Nation, which governs the region, has issued hundreds of contracts to cull crabs, which are then frozen and crushed into fertiliser.

“The reality is, we’re three years into the crabs being here and we haven’t yet figured it out,” says Niisii Guujaaw, a marine-management planner with the Haida Nation.

Despite the urgent, war-like mobilisation, local people worry the battle is underfunded and too late. “It feels hopeless. Sometimes when I’m out trapping crab, I look around the bay and see how large it is – and I know those crabs are everywhere,” says Tyler Bellis, a forester and former Haida Nation council member.

For many Haida, the way invasive species destroy ecosystems echoes other ways in which their lands have been made deeply vulnerable to outside forces. Smallpox outbreaks at the end of the 18th century took the population from about 30,000 to fewer than 600. And over generations, the land and waterways have been ravaged by the mechanisms of colonisation – through logging, mining, fishing and whaling.

No animal captures the devastation – and complexities – of invasive species like the blacktail deer. Introduced to Haida Gwaii as a food source by Europeans from 1878, there are now nearly 200,000 roaming the islands.

They have no true predators – the bears are largely uninterested in them, having adapted to a marine diet – and so the deer overgraze the land with little resistance. Many prized medicinal plants that grow in the understory have disappeared.

The deer have a particular appetite for western red cedar saplings, known as the “tree of life” in Haida culture. As a result, on many islands, no new cedars have grown in the wild for generations.

Over recent decades, tourists have been drawn in by the forests upholstered in thick green mosses that give the illusion of rich biodiversity. But experts say these forests are in fact barren wastelands. The understory – once so thick it was difficult to traverse – has disappeared.

In 2018, Parks Canada, the government agency managing conservation areas, and the Haida community embarked on Llgaay gwii sdiihlda (“restoring balance”), using sharpshooters and culls to eradicate deer on islands in the Gwaii Haanas nature reserve.

Efforts to eradicate the deer, however, have brought mixed emotions from local people, underscoring how deer are now enmeshed within Haida Gwaii.

“When the Haida were down to only 600 people, when they were on the verge of going extinct, having a good food was invaluable,” said Bellis. “For a people that historically harvested primarily from the sea, deer have been a huge food source for the Haida, to the point that they’ve grown into a part of our culture.”

Bellis sees families bringing their children on to the land, learning to hunt for the first time. But he has also seen first-hand the destruction wrought by deer.

“And I get that not every invasive species is intentionally put here. But as Haida, who have already seen so much loss, it really stings,” he says.

“The islands are unique, and what animals got here – or have stayed here – are just so special. And so it’s really heartbreaking to see these outside invasive forces come in and destroy so much of that.”

• Nearly 150 Indigenous seed collectors from the Amazonian Bioeconomic Seed Network, the first of its kind in the state of Rondônia, traveled to neighboring Mato Grosso state to meet with Brazil’s oldest network of seed collectors, the Xingu Seed Network.
• In the absence of a government-led program, exchanges like these between existing grassroots groups have been the best way to help newer networks gain expertise and consolidate themselves as organizations, with technical training and management strategies.
• The seed collector networks are the base of the ecological restoration chain and will play an essential role in enabling Brazil to reach its goal of restoring 12.5 million hectares (30.9 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030 — vital in the fight to avoid climate breakdown.
• Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change says it hopes to implement a national plan of action this year aimed at filling the gaps in the restoration chain, by expanding forest cover, incentivizing certain sectors of the economy, and developing financial mechanisms.

NOVA XAVANTINA, Brazil — This past July, 15 Indigenous women made the thousand-mile journey from their home of Rolim de Moura, in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Rondônia, east to Nova Xavantina, in the state of Mato Grosso. They went as representatives of the 146 seed collectors from Reseba, the Amazonian Bioeconomic Seed Network, an organization founded in mid-2021 by members of the Aikanã, Gavião, Sabanê, Suruí, Tupari and Zoró Indigenous peoples. After a day on the road, they reached the region where the Amazon gives way to the Cerrado savanna, and met with Brazil’s oldest association of seed collectors, the Xingu Seed Network.

