AlterNative

The Iroquois Lacrosse team face Germany at the 2006 World Championship.
© justlacrosse.com

The British government has refused to allow an Iroquois lacrosse team into the country because they are using Iroquois passports.

The Iroquois, a confederacy of six tribes who straddle the US-Canada border, are trying to come to the UK for the world lacrosse championships.

The game was invented by the Iroquois and other tribes of north-east North America hundreds of years ago, and the Iroquois team is currently ranked fourth in the world.

Both the US and Canada allowed the team to travel using their own passports, with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton granting a special waiver.

The Iroquois and some other tribes have used their own passports when travelling for decades, as an assertion of indigenous sovereignty.

Delby Powless, a member of the team, told Canadian Press that the team was frustrated at the decision. ‘We have travelled on these passports on numerous occasions. The team is very disappointed with what is happening, but we are trying to stay as positive as we possibly can.’

Survival has launched an appeal on Twitter to persuade the British Home Secretary Theresa May to allow the team in to compete. Email mayt@parliament.uk and urge Mrs May to allow the team in to compete.

Retweet now

Bushman man.
© Survival

The long-awaited judgment in the landmark court case over the Botswana Bushmen’s right to water will be delivered next Wednesday July 21st at the High Court in Lobatse, Botswana.

The case was heard on June 9, with many Bushmen making the long journey to court.

When the government evicted the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in 2002, it capped the borehole, the only source of water for the Bushman communities in the reserve.

In 2006 Botswana’s High Court ruled that the government had acted unconstitutionally when it evicted the Bushmen and said they had the right to return to the reserve. Hundreds of Bushmen have since gone back home.

Despite the Bushmen’s repeated attempts to negotiate with the government, it still refuses to let them use the water borehole.

The Bushmen, who live in one of the world’s driest regions, are forced to make arduous journeys to obtain water outside the reserve. Since the borehole was capped one Bushman has died of dehydration.

One Bushman said from inside the reserve, ‘We are thirsty and suffering… The single thing we most need is water. It’s a big problem, especially during the school vacation, when we get a lot of children back, and they are used to getting water every day, and they suffer, and we have to walk all night to Kaudwane [resettlement camp].’

Stephen Corry, Survival’s Director, said today, ‘Thousands of Bushman supporters, all over the world, will be supporting the Bushmen in their long wait for justice. Whatever the court decides, it will be a very important day for indigenous peoples’ rights.’

Lush forests are key to the Pygmy sense of identity. Their land informs their culture and provides their livelihood.
© Kate Eshelby/Survival

Members of ‘Pygmy’ communities in Cameroon have issued a clear message in the wake of the Copenhagen climate change talks: their rights to their forests must be respected.

According to the Forest Peoples Programme , the Baka, Bagyeli and Bakola peoples fear that climate change mitigation projects will further exclude them from their forest homes and that climate change is already affecting their forests.

A central plank of current international climate change talks is REDD – reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. REDD projects could help to protect forests and the communities that depend on them, but only if they are developed with the full involvement of the peoples concerned and have the protection of land rights at the core.

The latest incarnation of REDD is REDDplus, but it is the ‘plusses’ – conservation, forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks – that are causing concern for indigenous peoples. Pygmy peoples have suffered both from the deforestation of their lands and from conservation programmes which have excluded them.

Pygmy communities in Cameroon, state they will only accept REDD if their rights to their forests and to free, prior informed consent over projects are respected and if they get an equal share in any benefits from the projects.

“If we are talking about conservation, then the Baka are the best conservationists. We have been living here since time immemorial, and the forest has not disappeared. Those who now claim they are conserving the forest are the same people pillaging our forests. We see sawmills felling large portions of our forest every day. Is it not this same government that authorises the felling?" Daniel Njanga, Cameroon.

Dongria girl, Niyamgiri Hills, India
© Survival

In the third major blow to Vedanta in a month, the Chief Secretary of the Indian state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) has ordered a new investigation into the rights of the Dongria Kondh tribe affected by Vedanta Resources’ controversial bauxite mine.

