As wildfires consume landscapes, indigenous communities are facing an unprecedented battle that is exposing historical injustices and cultural jeopardy.

A Season of Burning

The wildfire season in Canada has broken records this year, with over 5,700 fires burning more than 137,000 square kilometers (53,000 square miles) across all 13 provinces and territories, as reported by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. This has led to scorched areas, prolonged droughts, and increased lightning strikes, leaving a feeling of vulnerability.

Despite lightning being responsible for only 50% of Canadian wildfires, it is the cause of approximately 85% of the land destroyed each year, according to the CNFDB.

According to Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildfire at Thompson Rivers University, “It’s really all about the weather. That’s the reason why we’ve got this incredible fire season.”

The widespread fire damage cannot be attributed solely to atmospheric changes. Centuries of colonization and mismanagement have played a significant role in creating the conditions for such devastation.

The Forgotten Factors

Forest management policies focused on suppressing all fires have paradoxically led to the accumulation of flammable vegetation on forest floors. As a result, logging practices have eliminated fire-resistant trees, making forests vulnerable to rapid spread.

In Hawaii, the wildfires have revealed a similar story of environmental recklessness.

Uahikea Maile, an assistant professor of Indigenous politics at the University of Toronto, has suggested that the fires’ devastation is tied to colonial greed. She explains that the fires have “strategically and purposefully [been] altered to feed colonial forms of profiteering and wealth accumulation.”

Indigenous communities, such as Canada’s First Nations and Hawaii’s Kanaka Maoli, have always practiced cultural burning to prevent large-scale fires. Before Europeans arrived, the First Nations burnt most of Canada’s forests yearly for cultural and management reasons, such as encouraging berry growth.

In short, Europeans descended on America and grabbed the land, stripping Indigenous people of their territories and cultural practices. Additionally, forced evacuations relocated communities from their ancestral properties to reservations.

Accusations of Indigenous communities igniting high-hazard wildfires led to the prohibition of cultural burning from the 16th century. This was replaced by a centralized system aimed at suppressing all forest fires, which has already proven unsustainable.

“We’re going to get a lot more big, ugly fires unless we do more prescribed burns,” said Robert Gray, a B.C.-based wildfire ecologist who helped plan a ʔaq’am burn earlier this year.

From Cultural Burning to Cultural Erasure

The wildfires pose ecological crises and cultural erasures that are happening rapidly.

According to Dorothy Heinrich, a disaster risk expert, 75% of those under evacuation orders in July were Indigenous. This has caused great challenges for groups like the First Nations, who are now dealing with health risks, the loss of critical infrastructure, and economic opportunities that forests offer.

The main concern here is that Indigenous communities may soon become climate refugees.

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BRASILIA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The Brazilian Senate's Agriculture Committee on Wednesday voted 13-3 to approve legislation that would rule out recognition of Indigenous lands if they were not lived on by 1988, a bill that is backed by Brazil's powerful farm lobby.

The proposal advances to the Constitution and Justice Committee and could be put to a vote in the plenary as soon as next week.

The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, said rural interests in Congress were rushing the bill through before the country's Supreme Court can rule whether the 1988 cut-off date violates a constitutional guarantee of Indigenous rights to their ancestral lands.

"We are trying to widen the debate and urge the Senate to also discuss the bill in the human rights and the environment committees," Guajajara told Reuters.

Senators from farm states said the legislation was needed to end land conflicts with Indigenous communities and establish legal security to settlers.

Senator Soraya Thornicke, from Mato Grosso do Sul state,

said Brazil's 1.6 million Indigenous people have 13% of the country's territory protected as reservation lands.

"With so much land, why are they so poor?" she said in committee, backing a bill that will for the first time allow commercial agriculture in Indigenous territories, including with the use of genetically modified crops banned there at present.

The bill approved by the Agriculture Committee would stop the recognition of new reservations on lands claimed by Indigenous people who were not living on the land at the time Brazil's constitution was enacted in 1988.

But it will also allow the expropriation of protected land if an Indigenous community lost its cultural traits, said Guajajara.

More serious, she said, was that the bill would permit easier access to territories where isolated or recently contacted tribes are known to live in the Amazon.

Guajajara hopes leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who created the ministry of Indigenous peoples when he took office in January, will veto the bill if it passes Congress.

But she is not certain he would be willing to antagonize the farm and agribusiness sectors, whose food exports are the driving force of Brazil's economy.

"I don't know, really," she said.

Ecuadorian voters have overwhelmingly supported a ban on future oil extraction in a biodiverse section of the Amazon’s Yasuní National Park — a historic referendum result that will protect Indigenous Yasuní land from development. We speak with Helena Gualinga, a youth Kichwa Sarayaku environmental activist from Ecuador who has fought against oil drilling all her life and says the results of the vote not only set a “crucial precedent” as the first time a country has voted by democratic ballot initiative on resource extraction in the Amazon, but also demonstrates that “Ecuador is a country that is committed to protecting the Amazon rainforest and to protecting Indigenous peoples.”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We end today’s show in Ecuador, where voters Sunday overwhelmingly supported a historic referendum blocking oil extraction in the Amazon’s Yasuní National Park, the largest protected area in Ecuador, with massive petroleum reserves crossing through Indigenous Yasuní land. The effort was spearheaded by Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders.

This comes as Ecuadorians also took to the polls for a snap presidential election that saw leftist Luisa González place first ahead of a runoff election in October. At least three political leaders were killed, assassinated, ahead of the election.

For more, we go to Puyo, Ecuador, to speak with Helena Gualinga, a youth Kichwa Sarayaku environmental activist who campaigned for the referendum and grew up in the remote Kichwa Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

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Mexico City - The Head of Government, Martí Batres Guadarrama, announced a new record for the IX Festival of Indigenous Cultures, Original Peoples and Neighborhoods of Mexico City, which from August 4 to 20 brought together one million 435 thousand visitors to the capital's Zócalo, a figure that exceeds the number of attendees of previous editions.

"We achieved a new record during the IX Festival of Indigenous Cultures, Indigenous Peoples and Neighborhoods of Mexico City, with the attendance of one million 400 thousand people in the capital's Zócalo, from August 4 until today," shared the capital's president on his social networks.