Such networks of seed collectors are a foundational part of the ecological restoration chain and will play an essential role in enabling Brazil to reach its goal of restoring 12.5 million hectares (30.9 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030, including 4.8 million hectares (11.9 million acres) in the Amazon and 2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) in the Cerrado. In the absence of a government-led program, exchanges between existing grassroots groups have been the best way to help newer networks gain expertise and consolidate themselves as organizations.

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• Global biodiversity hotspots, which cover only 2.4% of the Earth’s land, have witnessed more than 80% of armed conflicts between 1950 and 2000, some of which continue even today.
• Armed conflicts, driven by various factors, result in big losses for biodiversity and impact Indigenous ways of life.
• A new study finds four-fifths of these armed conflicts in biodiversity hotspots occur on Indigenous peoples’ lands — yet these areas remain in better shape ecologically than conflict-affected non-Indigenous lands.
• The study underlines the role Indigenous peoples play in environmental conservation, and highlights Indigenous self-determination as key to conservation and prevention of armed conflicts.
• For nearly 2,000 years, the Indigenous Karen people of southeast Myanmar have led a relatively tranquil life in the hilly forests that are part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot. But in the last seven decades, Karen civilians have found themselves entangled in the world’s longest armed conflict, between the Karen National Union and the Myanmar military regime—a battle over self-determination that’s been a part of the wider Myanmar civil war.

For them, the forests their ancestors once stewarded are also shelter to retreat to as they flee from the repeated deadly airstrikes by the military regime on their villages, schools and hospitals.

“It’s because they’ve been protecting the forest and maintaining biodiversity that they have these safe places to escape to whenever the Burmese army have come in the past,” says Casper Palmano, program adviser at the nonprofit Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), based in neighboring Thailand.

Armed conflicts in a biodiversity hotspot, like those faced by the Karen people, aren’t just a problem in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. Between 1950 and 2000, nine out of 10 major armed conflicts have occurred in countries with areas brimming with biodiversity. More than 80% of these conflicts in the hotspots have led to wide-scale biodiversity loss, deforestation and other environmental impacts.

And in the last 70 years, a disproportionately higher number of such armed conflicts, about four-fifths, have also occurred on Indigenous peoples’ lands inside a biodiversity hotspot, according to a recent study published in the journal Biological Conservation. Indigenous peoples face indiscriminate killings, forced displacement and cultural breakdown as their societies and economies irrevocably change.

Despite the conflicts, these lands faced less environmental damage and fewer human impacts than other lands subject to the same external pressures but not designated as Indigenous lands.

The study found that a quarter, 25%, of areas on conflict-affected Indigenous lands within biodiversity hotspots were “natural lands” — areas not modified by humans and likely to support biodiversity. In comparison, only 10% of other lands facing armed conflicts were “natural lands.”

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The Innu Nation says it has notified Premier Andrew Furey that all Innu leaders in Labrador have withdrawn from his Indigenous roundtable.

In a press release issued Friday afternoon, the Innu Nation expressed dissatisfaction with the way the provincial government is handling concerns over NunatuKavut and what it called "the conflict of interest and bias" of Indigenous Affairs Minister Lisa Dempster.

"This table is supposed to be a group comprised of provincial Indigenous leaders. NunatuKavut community council (NCC) is not a recognized Indigenous group," says a letter dated Oct. 18 and addressed to Furey.

"We take exception to the sustained effort by the province to include NCC in dialogue about Indigenous matters."

BY CHUCK HOSKIN JR

Four years ago, the Durbin Feeling Language Preservation Act launched Cherokee Nation on a historic journey to preserving and perpetuating the Cherokee language. Language has always been essential to our culture as Cherokee people, as it serves as the unbroken chain connecting us to our ancestors. We cannot afford to let that chain ever be severed.

Recently, we hosted a gathering of first-language and fluent Cherokee speakers, the first of what will be an annual event going forward. At this gathering, we announced a permanent renewal of the Durbin Feeling Act, which means secure funding of at least $18 million every year for language programs to grow and evolve.

To be sure, our journey to ensure the language continues to be used daily across Cherokee Nation transcends annual budgets and administrations. The Durbin Feeling Act emphasizes that saving our language and culture is a collective responsibility. From fluent speakers to new language learners, we all have an important role.

