indigenous

Israel’s mass slaughter in Rafah will not start with a ground invasion; it has already been taking place.

If we listen to world leaders, we could be lulled into believing that Rafah has been a place of safety. But this city, nestled in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, has been on the threshold of terror since Israel launched its genocidal assault on October 7. The daily toll of genocide and destruction has been devastating even without a ground invasion.

Since October, many families in Rafah have met the horrific fate of Ayman’s family. Israel’s slaughter from the air never subsided, even as it ordered more than a million people in the north of the Gaza Strip to evacuate south.

Instead of safety, Palestinians who fled south found death once again raining on them. In a recent weekend, dozens were killed, most of them children.

The need for an end to the genocide, accountability, and meaningful change has never been more pressing. It is imperative that good people everywhere keep the pressure so we can have a free Palestine and consign any perpetrators of genocide to the dustbin of history.

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Northern Gaza is experiencing a “full-blown famine”, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said, and warned that it is “moving its way south”.

In an interview with NBC News set to air on Sunday, Cindy McCain said that her remarks are based on what the WFP has seen and experienced on the ground. UN officials and aid agencies have for months warned of such a scenario.

Israel has severely restricted the entry of critical humanitarian supplies into Gaza despite warnings from its allies and the United Nations of a looming famine in parts of the Palestinian territory. Its military has also repeatedly attacked and killed Palestinian civilians waiting to collect aid in the Strip.

This week it reopened the Beit Hanoon (Erez) crossing into northern Gaza, but Israeli settlers attacked two aid convoys sent by Jordan. The UN has said the amounts remain insufficient to meet the vast and growing needs of Gaza’s starving population.

The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has previously warned that more than 70 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is facing “catastrophic hunger” any time between mid-March and May.

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Every year on May 3, UNESCO commemorates World Press Freedom Day.

It is being marked today at a particularly perilous time for journalists globally, with Israel’s war on Gaza becoming the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers.

More than 100 journalists and media workers, the vast majority Palestinian, have been killed in the first seven months of war in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

“Gaza’s reporters must be protected, those who wish must be evacuated, and Gaza’s gates must be opened to international media.” Jonathan Dagher, Head of RSF’s Middle East desk said in a statement in April.

“The few reporters who have been able to leave bear witness to the same terrifying reality of journalists being attacked, injured and killed … Palestinian journalism must be protected as a matter of urgency.”

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• Indigenous communities have been threatened and attacked for protesting mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change in the community collective of Acre Antequera.
• The collective, or ayllu, is an Indigenous territorial structure made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture.
• But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater.
• While protesting earlier this month against the harmful impacts of mining, several women in the community said dynamite was thrown into their homes and their children weren’t allowed to attend school.

Environmental activists in Bolivia say they’ve become the targets of discrimination, death threats and even bombings after speaking out against harmful mining operations in the department of Oruro.

The activists, most of them women, have faced escalating violence this year because of their opposition to mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change near the Indigenous Quechua community collective, or ayllu, of Acre Antequera. In some cases, they’ve even been attacked with sticks and dynamite.

Now, they’re making a renewed push to raise awareness about the conflict.

“They realize that there isn’t the same amount of water anymore, that their food is being contaminated with waste from mining activity,” said Carol Ballesteros, from the Assembly for Forests and Life, an organization that has been advocating for the communities. “This is a situation in which they’re being forcibly displaced from their territory.”

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• A caravan of Indigenous Mapuche activists recently concluded an 847-km (526-mi) trek down Argentina’s Chubut River, meeting with communities along the way to raise awareness of the issues they face along the shared waterway.
• From each trawün, or gathering, they determined that Indigenous access to land and water is diminishing, that large-scale projects on their lands are going ahead without their prior informed consent, and that Mapuche communities need a unified stance toward state decisions.
• Huge swaths of land along the river have been bought up by private interests, including foreign millionaires, cutting off access for the Mapuche to the Chubut that they consider not just a physical resource but a spiritual entity.
• The Mapuche are also concerned about policy changes under Argentina’s new libertarian administration, which has already kicked off a massive deregulation spree and could lift a ban on open-pit mining in the region.

