Amsterdam, 27 May 2014 - Illegal and corrupt behaviour by foreign-owned companies engaged in establishing large palm oil plantations not only threatens local communities and forested areas th
Over a hundred Maya people from Southern Belize gained access to their traditional communal lands that have been expropriated by Texas oil company US Capital Energy in a staged peaceful protest in May.
Press Release by the Maya Leaders Alliance
June 26th, 2014, Punta Gorda Town. One year after the decisive judgment of the Belize Court of Appeal that upheld Maya Customary Land Rights, Maya people of the 39 villages in southern Belize came together at Indian Creek village, Toledo. This was The Gathering of the Children of the Earth. This historic event led by the Toledo Alcaldes Association and the Maya Leaders Alliance is an affirmation of the Maya Peoples solidarity for creating a more dignified and just Belize!
Herakles Farms, a US company, has been chopping down miles of dense forest without the full authority to do so -- and in the face of desperate pleas and resistance from local communities.
The palm oil project will also destroy precious chimpanzee and forest elephant habitat if it goes ahead.
Aurelio Chino Dahua, the "apu," or traditional leader and president of the Quechua Federation of the Upper Pastaza, attended this year's UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in May in New York city, with the support of Cultural Survival in partnership with the Rainforest Foundation US. Cultural Survival coordinated a meeting for him with both the outgoing and the incoming Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya and Victoria Tauli Corpuz, respectively.
By Elliot Setzer, Intercontinental Cry
Taseko Mines Ltd. applied to the Federal Government for a second judicial review on March 26, 2014 after their proposal for the New Prosperity gold and copper mine in Tsilhqot’in territory was yet again rejected.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.