After 13 years of litigation and 122 years of waiting, the United States government is finally paying Native Americans for profits earned on 54 million acres of Native land held “in trust” by the federal government since 1887. The $3.4 billion settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar class-action suit was announced December 8th by Blackfeet Nation banker Eloise Cobell, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Attorney General Eric Holder.

Five Penan communities in Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo have filed a suit against the Malaysian government and three forestry companies operating in the Penan territory. Decades of illegal logging have destroyed most of the Penen's original forest home, and they are fighting to keep what remains. In the suit, to be heard by the High Court of Sarawak and Sabah, the Penan are demanding title to 300 square miles of their lands, a cessation of logging there, and damages. The suit is the latest development in an ongoing campaign by Cultural Survival's Global Response program.

The chair of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights has spoken out against the OceanGold mine construction that is threatening Indigenous residents of Didipio—the focus of a Cultural Survival Global Response campaign. “It’s time to put an end to this,” said Leila M. De Lima. The ongoing conflict escalated into violence when more than 100 Philippine National Police officers used teargas and truncheons to break up a human barricade on October 1, 2009.