CHUBUT RIVER, Argentina — “The waters of this territory converge in the Río Chubut,” began the refrain of a caravan traveling across Argentina’s Patagonia region in the budding first weeks of February. “And like the waters, so too will our voices flow together to be heard.”

The group, made up of Indigenous Mapuche leaders, activists and anthropologists, journeyed along the 847 kilometers (526 miles) of the Chubut River. At each stop along the way, from the Andes to the Atlantic, they held meetings in Mapuche communities. They gathered voices, notes, exhortations and experiences — compiling them to understand what was happening to this river flowing through so many lives.

This trawün — “parliament” or “gathering for discussion” in the Mapuzungún language — addressed how to understand the watershed as a single entity, and how to work together to steward the river and the territory it feeds. Nothing like this had ever been done before.

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Before starting “nomad school” – a segregated church-run school system for Indigenous children that existed in Sweden until the 1960s – aged seven, Lars Stenberg had only ever known the safe environment of his family.

But after three years of bullying at the institution – which the Swedish church has since admitted to being racist – he was left with emotional scars so deep they still haunt him today.

It is only now, at the age of 76, that he has been able to share his experiences with Swedish authorities as part of a long-awaited Sami truth commission. “I lost my self-esteem and everything that entails. I was unsure and, most of all, afraid. I was afraid to do wrong,” said Stenberg. “That has followed me my whole life.”

The reindeer herder, who lives in Arvidsjaur, a small town in Norrbotten county in Swedish Lapland, with his family, is one of hundreds of Indigenous people who have testified over the last year to the commission, which is in its final weeks of collecting interviews.

The Sami, recognised as one of Sweden’s official national minorities, are the only recognised Indigenous people in the EU, with roots going back between 3,000 and 10,000 years.

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• After the Brazilian state apologized for the crimes perpetrated during the military dictatorship, the Krenak and Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous peoples are demanding the demarcation of their territories.
• The Krenak were tortured during the military regime, while the Guarani-Kaiowá were enslaved by farmers; both were forced from their lands.
• Violations also affected Indigenous peoples such as the Avá-Canoeiro, who were driven to the brink of extinction by years of persecution.

In Mato Grosso do Sul state, around 100 Indigenous individuals from the Guyraroká community of the Guarani-Kaiowá people are confined to an area of 50 hectares (123 acres) on the edge of a road, surrounded by soybean and corn plantations. Meanwhile, in Minas Gerais state, the Krenak are fighting to reclaim the area where their cemeteries and sacred sites are located.

They still experience the effects of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964-85, when Indigenous peoples were tortured, enslaved and forced from their territories. “The state will always be indebted to us, Indigenous peoples,” says Erileide Domingues, a young leader at the Guyraroká Indigenous land.

In early April, the Krenak and Guyraroká communities received the first collective amnesties in the country’s history — previously, amnesties had only been granted on an individual basis. The recognition was established by the Amnesty Commission attached to the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, which was created in 2002 to shed light on the dictatorship’s crimes. It is a formal apology from the Brazilian state.

For the leaders of both peoples, however, true reparation will come when their territories stolen by the Brazilian state are returned.

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by Taylar Dawn Stagner on 24 April 2024

• Last week a United States federal judge rejected a request from Indigenous nations to stop SunZia, a $10 billion dollar wind transmission project that would cut through traditional tribal lands in southwestern Arizona.
• Indigenous leaders and advocates are turning to the U.N. to intervene and are calling for a moratorium on green energy projects for all U.N. entities “until the rights of Indigenous peoples are respected and recognized.”
• Indigenous leaders say they are not in opposition to renewable energy projects, but rather projects that don’t go through the due process and attend their free, prior and informed consent.
• According to the company, the wind transmission project is the largest clean energy infrastructure initiative in U.S. history, and will provide power to 3 million Americans, stretching from New Mexico to as far as California.