Martí Batres highlighted the cultural diversity of Mexico City, and reaffirmed the commitment of the capital's government to protect the rights and inclusion of indigenous communities, original peoples and neighborhoods.

"We are a City that pays homage to our roots and opens spaces for cultural richness to express itself. In this way we reaffirm our anti-colonialist, anti-racist vision and vindicate our glorious past, which is also the present. Long live the indigenous peoples!" he added.

The last day of the Fiesta began at 12:00 noon on Sunday, on the main stage with the Oaxacan Monumental Band, composed of around 300 members belonging to 11 orchestras from different regions of Oaxaca, which made national and foreign audiences of all ages dance to the rhythms of sones and jarabes from that southern Mexican state.

At 5:00 p.m., attendees gathered on the same stage to enjoy traditional dances by the Citlacalli group; an hour later, the Carnaval Triqui Candelaria group bid farewell to the celebration with the colors and joy of their typical costumes and traditional music.

This weekend you could also enjoy music concerts with Osoxe Muluk and Zuvuya, DJs who experiment with traditional sounds, ethno-electronic, world music and improvisation sessions; the rock band of the Comca'ac people Hamac Caziim, as well as the multidisciplinary show "Mexico, the navel of the moon" and traditional dance with Benhe Sshinh.

In the Circle of Knowledge, topics of interest to the native populations were analyzed through talks on "Strategic litigation and linguistic rights of resident indigenous communities", "Social networks to weave community and intangible cultural heritage" and "Discrimination and indigenous people in Mexico City".

Bilingual stories and poems were also read and the workshop "A right of native peoples and neighborhoods of Mexico City, herbalism for children" was held.

For more than two weeks, Mexico City's Zócalo was filled with traditional Mexican aromas and flavors with dishes such as mole, cemitas, tlayudas, cecina or tamales. Colors, materials and shapes also adorned the Historic Center with handicrafts ranging from textiles, kitchen utensils, jewelry and sculptures.

This year, the guests of honor at the festival were Colombia; the municipality of Tingambato, Michoacán; and eight neighborhoods of Iztapalapa (San Lucas, San Pablo, San Pedro, San José, Asunción, Santa Bárbara, San Ignacio and San Miguel), which offered the public samples of their wisdom, art, gastronomy and culture.

Visitors were also able to learn more about traditional indigenous medicine from chiropractors, healers, masseurs and herbalists who were part of the wide variety of cultural offerings.

The Fiesta de las Culturas Indígenas, Pueblos y Barrios Originarios de la Ciudad de México is a cultural event that seeks to make visible, value, raise awareness and publicize the indigenous cultural richness of our country, in addition to promoting the rights of indigenous peoples.

Kānaka Maoli, the Native people of Hawaii, have long asked for visitors to stop coming.

“We’ve been telling people not to go to Hawaii for years now; this is not something new. But it’s certainly been amplified by COVID-19 and especially natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires – things that really put a strain on Hawaii’s resources,” said Camille Leihulu Slagle, a university student, advocate and Kānaka Maoli.

“We can barely sustain our own people.”

The island’s increase in visitors over the last few decades has led to an affordability crisis, increased homelessness and damage to an already fragile ecosystem — all made worse by natural disasters like the recent fire and devastation that tore through Lahaina.

As many tourists despair over cancelled holidays or continue vacationing, Kānaka Maoli and many locals are left homeless, listed as missing, or fundraising to support their kin.

The wildfire death toll is already the highest in modern U.S. history, with hundreds still missing — it has destroyed or damaged at least 2,200 structures.

Recovery is difficult with each disaster, with some Kānaka Maoli and locals having to wait months or years for insurance payouts. They are then subsequently priced out of the community re-build.

Years of historical trauma, high rates of crime and violence worsen the missing and murdered Indigenous persons epidemic in the U.S., making cases hard to solve and limiting the power of Indigenous women.

About 4 in 5 Indigenous people in the U.S. have experienced some form of violence, according to a study by the National Institute of Justice.

“You’ve got a country that was founded on violence against Native women, and you’ve got a culture that continues to celebrate violence against women,” said Mary Kathryn Nagle, an attorney for the Montana-based National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

The origins of the missing and murdered Indigenous women’s crisis come from centuries of genocide, colonialization and the erosion of tribal sovereignty, according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

Nagle explained that Halloween costumes of Indigenous people and images of Indigenous women on beer or butter products are examples of American culture devaluing Indigenous women.

Through her work with the center, Nagle said lack of value in Indigenous women in American culture allows and fosters violence against them.

“The people beating and abusing Native women learn that they can do that with impunity,” she said.

Shawnna Roach handles missing and murdered Indigenous persons cases for Cherokee Nation Marshal Service. She also investigates human trafficking and domestic violence cases.

Roach explained that historical trauma compounds the likelihood for Indigenous women to be victims of crime.

Roach said trouble at home or drug dependencies can make young women targets. Roach said the history of neglect for Indigenous women make them even more likely to be targeted.

“They’re not just local individuals,” she said of perpetrators. “They were coming here to find our Native American females.”

In the U.S., almost half of American Indian/Alaska Native women experienced some form of contact sexual violence during their lifetime, according to a CDC’s National Intimate Partners and Sexual Violence Survey. About 25% of Indigenous women experience stalking in their lifetime, and almost 30% experienced rape at some point in their lifetime.

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Globally acknowledged as primary guardians of tropical forests due to their harmonious coexistence with the environment, indigenous communities in Brazil have extended their efforts towards restoring depleted regions. In the Juruá Valley region, located in the westernmost reaches of the state of Acre near the Peruvian border, indigenous associations, producer cooperatives, and non-governmental organizations are collaboratively engaged in the Amazon Reforest Alliance project, initiated in 2021 on a non-profit basis. The project's core objective is to facilitate agroforestry plantations within traditional communities that have witnessed deforestation encroach upon portions of their territories.