The announcement comes just two weeks after the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests ordered an investigation on the same topic, and ten days after leading Dutch investment firm PGGM sold its stake in the company over human rights concerns.

A government investigation published in March concluded that Vedanta’s mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh [as a people]’.

Under Indian law the Dongria Kondh can claim communal rights over the forest land they have historically used or protected.

Vedanta has been attempting to mine the top of the Dongria’s sacred mountain for several years, but has not received the final clearance it needs to begin.

Last year the Environment Minister said Vedanta’s mine would not receive clearance until the Dongria’s forest rights had been settled.

When Survival visited the Dongria in December, it was clear that many of them were not even aware of their right to claim communal land.

Vedanta Resources is majority owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal, who will have to address shareholders’ concerns about these delays at the company’s AGM in London on the 28th July.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said, ‘How many more investigations will it take for everyone to finally accept that Vedanta’s mine would threaten the future of the Dongria Kondh and cause India to breach its commitments under international law?’

Recently-contacted Murunahua man, south-east Peru
© Chris Fagan/Upper Amazon Conservancy

Illegal mahogany loggers are plundering uncontacted Indians’ land in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, according to a new report by the Upper Amazon Conservancy (UAC).

The report says the logging ‘provides evidence that Peru is failing to uphold the environmental and forestry obligations of its 2009
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US’ because ‘more than 80% of Peru’s mahogany (is) exported to the United States’. UAC’s report has been released just a month after the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled to Peru to meet President Alan Garcia and claimed, ‘The United States and Peru are working together to protect the environment.’

The report also reveals how loggers trick Peruvian and US authorities into believing the mahogany has been legally sourced. The logging ‘will continue until the US government unilaterally rejects questionable Peruvian mahogany,’ it says.

Illegal logging settlement inside the Murunahua Reserve for uncontacted tribes, south-east Peru.
© Chris Fagan/Upper Amazon Conservancy

UAC’s report includes photos of a logging camp and cut mahogany in the Murunahua Reserve, which is supposedly set aside for uncontacted Indians’ sole use, in south-east Peru. It says that logging is ‘widespread’ in the reserve, and that a ‘vast network of logging roads’ used by ‘over a dozen tractors’ connects the reserve to a major Amazonian tributary.

The uncontacted tribes in the reserve ‘lack natural defenses against diseases brought from outsiders and are threatened by any type of contact,’ says the report. It also says the logging violates the ‘Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species’ (CITES), which aims to protect mahogany.

The Murunahua Reserve was recently made off-limits to oil and gas companies because of the threat exploration would pose to the uncontacted Indians living there.

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘It would be a tragedy for US citizens to continue buying Peruvian mahogany if it puts the survival of uncontacted Indians at risk.’

Download the report

Bushman man.
© Survival

Plans for a major diamond mine on Bushman land are now back on track after being shelved due to the global recession.

Gem Diamonds mothballed plans for the mine at Bushman community Gope, after global demand for diamonds collapsed. However, the mine’s Project Operations Manager, Howard Marsden, is reported to have described activities at the mine as ‘reaching fever pitch’, with recent evaluations showing that the value of the mine has increased to pre-recession value.

Gem Diamonds, which bought the Gope concession from De Beers in 2007, claims that the Bushmen are in favour of the mine. However, the Bushmen have had no independent advice on its probable impact, and are currently struggling to cope with severe water shortages.

In 2002, the Bushmen were forcibly evicted from their lands inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve by the Botswana government. Four years later, the Botswana High Court ruled that the evictions were illegal and that the Bushmen have the right to live on their ancestral lands in the reserve.

However despite the ruling, the Botswana government has banned the Bushmen from accessing a borehole which they rely on for water. Last month the Bushmen went to court in a bid to gain access to the borehole, when the judge reserved his ruling until an unknown date.