• Indigenous territories located in different Brazilian biomes — the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest — are hosting beekeeping projects aimed at both generating an income and restoring local ecosystems.
• The community projects show how these efforts, associated with agroecological food production, can improve quality of life, especially in the face of climate change impacts.
• The movement began four years ago with a crowdfunding campaign to establish beekeeping in the Amazon, and today includes 53 traditional communities involved in native beekeeping across the country.

Ana Rosa de Lima is a Brazilian materials engineer living in Germany. She had no idea that a 2019 crowdfunding campaign for a beekeeping project in the Indigenous Kayapó village of Mojkàràkô village, in the Brazilian Amazon, would inspire a community-based native beekeeping movement. Four years later, the project that began in Pará state has expanded to all biomes across the country, and is now a network of solutions designed and managed by communities themselves.

Today, the Meli Network Brazil brings together 53 communities — Indigenous, Quilombola (descendants of formerly enslaved Afro-Brazilians), extractivist (communities making a living from the sustainable extraction of natural resources), and campesino — who combine beekeeping with forest recovery to generate an income, reverse environmental degradation caused by encroachers, and strengthen food security through agroforestry.

Ten community projects resulting from this movement were selected by the Pollinating Regeneration program. Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the initiative was submitted by the socioenvironmental organization Meli Bees, created by Lima in Germany in 2020 in response to growing demand for incentives for beekeeping after an experience with the Kayapó. Around $50,000 will be allocated directly to selected community efforts.

Besides international fundraising, which enabled them to support microprojects in Brazil, Lima says a growing WhatsApp group worked to spread the seeds for the Meli Network.

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October 2023.

Almost 15 years ago, our word warned of the nightmare. It was in a semillero (seedbed) conversation, and it was through the voice of the late SupMarcos that we spoke. It goes:

Of sowings and reapings

(January 2009)

Perhaps what I am about to say is not relevant to what is the central theme of this table, or perhaps it is.

Two days ago, on the very same day in which our word referred to violence, the ineffable Condoleezza Rice, a US government official, declared that what was happening in Gaza was the fault of the Palestinians, because of their violent nature.

The subterranean rivers that run through the world may change geography, but they sing the same song.

And the one we hear now is one of war and grief.

Not far from here, in a place called Gaza, in Palestine, in the Middle East, next door, a heavily armed and trained army, that of the government of Israel, continues its advance of death and destruction.

The steps it has followed are, up to now, those of a classic military war of conquest: first an intense and massive bombardment to destroy “neuralgic” military points (as the military manuals call them) and to “soften up” the fortifications of resistance; then the strict control over information: everything that is heard and seen “in the outside world”, that is, outside the theater of operations, must be selected with military criteria; now intense artillery fire on enemy infantry to protect the advance of troops to new positions; then it will be the surrounding and siege to weaken the enemy garrison; then the assault that conquers the position by annihilating the enemy, then the “cleansing” of the probable “nests of resistance.”

The military manual of modern warfare, with some variations and additions, is being followed step by step by the invading military forces.

We do not know much about this and, for sure, there are specialists on the so-called “Middle East conflict,” but from this corner we have something to say:

According to the photos of the news agencies, the “neuralgic” points destroyed by the aviation of the Israeli government are houses, huts, civilian buildings.

We have not seen any bunkers, military barracks or airfields, or gun batteries, among what was destroyed. So we, pardon our ignorance, think that either the gunners of the airplanes have bad aim or there are no such “neuralgic” military points in Gaza.

We do not have the honor of knowing Palestine, but we assume that those houses, huts and buildings were inhabited by people, men, women, children and the elderly, and not by soldiers.

Nor have we seen resistance fortifications, only rubble.

We have seen, yes, the so far futile effort to cordon off information and the various governments of the world vacillating between ducking or applauding the invasion, and a UN, long since useless, putting out lukewarm press releases.

But wait. It has now occurred to us that perhaps for the Israeli government these men, women, children and old people are enemy soldiers and, as such, the huts, houses and buildings they live in are barracks to be destroyed.