This is the case of the Puyanawa indigenous land, situated in the municipality of Mâncio Lima, approximately 700 km from the capital, Rio Branco. Nestled on the right bank of the Moa River, this territory spans a total area of 24,500 hectares, accommodating a population of around 750 individuals across two villages. About 5.8 percent of the territory has lost the original Amazon rainforest cover, a segment that was previously deforested by farmers who exploited the region in the past prior to its official demarcation. This accounts for roughly 1,500 hectares of land.

In the early 1900s, this area in the western part of present-day Acre fell victim to invasion by rubber-tapper colonizers. The region was subjected to the vigorous exploitation of the rubber cycle, which led to the dispossession of ancestral lands from the indigenous communities. Consequently, these original inhabitants were coerced into laboring for latex extraction over the course of several decades.

The demarcation of the territory only occurred in 2001. Leading the efforts is the Amazon Reforest Alliance project, spearheaded by Puwe Puyanawa. Towards the end of July, he hosted a group of digital influencers participating in the Creator Academy project, showcasing the ongoing work aimed at restoring the biome.

"The idea is for us to demonstrate to the community our capabilities in revitalizing degraded areas, transforming this place into a paradise abundant with fruits, medicinal plants, and valuable hardwoods. This approach emphasizes our ancestral commitment to nurturing the forest," Puyanawa stated.

The endeavor enjoys backing from experts at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), the state government, and the SOS Amazônia organization. As outlined by the project, fostering, esteeming, and fortifying a network of traditional communities committed to agroforestry-based reforestation is an investment in the planet's future.

"This isn't just about trees that will bear fruit and thrive in years to come. It's also about the pressing need for reforestation due to the alarming rate at which the Amazon is being depleted," emphasizes a segment from the program's official page.

As stated in reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international network of climate scientists, addressing the restoration of degraded areas should be prioritized due to high deforestation rates. The UN has designated the period from 2021 onward as the Decade of Forest Restoration, underscoring the critical need for global reforestation efforts.

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Stefania Giesbrecht was hoping that by the time she finished her studies, she could move back to her community of Saugeen First Nation.

But after nine years on a wait-list, the single mother of three said she has no idea when she will be able to make the move to the community on the shores of Lake Huron near Owen Sound, Ont.

"I put myself onto the waiting list, and my mother went on the waiting list and my sister went on the waiting list," she said.

"And none of us have got any updates."

Giesbrecht said she wants to live on-reserve to immerse her children in their culture. That is something her mother couldn't do as a child of the Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children were forcefully removed from their families and placed in foster homes by child-welfare authorities.

Giesbrecht said she doesn't blame the community leadership, often referred to as band office officials, for the lengthy wait.

But she does hold the federal government accountable for chronic underfunding that has affected generations, and makes it difficult for First Nations communities to grow in size.

"When the Canadian government intended to assimilate Indigenous people into the body politic, they had no intention of providing us housing for a bigger populace," she said.

Canada's housing shortage has become a major issue in federal politics as people struggle to afford home prices and rent.

But in some Indigenous communities, inadequate housing is nothing new.

Billions of dollars worth of investment needed: AFN The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) had said last year there was a need for $44 billion to address current on-reserve housing needs alone, plus another $16 billion to account for projected population growth to 2040.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu noted that figure when she told the Globe and Mail ahead of last year's budget that she had made an "ambitious" request, although she did not detail the specific amount she had wanted to see.

The 2022 federal budget ended up committing $4 billion over seven years for building and repairing housing in Indigenous communities, including $2.4 billion over five years for housing on First Nations reserves.

Communities say the investments fall far short of what they need.

Only a few thousand people live on-reserve in Peguis First Nation, north of Winnipeg, but there is a shortage of 800 homes. Chief Stan Bird said families are forced to live in overcrowded homes and the situation is becoming more dire.

One family of 11 is sharing a three-bedroom home, he said. Two of the people living there have chronic health conditions.

"We're in a housing crisis," said Bird. "We've been in this position for a number of years."

"People are tired — I'm tired," he said. "People are growing angry."

Still, the AFN is hoping it can close the gap before 2030.

The Indigenous advocacy organization is working with the federal government to co-develop and implement a national strategy for First Nations housing and related infrastructure.

As of August, the estimated cost to bring housing and infrastructure on reserves up to general Canadian standards is more than $342 billion, with housing alone accounting for $135 billion of that. The lack of adequate federal investment in Indigenous housing is also a concern off-reserve.

A report by the parliamentary budget officer in 2021 found that after taking into account current programs, there was a $636-million annual gap between what Indigenous households in urban, rural and northern areas can afford to pay for adequate shelter, and the cost of obtaining it.

This year's federal budget earmarked $4 billion over seven years, starting in 2024-25, to implement an urban, rural and northern Indigenous housing strategy through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. that is co-developed with First Nations, Inuit and Métis. That was on top of the $300 million over five years in the 2022 budget.

But that is less than what the National Housing Council, an advisory body to the federal government, had said was needed. The council had recommended at least $6.3 billion over two years beginning in 2022-23.

In June, the federal government also announced $287.1 million of "immediate funding" to address the critical need for safe and affordable Indigenous housing projects.

In Canada, centring conservation with the country's indigenous peoples is allowing its original stewards to reconnect to their land and culture – and proving remarkably effective.

Every year, when the frozen streams have melted and greenery emerges after months of winter stillness, Dolcy Meness knows it's time. Packing their truck, she and a colleague set off through the densely forested hills of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg territory, an Algonquin First Nation in the province of Quebec.

After a few hours they reach their destination. Parking the truck, they make their way through forest until reaching a narrow stream. Kneeling on its mossy bank, Meness carefully places a small device in the water.

Over a period of one year, the device will collect data on the water's temperature, PH, salinity and conductivity.

But even before any data is gathered, Meness and her colleague are on the look out for indications that something is off. Seeing an unusually high amount of sand in streams – which leaks into the water from logging roads – is one sign they look out for, based on indigenous knowledge, says Meness.

"Brook trout use creeks, but they like rocks. Sand isn't a good breeding place for them, so they have to look for a different place. It creates a change that shouldn't be there," she says.

Using a "two-eyed seeing approach", Meness and fellow Nagadjitòdjig Akì guardians draw on the strengths of indigenous knowledge alongside Western science to monitor the impacts of extractive industries, like logging, on their territory.