Gem Diamonds was given environmental approval for their operation at Gope on condition that ‘boreholes developed…by [the company] … will be utilized strictly to provide water for the mine.’ The obvious intention of the government is to ensure that Gem Diamonds does not give the Bushmen access to water even though the mine will be built in the heart of one of their communities.

Survival and the Bushmen have always maintained that the Bushmen were evicted to make way for diamond mining. The government denies this, claiming, amongst other things, that the Bushmen were removed for conservation purposes.

However, as the UN’s top official on indigenous peoples reported, the government’s apparent concern for conservation is ‘inconsistent with its decision to permit Gem Diamonds/Gope Exploration Company (Pty) Ltd. to conduct mining activities within the reserve, an operation that is planned to last several decades and could involve an influx of 500-1200 people to the site, according to the mining company.’

Latest reports from Gem Diamonds claim that the Gope mine will involve an underground mine for the first ten years, followed by open pit operations.

Survival’s director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘The UN says projects should not happen on indigenous peoples’ lands without their free, prior and informed consent. Everyone knows this has never been secured for the Gope mine – indeed, for years the government said Survival was lying about diamonds in the game reserve. If the mine now goes ahead, Botswana will once more be seen violating Bushman rights bringing more condemnation about Botswana diamonds. What will it take for the government to realize that diamond buyers are not immune from ethical considerations?’

Vedanta Resources plans to mine the Dongria Kondh's homeland.
© Survival

A firm managing pensions for more than two million people in the Netherlands has sold its €13million (US$ 16million) stake in the notorious mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources.

PGGM investment firm made ‘intensive efforts’ to engage with British company Vedanta over its plan to mine the sacred mountain of India’s Dongria Kondh tribe for aluminium ore. But according to PGGM, Vedanta refused to participate in a roundtable discussion on the issue.

PGGM stated that Vedanta had made ‘insufficient improvements’ on human rights standards, and was ‘burdened with growing reputation risk, which may also translate into financial risks.’

PGGM joins the Norwegian government pension fund, the Church of England, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and others in dumping its Vedanta shares after a sustained campaign by the Dongria, local activists, Survival and others.

The news comes less than a month before Vedanta’s Annual General Meeting in London. Last year the meeting was beset with protestors including Bianca Jagger.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said, ‘This news from PGGM is very welcome. Its story is a salutary tale for investors still trying to ‘engage’ with Vedanta on human rights issues. The company does not listen to investors: the only reasonable option is to sell up now.’

A Jarawa man and boy by the side of the Andamans Trunk Road
© Salomé

A report published by UNESCO has called for the immediate closure of the Andaman Trunk Road, which cuts illegally through the Jarawa tribal reserve.

India’s Supreme Court ordered in 2002 that the highway must be closed to protect the Jarawa, but the Indian government has kept it open.

Survival International is also calling for the closure of the road.

The Jarawa resisted contact with outsiders on India’s Andaman Islands until 1998. The UNESCO report brings together research on the tribe and their territory, which is also home to endangered animal and plant species and is the most significant tract of rainforest remaining on the islands.

The report’s recommendations also include protection of the Jarawa’s territory from violation by poachers and other outsiders, and education of local Indian settlers and government officials about the Jarawa and their rights.

It concludes that self determination ‘has to be the ultimate aim of any process that will involve the Jarawas – to help them negotiate with a rapidly changing, predatory world that exists around them.’

Download the UNESCO report

Brother Paul McAuley, targetted by Peru's government for expulsion from the country.
© Marc de Jersey/Survival

The Peruvian government’s attempt to expel British environmental activist Paul McAuley from the country has been blocked.

A statement from the Ministry of the Interior was given to McAuley on 1 July, ordering him to leave the country by 7 July.

But McAuley applied to a local court for an injunction on the Ministry’s order. That injunction was granted two days ago, permitting him to stay in Peru in the immediate future.

