40-4 Water is Life

Just a few days after Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, signed a historic peace treaty with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known as FARC), a nation-wide referendum voted it down on October 2, 2016 by slim margin, 50.25 to 49.75 percent. While this result may not represent what the majority of Colombian citizens feel—only 38 percent voted and the “No’s” won only by a small margin—the result is valid.

In late October 2016, the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples’ (IFIP) dedicated the Latin America Indigenous Funders Conference in honor of Berta Cáceres, the recently slain Honduran activist, Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) co-founder, and 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner.

The Ngäbe Bugle people reside in western Panama. Together they are two of the seven original peoples that survived the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of Panama. At the close of the 20th century, the Ngäbe Bugle achieved a designation protecting their lands as an autonomous territory. Law 10, signed in 1997, created the region known as the Comarca Ngäbe Bugle and protected approximately 7,000 square kilometers of their ancestral land. Since then, these communities have been fighting to defend the integrity of this land.

Caroline Olory 2004 Equator Prize Winner Atumatu Ekuri (Ekuri Initiative), Nigeria

Anoop Pushkaran Krishnamma 2002 Equator Prize Winner Kerala Kani Community Welfare Trust, India

Osvaldo Munguia 2002 Equator Prize Winner Agencia para el Desarrollo de la Mosquitia (MOPAWI)/Agency for the Development of the Mosquitia, Honduras

Henry Kaniki 2008 Equator Prize Winner Arnavon Community Marine Conservation Area (ACMCA), Solomon Islands

Fear, threats, and intimidation in the communities of San Pablo and San Marcos, Guatemala continue as they resist mega-development projects.