Being in this job gives me in-depth knowledge about my own history, culture and teachings. [It's] a long journey of re-learning – Dolcy Meness By collecting data on water quality in streams and rivers, they help determine if companies are adhering to regulations.

"We can go to them and say: 'You're not doing your job properly, you're destroying creeks when you're logging, you're not following your own rules,'" says Meness.

Over the year, Meness and her colleagues will repeat their data gathering task many times. Working alongside non-governmental organisations, they're responsible for 50 sites throughout the Ottawa River watershed, which encompasses Kitigan Zibi traditional territory.

They are also part of a flourishing movement of 1,000 "Indigenous Guardians" across Canada who are stewarding their traditional lands and waters and redefining what conservation can – and many argue should – look like.

Amidst global ecological collapse, which some scientists call the "sixth mass extinction", there is increasingly widespread acknowledgement that indigenous people can demonstrate a more sustainable path forward – one that other societies could learn from. This is due to both their relationship with the environment, based on respect and reciprocity, and their substantial but often undervalued contributions to biodiversity conservation.

In Canada, where there are feelings among many that colonialism is a historical problem but one still rooted in the present, centring conservation with the country's original stewards is allowing indigenous people to reconnect to their land and culture. It is also reshaping relations between indigenous nations and non-indigenous Canada, presenting an opportunity for genuine reconciliation.

"Being in this job gives me in-depth knowledge about my own history, culture and teachings," says Meness. "[It's] a long journey of re-learning."

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With the death toll from the Maui wildfires at 111 and as many as 1,000 still missing, we speak with Hawaiian law professor Kapuaʻala Sproat about the conditions that made the fires more destructive and what’s yet to come for residents looking to rebuild their lives. Decades of neocolonialism in Hawaii have redirected precious water resources toward golf courses, resorts and other corporate ventures, turning many areas into tinderboxes and leaving little water to fight back against the flames.

Now many Hawaiians say there is a power grab underway as real estate interests and other wealthy outsiders look to buy up land and water rights on the cheap as people are still reeling from the loss of their family members, livelihoods and communities. “Plantation disaster capitalism is, unfortunately, the perfect term for what’s going on,” says Sproat, who just published a piece in The Guardian with Naomi Klein.

She is professor of law at Ka Huli Ao Native Hawaiian Law Center and co-director of the Native Hawaiian Rights Clinic at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa School of Law. “The plantations, the large landed interests that have had control over not just the land, but really much of Hawaii’s and Maui Komohana’s resources for the last several centuries, are using this opportunity, are using this time of tremendous trauma for the people of Maui, to swoop in and to get past the law.”

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Óscar Machoa sits on the floor of his community’s large central hall, the maloca, cutting leaves and watching patiently as he heats them over a fire. Now aged 67, his hands show the signs of years of collecting plants, of craft and building work.

He is the healer of the Kichwa community of San Carlos, charged with passing on ancestral knowledge to his neighbours in the canton of La Joya de los Sachas, in Ecuador’s eastern province of Orellana – home to a portion of the Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, which will this week be the focus of a national referendum over the future of oil reserves located beneath its soils.

As soon as he hears the word “oil”, Machoa’s patient attitude changes. “We don’t want anything to be extracted. I remember all the things they promised us and never fulfilled,” he says forcefully. The healer talks of a time nearly 60 years ago, recalling the beginnings of oil extraction in the area, led by Texaco (now owned by Chevron), and which saw more than 2 million hectares of the Ecuadorian Amazon affected over almost 30 years of exploitation.

“That’s when our nightmare began,” Machoa continues. “They told us they would use state-of-the-art technology, but spills became very common. Rivers were polluted, fish died, animals died, and nobody supported us. My grandparents, my parents, we grew up here. That’s why we are going to defend Yasuní for our children.”

This Sunday, 20 August, Ecuadorians will head to the polls for a general election to decide the country’s next president and parliament – clouded by the recent murder of candidate Fernando Villavicencio – as well as a parallel referendum to decide whether to continue or ban exploitation of the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) oil fields, also known as Block 43, located within the Yasuní National Park.

The Kichwa healer says he is determined to vote “Yes” to block their exploitation, a position shared by many of Ecuador’s Amazonian population – though not universally. As the vote nears, the issue has polarised some Indigenous groups, both near and far from Yasuní itself, reflecting long-standing debates over the benefits and damage of oil extraction, and the extent of state support for the remote communities.

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As part of the Declaration of the Third National Assembly for Water and Life, a "national mobilization against the war faced by the Zapatista peoples and all the indigenous communities of Mexico" will be called for October 12.

In this regard, Carlos González García, follow-up coordinator of the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Council Government (CNI-CIG) told La Jornada that on that day "activities are generally carried out to make clear the resistance of our peoples, and the opposition to the whole process of conquest and historical domination that has been imposed on the original peoples.

He specified that the CNI was founded on October 12, 1996 (it will be 27 years old) and that is why the proposal is to carry out "a day of struggle to demand a halt to the war against the Zapatista peoples and the original peoples of the country, and this includes the context of privatization and dispossession of water". In the CNI, "it is only going to be discussed at the beginning of September, but the idea is that it will be a national day".

In a press conference, members of the National Assembly for Water and Life (ANAVI) also demanded a "halt to state repression and drug trafficking crimes directed against the people of Santa María Ostula", as well as an end to the "systematic violence in Querétaro" against those who defend water, springs and territory, mostly ejidos".

Hortensia Telésforo, who was one of the coordinators of the sit-in held at the end of last year by residents of San Gregorio Atlapulco, Xochimilco to demand the removal of 1.6 kilometers of pipeline, said the National Water Commission (Conagua) is one of the entities that contributes to the current situation of unequal access to water in the country, because "it allows it", and in this sense the Third Assembly also agreed to hold a national demonstration against the Conagua on September 25.

"It has become very clear who is implementing this situation throughout the country. We call on all citizens to demonstrate that the Conagua is the main responsible for the institutionalization and instrumentation of the dispossession of water in our territories".