Last week, a United States federal judge rejected a request from Indigenous nations to stop SunZia, a $10 billion dollar wind transmission project that would cut through traditional tribal lands in southwestern Arizona.

Amy Juan is a member of the Tohono O’odham nation at the Arizona-Mexico border and brought the news of the federal court’s ruling to New York last week, telling attendees of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, that she was disappointed but not surprised.

“We are not in opposition to what is called ‘green energy,’” she said. “It was the process of how it was done. The project is going through without due process.”

It’s a familiar complaint at Indigenous gatherings such as the one last week at the U.N., where the general consensus among Indigenous peoples is that decision makers behind green energy projects typically don’t address community concerns.

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Thousands of Indigenous people marched in Brazil’s capital, calling on the government to officially recognise lands they have lived on for centuries and to protect territories from criminal activities such as illegal mining.

With posters bearing messages such as “The future is Indigenous”, they walked on Thursday towards Three Powers Square, where Congress, the Supreme Court and the Planalto presidential palace are located in Brasilia.

A group of Indigenous leaders entered the palace to talk to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, while others shouted outside the building: “Our rights are not negotiable.” Last week, he backed down from the creation of four Indigenous territories, citing opposition from state governors.

Thursday’s rally marked the culmination of the annual Free Land Indigenous Camp, now in its 20th edition. Unlike the two previous years, the president was not invited to visit the camp, set up in Brasilia’s main esplanade.

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As the genocide in Gaza rages on, various European countries, including Spain and Ireland, have indicated that they are moving towards recognising the State of Palestine.

The new Irish prime minister, Simon Harris, argued that a group of like-minded countries officially recognising a Palestinian state would “lend weight to the decision and … send the strongest message”.

Meanwhile, Spanish officials argued that this could create momentum for others to do the same. Currently, most countries in the Global South, but only very few in the West, recognise the State of Palestine. As it stands, recognition of the State of Palestine is a political and symbolic move – it signals the recognition of the Palestinian right to sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza. In reality, no such sovereignty exists – rather as an occupying force, the Israeli regime maintains de facto control over both territories and effectively controls everything that goes in and out, including people.

Some Palestinians and international human rights organisations argue that recognition is a crucial step towards securing Palestinian fundamental rights and one that offers more legal avenues to hold the Israeli regime accountable. Yet it is difficult to envision how recognition of a state that does not exist would change the reality on the ground for Palestinians facing systematic erasure.

In fact, it is pertinent to ask whether some states are pushing for this symbolic political move amid an ongoing genocide to avoid taking much more tangible actions, such as arms/trade embargoes and sanctions on the Israeli regime, to support Palestinians and reaffirm their right to sovereignty.

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by Sarah Brown on 25 April 2024

• On March 5, a collision between two oil barges in the Peruvian Amazon led to an oil spill in the Puinahua River, near Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a protected region of rainforest.
• Since the spill, local Indigenous communities, who almost exclusively depend on the river for their livelihoods, have been unable to collect water or fish due to fear of contamination.
• The impacted communities are awaiting compensation for their losses, yet face a deadlock as environmental assessments, which could take weeks, must be conducted first before payments are made.
• The ecological, economic and social impacts of the oil spill have not yet been published; for decades, the Peruvian Amazon has been subjected to hundreds of oil spills and leaks, which experts say have wreaked havoc on the basin.

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• Peru’s Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, considered one of the best-protected nature reserves in the world, has seen a spike in deforestation on its fringes from the expansion of illegal coca cultivation and mining, and new road construction.
• The forest loss appears to be affecting the ancestral lands of several Indigenous communities, including the Harakbut, Yine and Matsiguenka peoples, according to a new report by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP).
• The report found that 19,978 hectares (49,367 acres) of forest have been cleared in the buffer of the reserve over the past two decades.
• According to Indigenous leaders, the state is doing “practically nothing” to address deforestation drivers in the buffer zone, and they warn that if left unchecked, the activity will spread into the protected area itself.