And the enemy garrison that they want to weaken with the encirclement and siege being laid around Gaza is none other than the Palestinian population living there. And that the assault will seek to annihilate that population. And that any man, woman, child or elderly person who manages to escape, hiding, from the predictably bloody assault, will then be “hunted” so that the cleansing can be completed and the military chief in command of the operation can report to his superiors “we have completed the mission.”

Forgive us again for our ignorance, perhaps what we are saying is, in fact, beside the point, or something, depending. And that instead of repudiating and condemning the crime in progress, as indigenous people and as warriors that we are, we should be discussing and taking a position in the discussion on either “Zionism” or “anti-Semitism,” or that it was the Hamas bombs to start with.

Perhaps our thinking is very simple, and we lack the nuances and necessary annotations in our analysis, but, for us, we Zapatistas, in Gaza there is a professional army assassinating a defenseless population.

Who from below and to the left can remain silent?

-*-

Does it do any good to say anything? Do our cries stop any bombs? Does our word save the life of a Palestinian child?

We think that it is useful, maybe we will not stop a bomb nor will our word become an armored shield that prevents that 5.56 mm or 9 mm caliber bullet, with the letters “IMI” (“Israeli Military Industry”) engraved on the base of the cartridge, from reaching the chest of a girl or a boy, but maybe our word will manage to join with others in Mexico and the world and maybe first it will become a murmur, then a loud voice, and then a cry that will be heard in Gaza.

We don’t know about you, but we Zapatistas of the EZLN know how important it is, in the midst of destruction and death, to hear a few words of encouragement.

I don’t know how to explain it, but it turns out that yes, words from afar may not be enough to stop a bomb, but they are as if a crack were opened in the black room of death and a little light slipped through.

Otherwise, what will happen will happen. The Israeli government will declare that it has dealt a severe blow to terrorism, it will hide the magnitude of the massacre from its people, the big arms producers will have obtained an economic respite to face the crisis and “world public opinion,” that malleable entity, always in tune with the situation, will turn to look the other way.

But not only that. It is also going to happen that the Palestinian people are going to resist and survive and continue to fight, and continue to have sympathy from below for their cause.

And, perhaps, a boy or a girl from Gaza will survive as well. Maybe they will grow up and, with them, courage, indignation, rage. Perhaps they will become soldiers or militiamen of one of the groups fighting in Palestine. Maybe they will fight Israel. Perhaps they will do so by firing a rifle. Maybe they will immolate themselves with a belt of dynamite sticks around their waist.

And then, up there, they will write about the violent nature of the Palestinians and make statements condemning that violence and it will be discussed again about Zionism or anti-Semitism.

And then no one will ask who has sown what is being reaped.

From the men, women, children and elders of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.

Mexico, January 4, 2009.

Those who were minors then, almost 15 years ago, and survived, well…

There are those who were responsible for sowing what is being harvested today, and there are those who, with impunity, repeat the sowing.

Those who just a few months ago justified and defended Putin’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, arguing its “right to defend itself from a potential threat,” must now be juggling (or betting on forgetfulness) to invalidate that argument in the face of Israel. And vice versa.

Today, in Palestine and Israel -and all over the world- there are children and young people learning what terrorism teaches: that there are no limits, no rules, no laws, no shame.

Nor are there responsibilities.

-*-

Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu. The people of Israel will survive. The people of Palestine will survive. They just need to give themselves a chance and stick to it.

In the meantime, each war will continue to be just a prelude to the next one, more ferocious, more destructive, more inhumane.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.

Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés.

Mexico, October 2023.

link: https://schoolsforchiapas.org/of-sowings-and-harvests/

link in Spanish: https://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2023/10/16/de-siembras-y-cosechas/

archive in English: https://archive.ph/FHGzn

As we write this, Palestinians face unrelenting and unprecedented settler violence. The Israeli army has warned 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza to relocate south within the next twenty-four hours as Israel prepares to level Gaza with bombs.​​The Israeli apartheid regime has already cut off all food, water, and electricity to Gaza while carpet bombing residential buildings, markets, schools, health facilities, and mosques. Across the occupied West Bank residents fear the worst, with many trapped in their homes as armed Israeli settlers threaten pogroms against Palestinian families and the military prohibits any freedom of movement. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” labeling Palestinians “human animals.”

