Denmark

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Beluga Whales

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is the system of knowledge gained by experience, observation, and analysis of natural events that is transmitted among members of a community In a subsistence economy, TEK is used to find, harvest, process, store, and sustain natural resources that are needed for food, clothing, and shelter. It also includes the ability to recognize, avoid, and get out of dangerous situations.

The Hagahai: Isolation and Health Status in Papua New Guinea

The Hagahai are a recently contacted group of seminomadic hunter-horticulturalists living in the fringe highlands of Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. Although occasional explorers and miners probably walked through their territory in the Schrader Mountains as early as the 1930s and several attempts were made to census them during the 1970s, the Hagahai effectively remained hidden from mission and government influence until the 1980s.

Indian Girls Make the Best Maids

FOR more than thirty years, the Amuesha Indian community of Miraflores (Oxapampa, Peru) has provided young girls as servants to neighboring haciendas and the homes of the region's lumber barons. During the past ten years, as the demand for servants in the urban areas has grown, more and more Amuesha girls have been taken to Lima to work in middle class homes.

Indigenous Peoples in Copenhagen say, “First, respect our rights!”

Date: 12/10/2009

Indigenous Peoples have a strong presence at the Copenhagen United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)summit, where their main message is: “First, respect our rights!”

Indigenous representatives from every continent have been gathering at all the pre-Copenhagen meetings (in Bali, Bonn, Bangkok, and Barcelona), putting together the platform of the Indigenous Peoples Global Caucus on Climate Change.

Here is their statement:
International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) Statement on the Barcelona negoti

Angaangaq

Angaangaq lights a fire to produce smoke for a ceremony.

Melting the Ice in the Hearts of Men

In my Inuit culture we believe that of all the things that can be created the only one that will disappear before your eyes is smoke. And as the smoke comes to you it has the power to carry away with it any bad things you have in you—bad thoughts, bad things we see, bad things we hear, bad things we say, bad things we feel, and bad things we smell. The smoke carries all of that away from us. And when the smoke clears, you and I can be as we were as children. You think of things that only you know and the Great One knows, and you pray that they will be removed from you.

WORLD: Human Rights Council replaces enfeebled Commission

Date: 03/29/2006

On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.