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Thousands of Indigenous people gathered in Brazil's capital on Monday at the start of the 20th Free Land Camp.

The week-long annual encampment of Indigenous people in Brasilia will focus this year on protesting against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's unfulfilled promises to create reserves and expel illegal miners and land-grabbers from their territories.

Last week, Lula created two new reserves instead of the six his government had promised for this year.

During the announcement, he acknowledged that “some of our friends” would be frustrated.

Lula said the delay was at the behest of state governors and that it was necessary to find new areas for about 800 non-Indigenous peoples who would eventually be displaced upon defining the new reserves.

“Enough of lawful genocide! Our rights cannot be negotiated, and no one can take Indigenous rights out of the Constitution,” read an open letter from Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil - Apib), the country's main Indigenous organization, published Monday.

The letter was addressed to the legislative, judicial and executive branches of Brazil's government.

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Mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and near-total destruction of infrastructure haunt Gaza as Israel’s war on the besieged Palestinian coastal enclave entered its 200th day on Tuesday.

Israel launched its brutal military offensive on October 7 following a deadly attack by Hamas fighters. Some 1,139 people were killed and about 240 people were taken captive by the Palestinian fighters. Nearly 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and more than 14,000 children have been killed in the offensive which critics have dubbed a war of vengeance.

Here are some numbers that highlight the unprecedented level of violence used in the past six months while Israel remains adamant about launching a ground invasion in Rafah – the southernmost point in Gaza, sheltering 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom fled earlier phases of the war.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 34,183 people have been killed, and 77,084 have been wounded in Israeli attacks.

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At least five Palestinians, including a teenager, have been killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem.

The escalating violence on Friday came as the United States and the European Union imposed more sanctions targeting hardliner Israeli settlers engaged in violence against Palestinians in the occupied territory.

A 16-year-old who was shot with live fire by Israeli forces was among those killed, Palestinian health officials said. The boy – identified as Qais Fathi Nasrallah – arrived at the hospital in Tulkarem after already succumbing to his wounds.

Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Tulkarem, said the Israeli military went into the Nur Shams refugee camp late on Thursday night in an hours-long operation that stretched into Friday.

He said armed clashes carried on between the military and Palestinian resistance fighters, during which people were killed.

The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence in the past year, particularly since Israel’s war on Gaza erupted in October.

At least 468 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers across the West Bank since October 7, according to official Palestinian sources.

In Gaza, Israel’s war has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded over 76,800 more.

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• Indigenous organizations in Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor, which covers 16 million hectares (39.5 million acres) across both countries.
• The cross-border initiative aims to protect the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact who travel freely across both borders and are threatened by those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
• The Indigenous organizations plan to create a commission, made up of groups from both sides of the border, to exchange knowledge and define cross-border Indigenous policies for the protection of isolated peoples, such as measures to prevent territorial invasions and collaborate on health matters.

Indigenous organizations from Peru and Brazil are joining forces to push their respective governments to safeguard a 16-million-hectare (39.5-million-acre) territorial corridor in the Amazon that stretches from the Tapiche River in Peru to the Yavarí River in Brazil.

The 15 Indigenous organizations, which include the Indigenous Peoples of the Eastern Amazon (ORPIO) from Peru and the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javarí Valley from Brazil, plan to create a binational commission to define cross-border policies for the protection of peoples in isolation and initial contact (PIACI) who live inside the Yavarí-Tapiche Territorial Corridor and cross freely between both countries. The corridor spreads across the departments of Loreto and Ucayali in Peru and Amazonas and Acre in Brazil and is also home to the greatest diversity of primates in the world, including spider monkeys (Ateles belzebuth) and pygmy marmosets (Callithrix pygmaea).