Israeli-led massacres in Gaza have commenced with full support and aid from the US.

For the last two decades, 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in a dense open-air prison, besieged by Israel in violation of international law. Two thirds of the population in Gaza are refugees that were forcibly displaced from other parts of Palestine. Half the population are children, and the vast majority are impoverished. Completely surrounded by a militarized barrier, Gazans are denied freedom of movement and regular access to food, water, and healthcare by a protracted Israeli siege. In 2018, the United Nations deemed Gaza “unlivable,” and since then Gazans have experienced multiple bombardments by Israel, intensifying an already untenable situation.

This is not a “conflict.” This is a deliberate act of settler colonialism and genocide.

Israel’s violent occupation of historic Palestine is typically framed as a “conflict.” This is a distortion of history that erases the actual truth: Israel cannot exist without the annihilation of Palestinians, whether this be slow or sudden.

full statement here

All Native people, organizations, and governments should issue solidarity statements and mutual aid for Palestine and Gaza: https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donation-details/484

LAND BACK and the Right of Return for Palestinians: https://ndncollective.org/position-paper/the-right-of-return-is-landback/

US out of Palestine–no more military aid to Israel: https://therednation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Red-Deal_Part-I_End-The-Occupation-1.pdf

WHILE THE WORLD focuses on the Hamas massacre in Israel and Israel’s bombing of Gaza, settlers in the West Bank are taking advantage of the chaos to attack and expel Palestinians from small villages.

Settlers — Israeli Jews living in the occupied West Bank — and soldiers have killed 51 Palestinians in the West Bank since Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. At least two villages, Al-Qanub and Wadi Al-Sik, have been entirely depopulated as a result of the violence by Israeli settlers.

A Palestinian in At-Tuwani, a village in the Masafer Yatta area, is in critical condition after a settler, accompanied by a single Israeli soldier, invaded the community on Friday and shot him at point-blank range. The attack was documented by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Israeli soldiers are establishing new checkpoints to block the movement of Palestinian villagers. On Thursday evening, near Yabrud, northeast of Ramallah, solders shot at a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family, according to members of the family. Randa Abdullah Abdul Aziz Ajaj, 37, was killed, and her son, Ismail Ajaj, was hit in the foot and shoulder. Her husband and another child were also in the vehicle but were not injured. An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said soldiers opened fire because the car was “driving wildly” and the soldiers felt threatened.

Throughout the West Bank, Palestinian residents are witnessing an increased presence of armed settlers around their villages, more military roadblocks, and tightened movement restrictions. “At this time we are actually living under siege. Most of the villages in the West Bank are closed in mounds of dirt and it is impossible to get out,” said a resident of the village of Qaryut. “There are settlers everywhere. Every time we approach houses near a settlement, they shoot at us. They are taking advantage of the security situation in Gaza, to take revenge on the West Bank. Because no one is looking at the West Bank now.”

On Wednesday, in the village of Qusra near Nablus, three Palestinians — Moa’th Odeh, Musab Abu Rida, and Obida Abu Sarur — were shot dead, while a 6-year-old girl was wounded in the upper body. It is unclear who opened fire on them. The attack began with masked settlers shooting at houses in the village, according to three eyewitnesses and medical personnel who treated the wounded at the scene. Video footage shows six masked men, armed with pistols and M-16 rifles, opening fire inside the village. Later that day, according to eyewitnesses, another resident, 13-year-old Hassan Abu Sarur, was also shot dead when soldiers entered after the settlers withdrew from the village.

full article

The health conditions afflicting the Yanonami community in the Brazilian Amazon such as malnutrition and chronic diseases are a result of the violation of their rights, unstable socio-economic conditions, and ongoing land disputes.

These circumstances have led to a social-environmental vulnerability within their population, placing their families, especially children, at particular risk of consuming ultra-processed foods.

More than 90 per cent of Yanomami aged six to 59 months exhibit short stature - called linear growth stunting - according to a study conducted by Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Fiocruz, that offers groundbreaking insights into the dietary patterns of Yanomami indigenous youth.

