Why are Indigenous Peoples occupying Fazenda Cristal?
To protect their last water sources from lithium mining, after companies and governments had ignored their pleas for years.
Water = Life, Lithium = Destruction
Mining in the Jequitinhonha Valley dries up rivers and poisons the land, violating the rights of the Pankararu and Pataxó Peoples, whose survival depends on these waters.
They stand on the frontlines!
Keepers of the Earth Fund 2025 Call for Projects in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa
Submission Deadline: August 22, 2025
By Georges Theodore Dougnon (Dogon, CS Staff)
Several political sectors from the center and right—primarily aligned with agribusiness, and mining interests—pushed through the approval of Bill 2.159/2021 in the Brazilian Federal Congress during the early hours of Thursday, July 17, 2025. The bill passed by a vote of 267 to 116 and is being condemned by more than 350 Indigenous and civil society organizations as the most significant environmental setback in Brazil since at least the 1980s.
Cultural Survival expresses our solidarity and support to the Indigenous leader of the Xakriabá Peoples, Célia Xakriabá, who, while serving as a congresswoman in Brazil, was racially attacked by other representatives in the Brazilian Congress, without a proper response from the Speaker.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
“Take away our rivers, our forests, our ceremonies, and you take away our being.”
—Yousif Gilo, Anywaa leader and co-founder of EMIPRO
By IPNEWS
From May 2024 to March 2025, Indigenous Peoples News Bangladesh (IPNEWS) carried out a media project with support from Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Community Media Fund. “Amplifying Indigenous Voices: Audiovisual Reporting & Leadership Development in Bangladesh” focused on one goal: making the stories of Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh heard—clearly, widely, and truthfully.
By Ellen Moore, Earthworks
From June 10 to 13, 2025, heavy rainfall hit Obi Island in Indonesia. As a result, muddy floods submerged three villages in the Island where one of largest nickel mining companies in Indonesia, Harita Group, has been operating.
By Bryan Bixcul (Maya-Tz’utujil), SIRGE Coalition Global Coordinator
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
“When you are no longer allowed to talk to your ancestors, to pray in your forest, to feed yourself, then you are no longer fully alive.”
—Alex Ahimbisibwe, Batwa Indigenous leader, educator, and founder of BIDO
Dear Cultural Survival Community,
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.