Also in the assembly, held on August 12 and 13, it was agreed that the Fourth National Assembly for Water and Life will be held in the communities that defend the territory in Tlaxcala between February and March of next year.

González García explained that "specifically this National Assembly in Defense of Water and Life, what it promotes is that beyond modifying legal frameworks, to carry out a self-managing exercise of water, because we do not see the will or interest on the part of the government or legislators to respect the right to water".

Since the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, organizations and collectives have pressured for "the enactment of a water law, in accordance with the constitutional reform that recognized the right to water as a human right; it is a pending issue that was not addressed by the previous government, that was not addressed by Congress during the previous six-year term, and that has not been addressed today either.

No progress has been made in this area, because "the interests behind water are enormous", close to "60 percent of water rights are in the hands of soft drink companies, breweries, and some mining companies; and another part goes to domestic consumption in urban areas", among others.

At least two of the hunger strikers were transferred to the Angol Hospital, after more than 100 days on strike and several days on dry strike, due to the lack of response from the government and Gendarmerie. Solidarity with their demands and for the fulfillment of all their demands.

In August 2022 the Mapuche political prisoners in the Angol prison had reached an agreement with the Gendarmerie where formal aspects were agreed upon for the application of ILO Convention 169 to which the State of Chile is a signatory, in particular for the application inside the Angol prison for Mapuche prisoners, whether they were charged or convicted.

There, formulas were established to regulate visits, the entry of food and particularly for the guarantee of places where they can express their spirituality.

But on May 7, 2023 this agreement ceased to apply after a conflict occurred with prison guards, where community members were charged with false accusations of an alleged kidnapping of guards. This also implied the dispersal of the political prisoners to other prisons, which was later revoked by the Supreme Court, returning the prisoners to the Angol prison, but without respecting the agreement originally signed and agreed upon at the end of last year.

As a result, they began a hunger strike that has lasted more than 100 days, without any response from the government or the gendarmerie. The intransigence of the gendarmerie and deaf ears on the part of the authorities has led to the point that twelve of the political prisoners decided to begin a dry strike in the face of the government's inability to reach an agreement.

It is necessary to point out that many of the strikers were persecuted by the Operation Hurricane set-up when they were minors. On the other hand, the lack of attention from the Chilean State institutions is total, which is reflected in the fact that they have not even received a visit from the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) during the more than 100 days of hunger strike.

It should be noted that the demand is absolutely minimal: that even when deprived of their liberty they can continue to exercise their cultural practices as Mapuche, for the correct application of ILO Convention 169, which is in force and which every State institution has the obligation to apply. In other words, they are requesting the retaking of an agreement that had already been previously reached in its application, nothing extraordinary or outside the law.

For their part, the business media and the traditional parties have promoted a campaign to demonize the demands of the strikers, who have even been accused of having alleged "privileges", which has been repeatedly denied by the strikers themselves and their spokespersons.

The political attitude of punishment by the Gendarmerie against the community members is striking, without respecting the established agreements, ignoring basic agreements that have been applied for more than 15 years in prisons where there are Mapuche prisoners. This institution is responsible for the situation, and the government on which it depends must respond.

At the time of writing this note, the state of health of the strikers is very serious, four of them are in critical condition, and at least two of them have been transferred to the Angol Hospital.

The treatment of this government with the community members on hunger strike contrasts clearly with the treatment it has had with the forestry businessmen, with the big farmers and with the right wing of the zone, applying a hard hand against the communities in resistance, prolonging for more than a year the State of Emergency in the zone, practically doing the dirty work that Piñera's own government was unable to carry out.

The Mapuche political prisoners on dry strike are:

• Simon Huenchullan
• Alejandro Liguen
• Miguel Torres
• Antoni Torres
• Sergio Huentecol
• Boris Llanca
• Juan Penchulef
• Pedro Palacios
• Jorge Palacios
• Alexis Huenchullan
• Sebastian Marillan
• Joaquin Millanao

We support the demands of the Mapuche political prisoners, we demand respect for the agreement reached and the application of Convention 169 and the fulfillment of all the demands of the strikers. We demand an end to the militarization of Wallmapu, the release of political prisoners and the return of ancestral lands.

original article

Keʻeaumoku Kapu has been handing out water, clothes, and emergency supplies to families in need out of the Walgreens parking lot in Lahaina, Maui. He said it is a way to keep himself occupied while he grieves the losses of his community.

"I'm afraid we're not going to recover from this," said Kapu, speaking to CBC from his cellphone at the distribution centre Monday.

Kapu is a Kanaka Maoli (a Hawaiian word for their Indigenous people) community leader in Lahaina, and head of the Nā ʻAikāne o Maui Cultural Center — which was destroyed by the fire that ripped through Lahaina.

While members of the community are still grappling with their immediate needs and the death toll from the fire is still being counted, Kapu said he is "frantic" to make sure he is included in the conversations that are happening about what is next for Lahaina.

"I'm hoping that we can get over this hurdle, but at the same time the fear of being erased ..." said Kapu.

"Because our island is now turned into a cheaper commodity because there's nothing more important to save here, you have people coming in willing to buy burned-out places."

Maui land grabs

Kapu said his family and other members of his community have been contacted by realtors asking to buy their burned-up property.

The office of the governor of Hawaii released a statement warning Maui residents about predatory buyers trying to capitalize on their fear and the financial uncertainty for those who have lost their homes.

In a press conference Wednesday, Governor Josh Green said he is working with the attorney general to put a moratorium on property sales in West Maui.

Social media posts from residents are pleading with people to not sell their properties to these realtors, fearing it will lead to Native Hawaiians being displaced from their homelands.

A non-profit organization called Hawai'i Alliance for Progressive Action has started an online petition to call on governments to use their powers to stop Maui land grabs, support displaced families and ensure decisions are made with Native Hawaiians at the table.

Kapu is urging people not to sell but is worried that people's fear and desperation may drive them to accept these offers.

"You're gonna make our children tomorrow orphans within their own land," said Kapu.

Lahaina holds deep cultural significance to the Hawaiian people and was once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom. The city is where King Kamehameha III had his royal residence, and unified Hawaii under a single kingdom by defeating the other islands' chiefs.