“We proposed the creation of a binational commission made up of Indigenous organizations to strengthen the protection strategies of the PIACI, as well as to call for and demand urgent action from countries to stop the territorial invasions,” said Apu Miguel Manihuari Tamani, an Indigenous leader who forms part of ORPIO’s board of directors. “[There’s a] need to articulate efforts for the monitoring, management and surveillance of the territory between Indigenous organizations, both at the national and cross-border levels.”

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• In the last few years it is likely that PepsiCo has been using in its production palm oil from deforested land claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in eastern Peru, a new investigation has found.
• Palm oil from Peru enters PepsiCo’s supply chain via a consortium that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, the second largest palm oil producer in the country which has been associated with deforestation and violation of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In the last three years, further deforestation occurred within the company’s land, the investigation found.
• Some of the forest loss on company-run oil palm plantations occurred on land claimed by the Santa Clara de Uchunya community of Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people.
• PepsiCo manufactures at least 15 products containing Peruvian palm oil that could be linked to deforestation. The company has pledged to make 100% of its palm oil supply deforestation-free by the end of 2022 and for its operation to be net zero by 2040.

The US food and drink giant PepsiCo has been linked through its supply chain to Amazon deforestation and the invasion of Indigenous lands in Peru, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Mongabay and Peruvian outlet Ojo Público can reveal.

For at least three years, PepsiCo’s Peruvian suppliers have been sourcing palm oil from deforested territory claimed by the Shipibo-Konibo people in Ucayali, eastern Peru.

The company, which manufactures snacks including Cheetos and Gatorade, runs a factory in Mexico that buys Peruvian palm oil after it has been processed at a Mexican refinery. That refinery buys from a Peruvian consortium, Sol de Palma, that shares storage facilities with Ocho Sur, a notorious US-funded business accused of repeated environmental and human rights violations.

The storage facilities mix the various batches of palm oil, meaning PepsiCo products likely contain Ocho Sur oil despite no longer buying directly from the company.

Ocho Sur is linked to 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of forest loss in the past decade – both within its own property and through its direct suppliers. While some of the forest loss took place under other companies, satellite analyses by the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) and TBIJ show clear deforestation on Ocho Sur’s land in the past three years. Below a satellite image of an Ocho Sur plantation shows deforestation between 2021 and 2024 (courtesy of TBIJ/Ocho Sur.)

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Minnesota’s Lower Sioux Indian Community is pioneering green building with its fully integrated hempcrete facility – a first in the country

When Earl Pendleton first heard about building houses out of hemp more than a decade ago, it seemed like a far-fetched idea.

To start, it was still illegal to grow hemp – the non-psychoactive strain of Cannabis sativa – in the US. Importing it from overseas was prohibitively expensive. But Pendleton, a member of the Lower Sioux Indian Community, was intrigued by early research that showed hemp could be transformed into non-toxic construction materials that allow for faster build times and result in low-carbon, energy-efficient houses.

Which was exactly what he saw his tribe needed at the time. Roughly half of the tribal nation’s enrolled members – about 1,120 people – are currently in need of housing. With his encouragement, the community started experimenting with hemp as a housing construction material – also known as hempcrete – back in 2016, even before it was decriminalized in the US. This month, the tribal nation is set to open the first vertically integrated hempcrete facility in the nation, complete with its own growing operation.

When the Lower Sioux’s 20,000-sq-ft, $6.2m onsite facility opens in April, the tribal nation will become a leader in the growing green building movement.

But the decision to invest in hemp was first born out of the Lower Sioux’s commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. “The whole idea was just to be able to service our own needs, because we’re short at least 150 houses [on the reservation],” said Pendleton.

To that end, he sees a future where the hempcrete program – which he calls “seed-to-sovereignty” – drives meaningful revenue for the Lower Sioux community to supplant casino dollars, which have been the tribal nation’s main income source for the past 35 years. And there’s even more money to be made by selling off the unused portions of the hemp plant, such as the grain and fiber, because hempcrete only utilizes the hurd, the inner-core fiber of the stalk that’s actually considered waste.

