By Coletivo Buopés

By Jessica Minor

Nestled inside a narrow moat of rainforest between the famous Arenal volcano and the Nicaraguan border lies the Maleku Indigenous Reserve of Guatuso, Costa Rica. Within the three small neighborhoods inside the reserve – Palenque Tonjibe, Palenque Margarita, and Palenque El Sol – around six hundred Maleku spend their days farming the land, painting wooden masks and jícara, or gourd bowls, performing for tourists in their traditional palm clothing, or planting trees in an ongoing reforestation effort.

Protests are ramping up again against the Keystone XL project after the US Department of State released a draft of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) covering the pipeline route from Nebraska to the Canadian border.  The proposed pipeline remains under review at the State Department, and will take comments for 45 days.  Obama recently announced

Cultural Survival is accompanied by Greenpeace and dozens of other organizations in calling for Herakles Farms to own up to their abuses in Cameroon. Read the following release by Greenpeace on their new report- "Herakles: A showcase in bad palm oil production" and video (below), and take action by writing to Herakles directly. 

National Public Radio's All Things Considered is running a two-part series on the relationship between China’s need for raw materials and the exploitation of Cambodia’s resources, specifically destruction of its forests. The first part of the program, which is set in Prey Lang, can be heard here: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170580214/as-china-builds-cambodias-forests-fall

Amid a flurry of recent protests, strikes, negative press, and shareholder divestment, British coal company GCM Resources’ executive Grahram Taggart resigned last week.

The company has plans to construct an open-pit coal mine in Northern Bangladesh that is widely opposed by local Indigenous Peoples, grassroots organizations, environmentalists and UN Special Rapporteurs. 

Traditional Maya leaders reported that Texas-based US Capital Energy has made numerous attempts to buy support for their oil drilling project on Maya lands including those inside the Sarstoon-Temash National Park in Southern Belize by infiltrating the Maya leaders’ traditional forms of governance.   They declared the the company is blatantly undermining and disrespecting Indigenous governance, in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The grassroots parliamentary campaign for Maasai land and human rights activist, Meitamei Olol Dapash, continues to thrive and grow throughout Maasailand, Kenya, but needs help to see victory in the polls on March 4th! Meitamei is the founder and Director of the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition since 1987 and leader of the suit for the return of 30,000 acres of ancestral land at Mau Narok to the Maasai community, due to be heard in Kenyan court next month.