By Nati Garcia
 

On October 19-20, 2018, Kankuamo Peoples Authority headed by the Mamos, General Elders Council, Town Council, leaders and members of the communities gathered in Makumake, Kankuamo Territory, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, to release the following statement to the national and international public after the burning of a Kankurwa (ceremonial house) in Atanquez, in events that took place on the night of October 18, 2018:

My name is Ali Gonzalez from the Indigenous Boruca community in the south of Costa Rica. I am a one of Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows. I had the pleasant experience of participating in the Second Central America Community Radio Network Meeting held in Panajachel, Guatemala.

Organización de Mujeres Indígenas Unidas por la Biodiversidad de Panamá (OMIUB) or “Indigenous Women United for Biodiversity,” is a group founded in 2011 that works to strengthen, develop, and revive Indigenous knowledge in Panama. In 2017 Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund awarded the organization a grant to strengthen  the governance of Kuna, Embera, and Wounaan People by conducting workshops on the newly established law of Consultation and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).  

Danae Laura, Bazaar Program Manager, comes to Cultural Survival from a decade of social entrepreneurship and marketing in both the natural food and wellness industries. Danae studied Social Justice and Education as a Martin Luther King Scholar at New York University, lived abroad in Ghana as a Gilman International Fellow, and was recently recognized as an emerging scholar by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society for her work at Lesley University where she is studying mindfulness as a tool for social justice. 

Por Jonathan González Quiel

Uno de los casos más emblemáticos en Panamá, en las últimas décadas por la defensa del territorio y la autonomía es el caso de las comunidades indígenas Ngäbe del corregimiento de Bagama, que se oponen al proyecto hidroeléctrico de Barro Blanco.

Desde 1980 el gobierno de Panamá, ha tenido interés en los territorios indígenas Ngäbe, para desarrollar proyectos extractivos (mineros e hidroeléctricos) lo que generó reacciones inmediatas para la defensa del territorio, hasta la fecha.

By Patricia Miranda Wattimena
Reposted from World Policy with permission from author.

By Tricia Hornback, Ph.D

By Nii Gaani Aki Inini – Leading Earth Man (Dave Courchene)
Paintings by  Henry Guimond, Turtle Lodge. Used with permission. 

By Richard Arghiris. Reposted from Intercontinental Cry.

"They have destroyed our Indigenous crops and the government has done nothing to stop it,” said Elivardo Membache, an Emberá Cacique who is fighting to protect his ancestral lands from illegal settlers.