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by Maxwell Radwin on 15 April 2024

• A lithium plant is using untested equipment and potentially mismanaging its use of freshwater, raising concerns for residents about whether the Bolivian government can responsibly manage the rapid growth of the industry.
• Activists are concerned about what they found during a recent inspection of lithium facilities in the Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat with an estimated 21 million tons of lithium.
• They called for increased transparency about what lithium facilities are able to produce and how much water and electricity they’re using.

Bolivia is racing to attract foreign investment in its massive, untapped lithium reserves, with plans to expand operations and build new processing plants. But residents living near the lithium deposits say there are too many problems with the facilities already in operation.

A lithium plant opened last year has untested equipment and is possibly mismanaging its use of freshwater, raising concerns for residents about whether the Bolivian government can responsibly manage the rapid growth of the industry.

The facilities are located in the Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat with an estimated 21 million tons of lithium. Located in the Department of Potosi, the salt flats are believed to be the largest lithium deposit in the world, and makes up one piece of the “Lithium Triangle” with neighboring Argentina and Chile.

“We want to see the industrialization of lithium,” Potosí senator Elena Aguilar told Mongabay. “But it has to be done responsibly for the sake of our natural resources, like water.”

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“For the first time, we saw some rockets that didn’t land in our areas. These rockets were going into the occupied Palestine,” said Abu Abdallah, referring to Israel.

“We are hopeful that if Iran or any other country enters the war, a solution for Gaza might be nearer than ever. The Americans may have to resolve Gaza to end the roots of the problem,” said Abu Abdallah, 32, using a nickname rather than his full name.

He was speaking as footage emerged that was described as showing hundreds of displaced Palestinians trying to return by foot from the central Gaza Strip to what remains of their homes in Gaza’s destroyed north via the coastal al-Rashid Street.

The footage showed smoke, said to be from explosions close to the location of the returning Palestinians, while there were reports from medical services in Gaza that at least five Palestinians had been killed by Israeli military fire in the vicinity of those trying to return.

“We in Hamas regard the military operation conducted by the Islamic Republic of Iran as a natural right and a deserved response on the crime of targeting the Iranian consulate in Damascus and the assassination of several leaders of the Revolutionary Guards,” Hamas said in a statement.

Tehran’s attacks late on Saturday, launched after an Israeli airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus on 1 April killed officers of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, raised the threat of a wider regional conflict.

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Ireland and Norway are both moving closer to recognising Palestinian statehood, leaders of the two countries expressed separately after meetings with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who also champions the move.

Ireland wants to recognise Palestine soon, but in a coordinated action with Spain and more European nations, the country’s Prime Minister Simon Harris said after meeting Sanchez in Dublin on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Sanchez travelled to Oslo, where Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said his country also “stands ready” to recognise Palestine together with “like-minded countries”.

Sanchez said Spain wants to recognise Palestine “as soon as possible”, leveraging the move as a way to gain momentum for a definitive peace process.

The current efforts come as the mounting deaths, starvation and infrastructure damage in the besieged Gaza Strip due to Israel’s war have resulted in growing international criticism.

Within Europe, the concerns about Israel’s war on Gaza have also led to shifting positions – including more nations considering the possibility of recognising Palestine.

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• The Path to Scale dashboard is the first online tool developed to track all funding for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples’ forest stewardship and land tenure.
• It’s already highlighted several trends, including that disbursements globally have averaged $517 million per year between 2020 and 2023, up 36% from the preceding four years, but with no evidence of increased direct funding to community-led organizations.
• Although information gaps exist based on what’s publicly available, Indigenous leaders say the tool will be useful to track progress and setbacks on funding pledges, as well as hold donors and organizations accountable.
• According to developers, there’s an increased diversity of funding, but it’s still insufficient to meet the needs of communities.

Developers have rolled out the first ever interactive online tool to track all funding for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples’ forest stewardship and land tenure.