Many Hawaiians still recognize it as the original capital today, long after the capital was moved to Honolulu in 1845.

The fire destroyed Lahaina's historic Front Street, where the cultural centre Kapu ran was located. Inside, the building held many cultural artifacts, like feather capes and helmets, implements, maps and documents.

They were all destroyed.

"Our place was a living place, it was a living museum. It was things that you could actually touch, books that you could actually read, maps that showed a lot of families where they originated from," said Kapu.

But the loss is bigger than that.

Kapu describes the centre as a gathering place for Indigenous people internationally, where culture was shared for the next generations and people could learn from each other.

Kapu is heartbroken over the loss, and holds himself responsible for the care of the objects inside, though he barely escaped trying to save it, only having time to grab his laptop as he ran out.

Ten minutes later the building was engulfed in flames.

"For Lahaina, I'm afraid what this place can turn into now," said Kapu, who worries the historic buildings that have been lost could be replaced by private development.

"This is, for us, genocide."

Full Article

For the second time this year, K’atl’odeeche First Nation in the Northwest Territories was part of the evacuation alert following an out-of-control wildfire fuelled by strong winds and dry conditions over the weekend.

Following an evacuation order in May, the K’atl’odeeche spent weeks away from their homes. K’atl’odeeche community members returned to find their band office burned to the ground and their community damaged.

Those emotions were present as community leadership alerted residents of another evacuation notice.

“I’m sorry to say this, but we are now again on an evacuation notice for K’atl’odeeche First Nation,” Chief April Martel said in a video posted to the community’s Facebook page, her voice cracking.

Only three weeks ago, Canada’s National Observer spoke with federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who was in the community to give a press conference on the riverbed of the Hay River. In his conversations with community members, Singh was told the water level has never been so low in recent memory.

Greenhouse gases trap heat around the planet like a warm blanket. The more greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere, the thicker that blanket gets, the hotter the planet grows and the more the climate changes. Burning fossil fuels is one of the main ways humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and drive climate change, which leads to hotter temperatures and creates conditions that help spark wildfires, like drought. Climate change also makes weather patterns more unpredictable, leading to an increase in extreme weather events.

full article

As Mexico faces its worst water crisis in decades, Indigenous communities have organized to fight back against what they call an exploitative system that has looted and contaminated their ancestral lands.

MEXICO CITY (CN) — On Aug. 1, 20-year-old Lorenzo Froylán de la Cruz was forcibly disappeared in his hometown of Santa María Ostula, in the southern Mexican state of Michoacán, where he served on the town’s communal guard. His remains were found 10 days later.

His death was yet another in what water activists denounced as a “war of extermination” against Mexico’s Indigenous peoples and the resources on their ancestral lands at a press conference in Mexico City on Tuesday.

The conference was held to announce the conclusions and plans of action developed at the third biannual National Assembly for Water and Life, which took place on Aug. 12 and 13 in San Gregorio Atlapulco, in the historic Mexico City borough of Xochimilco.

This war “is taking place on our territories, especially ... against the Zapatista communities,” said activist Eduardo García, referring to the insurgents in the southern state of Chiapas who have opposed Mexico’s government since the mid-1990s.

He added that the war is being “developed and systematized” by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “in order to guarantee and safeguard the interests of big capital and the narco-state.”

Such disapproval of López Obrador's security policy was expressed by several attendees at the assembly over the weekend. The president has been criticized for his advancement and expansion of a growing wave of militarization in Mexico during the 21st century.

In May, Zapatista communities alerted that “Chiapas is on the verge of civil war” in a statement signed by over 1,300 sympathizers and celebrity leaders, such as Mexican actor Diego Luna and American intellectual Noam Chomsky. The group held that López Obrador is either actively or passively complicit in the conflict.

Over 830 people attended the weekend’s assembly, representing more than 200 grassroots Indigenous and environmental organizations and 21 Mexican states. They contend that Mexico’s worsening water crisis is the result of a rapacious capitalist system backed by lopsided policy and intensifying violence.

“Organized crime and paramilitary groups systematically collaborate with the armed forces, the National Guard and state and municipal police, to the point where we can no longer understand them as distinct phenomena, but rather as codependent pieces,” said García, “[the] muscles and ligaments of the weaponized arm of the capitalist narco-state.”

Full Article

We speak with Kaniela Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network and seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, about the impact of this week’s devastating wildfires and their relationship to climate change. The catastrophic fires have destroyed nearly all buildings in the historic section of Lahaina, which once served as the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. What is now being described as the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history was created by conditions such as dry vegetation, hurricane-level winds and developers redirecting water and building over wetlands, which are directly related to the climate crisis. “Anyone in power who denies climate change, to me, are the arsonists here,” says Ing. “We’re living the climate emergency.”

Link to Audio

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating base-20 and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is often known as the Maya Long Count calendar. Using a modified vigesimal tally, the Long Count calendar identifies a day by counting the number of days passed since a mythical creation date that corresponds to August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. The Long Count calendar was widely used on monuments.

Background

The two most widely used calendars in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica were the 260-day Tzolkʼin and the 365-day Haabʼ. The equivalent Aztec calendars are known in Nahuatl as the Tonalpohualli and Xiuhpohualli.

The combination of a Haabʼ and a Tzolkʼin date identifies a day in a combination which does not occur again for 18,980 days (52 Haabʼ cycles of 365 days equals 73 Tzolkʼin cycles of 260 days, approximately 52 years), a period known as the Calendar Round. To identify days over periods longer than this, Mesoamericans used the Long Count calendar.

The Long Count calendar is divided into five distinct units:

• one day - kin
• 20 days - uinal
• 360 days - tun
• 7,200 days - katun
• 144,000 days - baktun

Mesoamerican numerals

Long Count dates are written with Mesoamerican numerals, as shown on this table. A dot represents 1 while a bar equals 5. The shell glyph was used to represent the zero concept. The Long Count calendar required the use of zero as a place-holder and presents one of the earliest uses of the zero concept in history.