Full article

Guatemala City, Guatemala – Every day, they gather at the gates of the public prosecutor’s office: Indigenous leaders, protesting against threats to Guatemala’s election integrity.

These leaders — some of whom dress in brightly embroidered huipil blouses and ceremonial attire — have become the face of the demonstrations that have exploded across the Central American country in recent weeks.

Since October 2, as many as 140 roadways have been blocked, and thousands of people have flooded the streets of the capital, Guatemala City, to demand accountability for efforts they say are designed to subvert the country’s recent presidential elections.

SitPo’p Herrera, 32, is one of those Indigenous leaders. A member of the Ixil Mayan Ancestral Authority, an autonomous Indigenous government, she travelled 226km (140 miles) from her highland town of Nebaj to arrive in Guatemala City on October 4, where she had been demonstrating ever since.

Herrera said she was there to represent Ixil Mayan communities in the protests. She and other Indigenous leaders have maintained a near-constant presence outside the prosecutor’s office, holding ceremonies and leading chants.

They call for the resignation of Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras and other political figures involved in raiding the country’s electoral authority and targeting the campaign of Bernardo Arevalo, the dark-horse candidate elected president on August 20.

Critics fear the raids — five of which have been conducted since the elections — could threaten the results and throw Guatemala’s democracy into turmoil.

A short woman with a youthful face and a shy but confident smile, Herrera holds the attorney general responsible for the situation, which has seen confidential voter material breached.

“This is a response to their provocations,” Herrera said of the sprawling protests unfolding around her. Frustrated with government corruption and organised crime in Guatemala, she felt there was little choice but to demonstrate.

“The people have been patient, but this is the only way the people have — to go out into the streets so that their voices can be heard,” she said.

The encampment outside the public prosecutor’s office is part of a larger nationwide protest movement launched on October 2. Groups like the 48 Cantones of Totonicapan, an Indigenous community government based in the west-central highlands, have taken a leading role in organising the protests.

Mayan spiritual guides, for instance, hold fire ceremonies outside the office’s entrance: They believe the swirling flames will elevate their calls for justice.

But as the protests stretch on, tensions have risen. On Monday, Attorney General Porras — whom the United States accused of “significant corruption” — called the demonstrations “illegal actions”.

Full Article

ABSTRACT

Coprolites, or mummified feces, are valuable sources of information on ancient cultures as they contain ancient DNA (aDNA). In this study, we analyzed ancient plant DNA isolated from coprolites belonging to two pre-Columbian cultures (Huecoid and Saladoid) from Vieques, Puerto Rico, using shotgun metagenomic sequencing to reconstruct diet and lifestyles. We also analyzed DNA sequences of putative phytopathogenic fungi, likely ingested during food consumption, to further support dietary habits. Our findings show that pre-Columbian Caribbean cultures had a diverse diet consisting of maize (Zea mays), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), chili peppers (Capsicum annuum), peanuts (Arachis spp.), papaya (Carica papaya), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and, very surprisingly cotton (Gossypium barbadense) and tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris). Modelling of putative phytopathogenic fungi and plant interactions confirmed the potential consumption of these plants as well as edible fungi, particularly Ustilago spp., which suggest the consumption of maize and huitlacoche. These findings suggest that a variety of dietary, medicinal, and hallucinogenic plants likely played an important role in ancient human subsistence and societal customs. We compared our results with coprolites found in Mexico and the United States, as well as present-day faeces from Mexico, Peru, and the United States. The results suggest that the diet of pre-Columbian cultures resembled that of present-day hunter-gatherers, while agriculturalists exhibited a transitional state in dietary lifestyles between the pre-Columbian cultures and larger scale farmers and United States individuals. Our study highlights differences in dietary patterns related to human lifestyles and provides insight into the flora present in the pre-Columbian Caribbean area. Importantly, data from ancient fecal specimens demonstrate the importance of ancient DNA studies to better understand pre-Columbian populations.

Indigenous Amazonians urge Brazil to declare emergency over severe drought Drought and heatwave has killed fish in rivers as Indigenous group Apiam says villagers have no water, food or medicine

Indigenous people in the Amazon are calling on the Brazilian government to declare a climate emergency as their villages have no drinking water, food or medicine due to a severe drought that is drying up rivers vital for travel in the rainforest.