Many people and organizations in Peru and around the world have shown their support for McAuley after the Ministry’s order was made public, including Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights and leading Peruvian indigenous organization AIDESEP. Hundreds of people have protested in the streets in Iquitos, the town where McAuley lives.

McAuley is president of the Loreto Environmental Network and has spoken out against environmental and human rights abuses in northern Peru for years. Survival has written to Peru’s Minister of the Interior, Octavio Salazar, urging him to revoke the order and permit McAuley to remain in Peru.

Penan armed with blowpipes block road as Shin Yang logging trucks approach.
© Survival 2009

Nomadic tribespeople in Borneo are blockading a road to stop loggers destroying their rainforest.

Members of the Penan tribe have mounted the blockade in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, to stop the destruction of the forests they depend on for their survival.

Malaysian timber company Lee Ling is logging in the area, and there are plans to clear the Penan’s forests completely to establish plantations of fast-growing trees for paper production.

The Penan say the plantations will leave them with nothing. They live by hunting, gathering and fishing, and will have nowhere to find food if the forests are chopped down.

Penan protesting at the blockade in northern Sarawak say they have experienced a violent attack by a logger. They are also going hungry, because manning the blockade means they are unable to spend time finding food.

The protestors include nomadic Penan, and those living in settled villages.

One Penan man told Survival, ‘We can’t live in a plantation environment. It is like asking fish to live on the land.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘How many more Penan protests, and how much more intimidation by the loggers, will we see before Malaysia recognizes that this land belongs to the Penan?’

Four Ayoreo-Totobiegosode men make first contact with the outside world in 2004.
© GAT / Survival

A man belonging to the only uncontacted tribe in South America outside the Amazon basin has been sighted near a region targeted for deforestation by Brazilian cattle-ranchers.

When spotted, the man hid behind a tree, and later fled. The next day an abandoned camp, a clay dish, and game ready for cooking were found nearby.

The man is one of an unknown number of uncontacted Ayoreo-Totobiegosode Indians living in the dry forests of northern Paraguay. The Totobiegosode have lost huge swathes of their land in recent years to cattle-ranchers, such as the Brazilian firm Yaguarete Pora S.A.

A clay dish for toasting seeds was found where the isolated Indian was spotted.
© GAT/Survival

The man was seen just to the south of the area owned by Yaguarete. In a letter to the Paraguayan government about the sighting, already-contacted Totobiegosode leaders said, ‘We are very concerned about [our relatives still in the forest]. They’re threatened by the deforestation in that region.’

Yaguarete was recently fined $16,000/£10,500 by the Paraguayan authorities for concealing the existence of the Totobiegosode in the area where it was given a licence to work. Earlier this year, the company won Survival’s ‘Greenwashing Award’ 2010 for ‘dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians’ forest as a noble gesture for conservation.’

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘This is further proof the Indians exist. It’s going to make things even more difficult for cattle-ranchers like Yaguarete in the future.’

Peru’s government has announced plans to expel the British environmentalist Brother Paul McAuley from Peru.

McAuley has spoken out in defence of the Amazon rainforest and indigenous rights in Peru for many years. He is president of the Loreto Environmental Network, a grassroots organization based in Iquitos, the largest town in the northern Peruvian Amazon.

McAuley learned of the government’s move on July 1 and has been given just seven days to leave the country. He has lived in Peru for 20 years.

According to a document from the Minister of the Interior, signed 11 June, McAuley has participated in ‘political activities contrary to public order.’

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘Peru’s government, and particularly President Garcia, are clearly determined to brook no opposition to their plans to carve up the Amazon to oil and gas companies. Paul McAuley has been a persistent thorn in their side. For all the talk of listening to indigenous people after the killings in the Amazon last year, the government has initiated a campaign of persecution against the Indians’ leaders, and now appears to be going after their allies.’

A Dongria Kondh man.
© Jason Taylor

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests is sending a new team of experts to investigate Vedanta Resources’ planned Niyamgiri mine, before making a decision on granting official clearance for the project.