The Mesoamerican Calendar - Ancient Americas

The Mayan Calendar

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The Great Pueblo Revolt, or Pueblo Revolt (1680–1696), was a 16-year period in the history of the American southwest when the Pueblo people overthrew the Spanish conquistadors and began to rebuild their communities. The events of that period have been viewed over the years as a failed attempt to permanently expel Europeans from the pueblos, a temporary setback to Spanish colonization, a glorious moment of independence for the Pueblo people of the American southwest, or part of a larger movement to purge the Pueblo world of foreign influence and return to traditional ways of life. It was no doubt a bit of all four.

The Spanish first entered the northern Rio Grande region in 1539 and its control was cemented in place by the 1599 siege of Acoma pueblo by Don Vicente de Zaldivar and a few score of soldier colonists from the expedition of Don Juan de Oñate. At Acoma's Sky City, Oñate's forces killed 800 people and captured 500 women and children and 80 men. After a "trial," everyone over the age of 12 was enslaved; all men over 25 had a foot amputated. Roughly 80 years later, a combination of religious persecution and economic oppression led to a violent uprising in Santa Fe and other communities of what is today northern New Mexico. It was one of the few successful—if temporary—forceful stoppages of the Spanish colonial juggernaut in the New World.

Life Under the Spanish

As they had done in other parts of the Americas, the Spanish installed a combination of military and ecclesiastical leadership in New Mexico. The Spanish established missions of Franciscan friars in several pueblos to specifically break up the Indigenous religious and secular communities, stamp out religious practices and replace them with Christianity. Active efforts to convert the Pueblo people to Christianity involved destroying kivas and other structures, burning ceremonial paraphernalia in public plazas, and using accusations of witchcraft to imprison and execute traditional ceremonial leaders.

The government also established an encomienda system, allowing up to 35 leading Spanish colonists to collect tribute from the households of a particular pueblo. Hopi oral histories report that the reality of the Spanish rule included forced labor, the seduction of Hopi women, raiding of kivas and sacred ceremonies, harsh punishment for failing to attend mass, and several rounds of drought and famine.

Growing Unrest

While the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was the event that (temporarily) removed the Spanish from the southwest, it was not the first attempt. The Pueblo people had offered resistance throughout the 80-year period following the conquest. Public conversions didn't (always) lead to people giving up their traditions but rather drove the ceremonies underground. The Jemez (1623), Zuni (1639) and Taos (1639) communities each separately (and unsuccessfully) revolted. There also were multi-village revolts that took place in the 1650s and 1660s, but in each case, the planned revolts were discovered and the leaders executed.

The Pueblos were independent societies before Spanish rule, and fiercely so. What led to the successful revolt was the ability to overcome that independence and coalesce. Some scholars think it was a millenarian movement, and have pointed to a population collapse in the 1670s resulting from a devastating epidemic that killed off an estimated 80% of the Indigenous population, and it became clear that the Spanish were unable to explain or prevent epidemic diseases or calamitous droughts. In some respects, the battle was one of whose god was on whose side: both Pueblo and Spanish sides identified the mythical character of certain events, and both sides believed the events involved supernatural intervention.

Nonetheless, the suppression of Indigenous practices became particularly intense between 1660 and 1680, and one of the main reasons for the successful revolt appears to have occurred in 1675 when then-governor Juan Francisco de Trevino arrested 47 "sorcerers," one of whom was Po'pay of San Juan Pueblo.

Leadership

Po'Pay (or Popé) was a Tewa religious leader, and he was to become a key leader and perhaps primary organizer of the rebellion. Po'Pay may have been key, but there were plenty of other leaders in the rebellion. Domingo Naranjo, a man of African and Indigeneous heritage, is often cited, and so are El Saca and El Chato of Taos, El Taque of San Juan, Francisco Tanjete of San Ildefonso, and Alonzo Catiti of Santo Domingo.

Under the rule of colonial New Mexico, the Spanish deployed ethnic categories ascribing "Pueblo" to lump linguistically and culturally diverse people into a single group, establishing dual and asymmetric social and economic relationships between the Spanish and Pueblo people. Po'pay and the other leaders appropriated this to mobilize the disparate and decimated villages against their colonizers.

August 10–19, 1680

After eight decades of living under foreign rule, Pueblo leaders fashioned a military alliance that transcended longstanding rivalries. For nine days, together they besieged the capital of Santa Fe and other pueblos. In this initial battle, over 400 Spanish military personnel and colonists and 21 Franciscan missionaries lost their lives: the number of Pueblo people who died is unknown. Governor Antonio de Otermin and his remaining colonists retreated in ignominy to El Paso del Norte (what is today Cuidad Juarez in Mexico).

Witnesses said that during the revolt and afterward, Po'Pay toured the pueblos, preaching a message of nativism and revivalism. He ordered the Pueblo people to break up and burn the images of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints, to burn the temples, smash the bells, and separate from the wives the Christian church had given them.

Revitalization and Reconstruction

Between 1680 and 1692, despite the efforts of the Spanish to recapture the region, the Pueblo people rebuilt their kivas, revived their ceremonies and reconsecrated their shrines. People left their mission pueblos at Cochiti, Santo Domingo and Jemez and built new villages, such as Patokwa (established in 1860 and made up of Jemez, Apache/Navajos and Santo Domingo pueblo people), Kotyiti (1681, Cochiti, San Felipe and San Marcos pueblos), Boletsakwa (1680–1683, Jemez and Santo Domingo), Cerro Colorado (1689, Zia, Santa Ana, Santo Domingo) There were many others.

The architecture and settlement planning at these new villages was a new compact, dual-plaza form, a departure from the scattered layouts of mission villages. Liebmann and Pruecel have argued that this new format is what the builders considered a "traditional" village, based on clan moieties. Some potters worked on reviving traditional motifs on their glaze-ware ceramics, such as the doubled-headed key motif, which originated fro, 1400–1450.

New social identities were created, blurring the traditional linguistic-ethnic boundaries that defined Pueblo villages during the first eight decades of colonization. Inter-Pueblo trade and other ties between Pueblo people were established, such as new trade relationships between Jemez and Tewa people which became stronger during the revolt era than they had been in the 300 years before 1680.