The drought and heatwave has killed masses of fish in the rivers that Indigenous people live off and the water in the muddy streams and tributaries of the Amazon river has become undrinkable, the umbrella organization Apiam that represents 63 tribes in the Amazon said on Tuesday.

“We ask the government to declare a climate emergency to urgently address the vulnerability Indigenous peoples are exposed to,” Apiam urged in a statement released at a news conference.

The Rio Negro, Solimoes, Madeira, Jurua and Purus rivers are drying up at a record pace, and forest fires are destroying the rainforest in new areas in the lower Amazon reaches, Apiam said in a statement.

Environment minister Marina Silva said last month the government was preparing a taskforce to provide emergency assistance to the Amazon region hit by the drought. It has sent tens of thousands of food parcels to communities isolated by the lack of river transport.

The region is under pressure from the El Niño weather phenomenon, with the volume of rainfall in the northern Amazon below the historical average.

The most serious problem for Indigenous communities that have no running water is sanitation now that the river water cannot be drunk, Apiam coordinator Mariazinha Bare said.

“The smaller rivers have dried up and turned to mud,” Bare said in an interview. “Indigenous people have to walk long distances in the rainforest to find potable water, and the poor quality of water is making people ill,” she said.

Impassable rivers have made it harder for medical assistance to reach Amazon villages, Bare said, and rain is not expected until the end of November or early December when the rivers and their fish population normally renew themselves.

The Madeira river to the south-west is no longer navigable in its upper reaches, isolating Indigenous villages and non-Indigenous communities that rely on collecting fruit in the rainforest but cannot move their produce out.

Ivaneide Bandeira, who heads the Kaninde Indigenous organization in the state of Rondonia, said isolated non-Indigenous communities were asking Indigenous villages for food.

She said the smoke from forest fires was worse than ever, aggravating the climate crisis and affecting the health of the elderly and children.

“It is not just the El Niño current. Deforestation continues with these fires,” she said by telephone. “The agricultural advance does not stop. They are destroying everything, as if they do not see what is happening to nature.”

Friends and Comrades, Another Organization has been inspired to take up the cause of improving living conditions on the Pine Ridge Reservation. After seeing the paltry "meals" currently being served to the Elders by a "charitable organization", they knew we must and Will do better.

Help us treat these Elders with the respect they deserve by spreading and contributing to this fundraiser to start a kitchen operation on our newly acquired land.

Thank you all for your time and attention. We appreciate your help in bringing about a better world.

Lewis Rath, who faked Native heritage to sell his art, receives probation

SEATTLE — A Washington state man who falsely claimed Native American heritage to sell his artwork at downtown Seattle galleries was sentenced Wednesday, Sept. 27, to federal probation and community service.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Lewis Rath, of Maple Falls, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to two years probation and 200 hours of community service. He was charged in 2021 with multiple crimes including violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which prohibits misrepresentation in marketing American Indian or Alaska Native arts and crafts.

An investigation started in 2018, when the Indian Arts and Crafts Board received a complaint about Rath, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Rath falsely claimed to be a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona and sold carved wooden totem poles, transformation masks and pendants to Seattle retail stores, the attorney's office said.

Agents searching Rath’s residence also recovered feathers from birds protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, according to results from the National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Lab.

“Counterfeit Indian art, like Lewis Anthony Rath’s carvings and jewelry that he misrepresented and sold as San Carlos Apache-made, tears at the very fabric of Indian culture, livelihoods, and communities,” U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board Director Meridith Stanton said in a Justice Department statement. “Rath’s actions demean and rob authentic Indian artists who rely on the creation and sale of their artwork to put food on the table, make ends meet, and pass along these important cultural traditions and skills from one generation to the next."

Stanton also said his actions undermine consumers’ confidence in the Indian art market in the Northwest and nationwide.

Jerry Chris Van Dyke, also known as Jerry Witten, 68, of Seattle, also pleaded guilty to violations of the IACA in March. He was sentenced on May 17 to 18 months of federal probation.

link: https://ictnews.org/news/fake-native-artist-sentenced