The team must report back by the 29th July – the day after FTSE100 company Vedanta holds its Annual General Meeting in London. Vedanta is majority-owned by billionaire London resident Anil Agarwal.

The expert team will investigate the mine’s potential ‘impact on the livelihood, culture and material welfare of the Dongaria Kondhs’ and its ‘impact on the Wildlife and Biodiversity in the surrounding areas’.

This is the second investigation commissioned by the Environment Ministry regarding Vedanta’s mine this year. The last team reported that the mine ‘may lead to the destruction of the Dongria Konds [as a people]’.

A dam in the Amazon rainforest.
© Survival

Enawene Nawe Indians in Brazil are demonstrating against a series of hydroelectric dams which are killing the fish they rely on.

Three hundred Indians have gathered in the town of Sapezal in the Amazon state of Mato Grosso, armed with bows and arrows to protest against the dam project.

Survival International is calling for the Enawene Nawe’s rights to their land to be upheld.

Unlike most tribes in the Amazon, the Enawene Nawe do not eat meat, so fish are essential to their diet.

A total of 77 small hydroelectric dams are planned for the Juruena River, upstream of the tribe’s land. Five are already under construction.

The Enawene Nawe were not consulted about the project, and they say that since work started the Juruena and its tributaries have become polluted.

During the protests the Enawene Nawe have met with the Brazilian authorities to reiterate their opposition to the dams. They are also demanding a full, independent environmental impact study.

Every year the Enawene Nawe perform yãkwa, an important ritual in which they build intricate dams across the smaller rivers and trap fish in large baskets.

The fish are smoked and transported back to the village, where some are offered to the yakairiti spirits of the underworld in elaborate ceremonies.

This year and last year the Indians caught almost no fish, a disaster for the tribe, who rely on fish as their main source of protein.

In 2008 the Enawene Nawe occupied one of the dam construction sites and destroyed much of the equipment on the site.

Apache children before being taken from their families and sent to a white-run school. USA, 19th Century.
© Agfa foto-Historama

An Indian MP’s call for the children of a recently-contacted Andaman Island tribe to be removed from their parents and sent to residential schools has sparked worldwide outrage.

Indigenous people around the world have reacted furiously to the move, which echoes the much-criticised policy of the ‘Stolen Generation’ in Australia, and similar policies in North America.

Apache children after being taken from their families and sent to a white-run school. USA, 19th Century.
© Agfa foto-Historama

Michael Cachagee, Executive Director of the National Residential School Survivors’ Society (NRSSS) in Canada, said, ‘The NRSSS cannot comprehend or fathom that any nation in today’s world would consider interning any of their citizens, especially children, in a ‘residential school’, given the horrific history associated with these types of schools in Canada and other parts of the world.’

From Brazil, Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami said, ‘This plan is very bad. The forest is the Jarawa’s home. They are in their own land. They have their own traditions and their own culture. If the government takes their children away and puts them in a school, they will lose their culture.  If they are made to leave and live in a town, in a school, it would be a crime.’

MP (Member of Parliament) Bishnu Pada Ray wants to ‘wean’ Jarawa children away from the tribe in order to ‘drastically mainstream’ them.

He will propose to India’s Island Development Authority in July that ‘quick and drastic steps be taken to bring the Jarawa up to the basic mainstream characteristics’. He describes the Jarawa as being ‘in a primitive stage of development’ and ‘stuck in time somewhere between the stone and iron age’.

Similar schemes in the US, Canada and Australia are now acknowledged to have been disastrous, and to have left hundreds of thousands of indigenous people traumatized.

Mr Ray is also demanding that restrictions on developments in the Jarawa reserve be lifted, so that a highway running through the reserve can be upgraded, and a railway built. India’s Supreme Court ordered in 2002 that the existing Andaman Trunk Road must be closed to protect the Jarawa, but it remains open.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘These scandalous proposals are contemptuous both of indigenous peoples’ rights and the UN’s standards for their protection. Attempts to force the Jarawa to abandon their way of life will simply destroy them.’

