KUCHING, Sarawak, Malaysia, August 28, 2009 (ENS) - Penan tribespeople armed only with blowpipes and spears have erected blockades across the roads cut by logging companies into their forest in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. The blockaders want an end to logging on their lands.

In particular, the Penan aim to stop planned plantation projects. Where the valuable trees have logged out, the companies are starting to clear the land for oil palm, acacia and eucalyptus plantations.

The situation in Ngöbe communities abutting the Chan-75 hydroelectric dam construction site remains tense, notwithstanding the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ (IACHR) decision on June 17, 2009 calling on the government of Panama to immediately suspend construction and to guarantee the personal integrity and freedom of movement of the Ngöbe inhabitants in the area.

In June, the 400,000 indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon won a significant victory: after ten weeks of protests, strikes and bloodshed, they persuaded Peru's President and Congress to repeal laws that ignored their rights and threatened the Amazon rainforest.

The struggle cost scores of lives (the exact number is yet to be established).  The non-violent indigenous protesters gained broad support both nationally and internationally as military attacks on the protesters became more brutal and deadly.

Washington, D.C.—After two years of brutal government repression and destruction of their homeland, the Ngöbe Indians of western Panama won a major victory yesterday as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Panama to suspend all work on a hydroelectric dam that threatens the Ngöbe homeland. The Chan-75 Dam is being built across the Changuinola River by the government of Panama and a subsidiary of the Virginia-based energy giant AES Corporation.

Indigenous peoples of the Amazon continue their protests in spite of increasing police violence and repression. Their goal is to repeal a series of new decrees that open the Peruvian Amazon to multinational oil, gas, mining and logging companies, without consultation or consent of the indigenous rainforest inhabitants.   

If you have not yet sent a (hardcopy) letter to the President of Peru, please do so today. The situation is urgent to save lives of protesters and to support their demands for rainforest protection and the rights of indigenous communities.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples has issued a hard-hitting report on the hydroelectric dam being built across the Changuinola River in western Panama, which threatens the homelands of the Ngöbe people and which Cultural Survival has been working to stop since 2008.

/Naso villagers plead for help

On March 30, more than a hundred Panamanian police officers in riot gear leveled a Naso village in response to a peaceful protest by Naso and Ngöbe villagers who oppose hydroelectric dams that threaten their homelands. Hundreds of people were left homeless and destitute.

On January 23, members of the Patagonia Defense Council delivered international letters to Eleodoro Matte, urging the head of the Matte Group to withdraw from thel HidroAysen Project that would dam wild rivers in Patagonia. The internacional letters were sent by Global Response members in the US, England, Switzerland, Holland, Canada, Australia, Spain and New Zealand.