The Path to Scale dashboard, developed in a partnership between the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and the Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN), provides information on funding from 133 donors since 2011 based on publicly available information. According to the developers, this publicly accessible dashboard will help donors, NGOs and rights holders identify critical funding gaps and opportunities in global efforts to secure communities’ rights.

“I believe it’s difficult, especially for the more locally rooted organizations, to understand who the acting donors are and what kind of funding they are providing to which actors,” said Torbjørn Gjefsen, RFN’s senior forest finance adviser. “So, this tool can help fill that information gap.”

For donors, the dashboard will help them learn how their peers are fulfilling their commitments, whether they’re increasing direct funding, and reduce duplication of funding.

Launching the dashboard was timely, say the developers, to keep track of the progress and setbacks around funding global environmental initiatives investing in community conservation and land rights. At the COP26 U.N. climate conference in 2021, the Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG) announced a $1.7 billion commitment to support tenure rights and guardianship of Indigenous peoples and local communities by 2025. At the U.N. biodiversity conference a year later, targets included funding pledges and a goal to protect 30% of Earth’s land and waters while respecting Indigenous rights and territories.

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Boozhoo indinawemaaginadog,

I wanted to reach out to let you know that Carleton University has posted a position for a Full-Stack Web Developer to take over the Algonquin Languages project, which includes the Nishnaabemwin Dictionary.

https://www.algonquianlanguages.ca/

Here is the job description:

"We are seeking a talented Full Stack Web Developer to join our dynamic team. As a Full Stack Web Developer, you will be responsible for various tasks, including front-end and back-end web development, updating existing web applications, and providing technical support and training to users. The domain of application is web-based solutions for Algonquian languages (Indigenous languages spoken in Canada and North America, like Cree, Innu, Anishnaabemowin, etc.). This role requires a diverse skill set, strong problem-solving abilities, and excellent communication skills."

I'll also be applying, but I would absolutely love if an indigenous person was able to take this position, so the more you can share this job posting with members of the tribe or other tribes, please do! I'm currently volunteering for the project and have some understanding of what the job would entail, so if you have questions please comment here.

Full job posting attached and linked here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkcpQzYWwwRF3Nvo7qSWrbpKKWO4ULHQ/view

Miigwech!

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2265319

Some highlights:

The earthworks, an archipelago of eight sites sprinkled through central and southwestern Ohio, were built 1,600 and 2,000 years ago by the Hopewell tradition, a sophisticated network of Native American cultures that extended from southern Canada to Florida.

The earthworks are the largest set of geometric earthen enclosures in the world, many extending for hundreds of feet in the shape of circles, squares, or animals. Some are built in alignment with the movements of the sun and moon.

...

The eight sites include the Great Circle and Octagon Earthworks in Licking County, the Fort Ancient Earthworks in Warren County, and the Mound City Group, Hopewell Mound Group, Hopeton Earthworks, Seip Earthworks, and High Bank Works in Ross County.

...

As white settlers moved into Ohio after the Revolutionary War, many destroyed parts of the earthworks. Some plowed mounds under to plant crops; other earthworks were destroyed by railroads or canals built through them.

But others were saved by landowners, including the eight World Heritage sites.

...

The World Heritage designation didn’t come without some controversy. The Octagon Earthworks near Newark is on a country club golf course, and in 2018 the Ohio History Connection, as the state’s historical society, used its eminent-domain powers to break its lease with the country club.

The country club sued, claiming the Ohio History Connection low-balled its offer to break the lease. In 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the History Connection could break the lease, but there’s still ongoing legal action about how much money the country club should be compensated.

...

The Great Circle Earthworks today are surrounded by a residential neighborhood, as well as a sprawl of businesses along nearby State Route 79. But inside the Great Circle, it’s easy to forget about those modern distractions, said Sarah Hinkelman, the site’s manager.

“I think that’s exactly what it was intended to be,” Hinkelman said. “A sacred space, very separate from the everyday.”

❤️

I haven't been to any of the mounds in 20+ years, definitely past time for another visit!

@thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net