Reconquest Attempts by the Spanish to reconquer the Rio Grande region began as early as 1681 when the former governor Otermin attempted to take back Santa Fe. Others included Pedro Romeros de Posada in 1688 and Domingo Jironza Petris de Cruzate in 1689—Cruzate's reconquest was particularly bloody, his group destroyed Zia pueblo, killing hundreds of residents. But the uneasy coalition of independent pueblos wasn't perfect: without a common enemy, the confederation broke into two factions: the Keres, Jemez, Taos and Pecos against the Tewa, Tanos, and Picuris.

The Spanish capitalized on the discord to make several reconquest attempts, and in August of 1692, the new governor of New Mexico Diego de Vargas, initiated his own reconquest, and this time was able to reach Santa Fe and on August 14 proclaimed the "Bloodless Reconquest of New Mexico." A second abortive revolt occurred in 1696, but after it failed, the Spanish remained in power until 1821 when Mexico declared independence from Spain.

Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

The Tribal community known as "Tigua" established Ysleta del Sur in 1682. After leaving the homelands of Quarai Pueblo due to drought, the Tigua sought refuge at Isleta Pueblo and were later captured by the Spanish during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and forced to walk south for over 400 miles. The Tigua settled and built the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and, soon after, the acequia (canal) system that sustained a thriving agricultural-based community.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PUEBLO REVOLT

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Article

The challenge of the 21st century is how to convert over a century of audio, video, text and more into digital formats before it is too late.

In the thick of this for Mexico’s National Institute of Indigenous People (INPI) is head archivist Octavio Murillo Álvarez de la Cadena and his staff, who say that their work is particularly important because “Indigenous peoples have been historically marginalized,” not to mention that many Indigenous cultures are threatened with disappearing or complete assimilation.

In total, INPI has a collection of over 520,000 non-digital items, which not only includes multimedia but also an important collection of handcrafts.

That collection today exists in analog mediums:

• the Juan Rulfo Library has 86,000 books, magazines, maps and historical and academic documents
• The Nacho López Photographic Archives has 400,000 images
• The Henrietta Yurchenco Sound Archives for 13,000 recordings
• And the Alfonso Muñoz Film and Video Library for 3,000 film strips and 11,000 videos.

Called the Iroquois Confederacy by the French, and the League of Five Nations by the English, the confederacy is properly called the Haudenosaunee Confederacy meaning People of the long house. The confederacy was founded by the prophet known as the Peacemaker with the help of Aionwatha, more commonly known as Hiawatha. The exact date of the joining of the nations is unknown and said to be time immemorial making it one of the first and longest lasting participatory democracies in the world.

The confederacy, made up of the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas was intended as a way to unite the nations and create a peaceful means of decision making. Through the confederacy, each of the nations of the Haudenosaunee are united by a common goal to live in harmony. Each nation maintains it own council with Chiefs chosen by the Clan Mother and deals with its own internal affairs but allows the Grand Council to deal with issues affecting the nations within the confederacy.

The Haudenosaunee symbol of the long house, provided by the Peacemaker, is recognized in traditional geographic locations. Upon confederation each nation took on a role within the metaphorical longhouse with the Onondaga being the Keepers of the Fire. The Mohawk, Seneca and Onondaga acted as the Elder Brothers of the confederacy while the Cayuga and Oneida were the Younger Brothers within Grand Council. The main meeting place was and still exists today on Onondaga territory.

the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s constitution is believed to be the oldest, participatory democracy on Earth. What makes it stand out as unique to other systems around the world is its blending of law and values. For the Haudenosaunee, law, society and nature are equal partners and each plays an important role.

Haudenosaunee’s Legendary Founding

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Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated Oppenheimer comes to the big screen five days after the 44th anniversary of the Church Rock uranium mill spill, when 94 million gallons of radioactive waste poured into the Puerco River, spanning northwestern New Mexico and northern Arizona, and across the Navajo Nation. Children played in the contaminated water, while livestock drank from radioactive aquifers. What came next—cancers, miscarriages, and mysterious illnesses—is a direct consequence of America’s race for nuclear hegemony. It’s an accomplishment built on top of the bodies of Navajo men, women, and children—the lived experience of nuclear weapons development in the United States. But, as usual, Hollywood chose to gloss over them.

The Navajo people cannot afford to be, yet again, erased from history. Hollywood has a lot of work to do, and they can start by standing with the Navajo people and urging Congress to provide just compensation for victims of radiation exposure.

The annual report by the Indigenous Missionary Council links the increase in violence to the dismantling of policies and the far-right rhetoric of the ex-president

Brazil’s indigenous peoples often say that they have been resisting for exactly 523 years, the time since the first Portuguese ships appeared on the horizon line. The annual report of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), released this Thursday, proves that in the last four years, the first president in the history of Brazilian democracy who was openly belligerent against the indigenous cause forced them to make an extra effort of resistance: during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro, violence against indigenous people multiplied exponentially, with 795 individuals killed, 180 of them in 2022.

In the almost 300-page document, this organization with ties to the Catholic Church collects official data from all the states in the country to put together a comprehensive picture of attacks in recent years, which are closely linked to the policies of the former president. Cases of violence against indigenous people (murders, death threats, bodily harm, racism or sexual violence) reached an average of 373.8 per year, with an increase of 54% compared to the previous four years (under the governments of Michel Temer and Dilma Rousseff).

• A study found a 129% increase in deforestation within Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon between 2013 and 2021.

• As a result, an estimated 96 million metric tons of carbon was released in the atmosphere during that period.

• Researchers attribute the trend to illegal extractive activities, cattle ranching and land grabbing by invaders and some Indigenous people.

• Though the amount of deforestation within Indigenous territories is still small compared to deforestation outside of them, the study authors say reducing deforestation in these lands should be a priority to guarantee the rights of Indigenous peoples and help Brazil meet its forest conservation goals.

Despite being among the best safeguards against deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest, Indigenous lands saw a sharp increase in deforestation over the past decade, according to a study published recently in the journal Nature. Between 2013 and 2021, deforestation in these ostensibly protected territories increased by 129%, leading to the release of 96 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.