Read in full the Andamans MP’s proposals regarding the Jarawa

Note to Editors: For more information on the devastating impact of imposing development on tribal people read Survival’s ground-breaking report, Progress Can Kill

Dongria girl, Niyamgiri Hills, India
© Survival

In a highly unusual move, India’s Prime Minister has intervened directly in the approval process for one of the world’s most controversial mines. The office of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has written to the Environment and Forests Ministry urging it to clear Vedanta’s proposed Niyamgiri mine in Odisha. The mine cannot go ahead without official clearance from the Ministry.

The mine is likely to have a devastating effect on the Dongria Kondh tribe who live in the area. A Dongria Kondh man told Survival, ‘Mining only makes profit for the rich. We will become beggars if the company destroys our mountain and our forest so that they can make money.’ The tribe has become known as the ‘real Avatar tribe’ because of the parallels between their plight and that of the Na’vi in James Cameron’s blockbuster.

A team of experts commissioned by the Environment Ministry to investigate Vedanta’s plan earlier this year warned that the Niyamgiri mine could ‘lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh [as a people].’

FTSE 100 company Vedanta is majority-owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal.

The Ministry has appointed another expert team to conduct further investigations. Reports indicate that the Environment Ministry will then announce its decision, around the time of Vedanta’s AGM in London on the 28th July.

Last year the UK government condemned Vedanta, declaring that it ‘did not respect the rights of the Dongria Kondh’ and that a ‘change in the company’s behaviour [is] essential.’ The Church of England, the Norwegian government and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust are among the high-profile investors that have sold their Vedanta shares over serious human rights concerns.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry, said, ‘The Prime Minister ought to be protecting the rights of India’s most vulnerable citizens, not helping to railroad through a project that government experts have warned could destroy them.’

First contact can decimate tribes. An estimated 50% of the Nahua, a tribe in south-east Peru, died after contact in the 1980s.
© Jonathan Mazower/Survival

French company Perenco has hit Peru’s headlines after a controversy over oil exploration in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon.

Perenco was featured on page six of the daily newspaper La Republica after indigenous leader Alberto Pizango criticized the company for claiming uncontacted tribes in the region where it is working, known as Lot 67, do not exist. Pizango made the comments, in a letter to the government’s indigenous affairs department, shortly after returning from eleven months in political asylum in Nicaragua.

The headline of the Republica article is ‘Warning: Pizango says there are uncontacted tribes where oil company Perenco wants to build a pipeline.’ The article cites Pizango’s letter, saying that independent anthropologists, the regional government and the company that worked in the region before Perenco have all recognised the existence of the tribes.

Perenco recently admitted transporting, by helicopter, ‘seven Eiffel Towers’ worth of ‘material and consumables’ into Lot 67. It is also hoping to build a pipeline to help move the oil from Lot 67 to Peru’s Pacific Coast.

The film 'Birdwatchers' highlights the plight of the Guarani Kaiowá Indians in Brazil
© Marie Hippenmeyer

Italian-Brazilian film ‘Birdwatchers’, which highlights the plight of the Guarani Kaiowá Indians in Brazil, has won the prestigious One World Media Award.

The jury said that it was ‘unanimous in voting as the winner this engrossing and beautifully made film’.

The film received excellent reviews also when it was premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2008.

Birdwatchers shows how Guarani land is being destroyed to produce bio-fuels for cars and other vehicles, through a love affair between the daughter of a wealthy land owner and a young Guarani shaman apprentice.

Evicted from their land and suffering from terrible living conditions, like those of many real-life Guarani, the Guarani community in the film resolves to take back its land from the rancher who has occupied it. This attempt is met with violent repression.

230 Guarani, who had never acted before, were involved in the making of the film, which is written and directed by Chilean-Italian film maker Marco Bechis.

Guarani actor Ambrósio Vilhava said he hopes the film will result in the legal recognition of Guarani land: ‘This is what I most hope for: land and justice’.

Survival International has opened a fund in association with the film, to help the Guarani defend their rights, lands and futures.

The Guarani Kaiowá live in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. They have lost much of their land to cattle ranchers and sugar cane and soya planters, often in brutal evictions.

Many Guarani are forced to live in overcrowded reserves or in camps at the side of highways, where they have little food and clean water. They suffer extremely high rates of suicide, malnutrition, unfair imprisonment and alcoholism, and are regularly targeted and killed by gunmen hired by the ranchers who have taken over their land.

A report sent by Survival International to the United Nations earlier this year condemned the situation of the Guarani and called for the Brazilian government to map out and protect their ancestral lands as a matter of urgency.

Birdwatchers can be purchased from Survival’s shop.

A Palawan climbing an aerial bridge made of rattan canes to reach a ginuqu tree canopy.
© Dario Novellino

Six hundred indigenous people and farmers took to the streets on Palawan Island in the Philippines on June 7, to protest against plans to mine nickel on their land.

The demonstrators called upon the provincial government to prevent the companies Macro Asia and Ipilian Nickel Mining Corporation (INC) from mining in the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, which is their home. They also expressed their anger at news that Canadian mining company MBMI has been granted initial approval to mine.

As a result of negotiations with protesters, the provincial government agreed that its endorsements of both Macro Asia and INC’s plans required further investigation. The companies’ applications have been ‘frozen’ until all issues are clarified.

The protestors called their demonstration a ‘Karaban’ rally; Karaban is the indigenous Palawan’s word for the bamboo quiver that contains darts for their blowpipes. It is a symbol of their identity, and signifies, they say, that they are willing to take ‘whatever action is necessary’ to stop the mining companies entering their traditional territories

Indigenous spokesperson for ALDAW (Ancestral Land/Domain Watch) Artiso Mandawa, said, ‘Mining is not development, it creates conflict among people, and it destroys our culture by bringing foreign values to our community. Some of my people still have limited contact with the outside and are not even registered in the national and provincial census. They are the first inhabitants to arrive on this island and yet, for the government, they appear not to exist.’

Maman Tuwa, an elder of the isolated Palawan tribe from Mt Gantong, fears that mining will destroy his community. ‘If our mountains are deforested, how are we going to survive? What are we going to plant if the soil of the uplands will be washed down to the lowlands? How are we going to feed our children? We’ll surely die’.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said, ‘We welcome the decision to freeze the mining applications on the land of the Palawan tribal people, and we urge the Philippine government to ensure that no mining takes place on their land without their genuine free, prior and informed consent. We also call upon President-elect Benigno Aquino III, to revoke the 1995 Mining Act which has been so disastrous for the indigenous peoples of the Philippines.’

Inpex bought its 25% stake off Brazilian company Petrobras.
© Survival

A Japanese company, Inpex Corporation, has bought a 25% stake in an oil and gas concession in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon.

The concession, known as Lot 117, is in northern Peru and includes an area inhabited by uncontacted Indians.

Inpex bought the 25% stake off Brazilian company Petrobras, which retains 50% of the concession. Inpex’s purchase was announced by Perupetro and reported by Dow Jones Newswires.

No mention was made in Dow Jones’s report that Lot 117 includes uncontacted Indians’ territory, or that only nine days ago Peru’s national Amazon indigenous organization, AIDESEP, published a statement about three local indigenous organizations rejecting the presence of oil and gas companies in that region.

‘We will not accept oil companies on our land,’ said a declaration signed at a recent meeting by one local organization.

Last year AIDESEP published statements from Secoya and Kichwa organizations rejecting Petrobras’s presence in Lot 117. Colombian company Ecopetrol also has a 25% stake in the lot.

Survival is urging all companies to abandon work in regions inhabited by uncontacted tribes, or any area where they do not have the free, prior and informed consent of the local people.