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Indigenous Peoples Claim Rights at COP-17

Date: 12/08/2011

Indigenous representatives from different parts of the world are meeting in Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9 for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to take a stand and claim their rights.  Grouped together in the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), the various delegations posed a second period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-1010) to the COP, and posed that this be legally binding for all countries.  This agreement, they set out, must include measures that ensure full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples.

Intolerable Intolerance

A new wave of racism against indigenous peoples is emanating from figures so hallowed they are intimidating to confront. But confront them we must; and recognize their words and deeds for what they are. The mistakes of the past are too egregious. We cannot tolerate their recurrence.

Indigeneity in Africa

The articles in this issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly relate to the most marginalized and aggrieved peoples in Africa. Some, such as the Batwa (Pygmy peoples) of Rwanda or the San of South Africa, are hunter-gatherers, or former hunter-gatherers who were driven from their lands and lifestyles by colonialism or development. Others, such as the Maasai of Kenya and the Tuareg of West Africa, are pastoralists whose ways of life require the ability to move freely among traditional places to pasture their animals.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Reports on South Africa, New Zealand

The governments of South Africa and New Zealand must do more, more quickly, to address the inequalities between their indigenous and nonindigenous populations, according to two recently released reports by U.N. Special Rapporteur Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Although Stavenhagen was “encouraged,” and in the case of South Africa, “tremendously impressed,” by each government's declared commitment to improving the situation of indigenous rights, his reports conclude that the governments of both nations still need to make substantial changes to their current policies.

San Cultural Center Opens in South Africa

This spring marked the official opening of !Khwa ttu, an innovative San education and culture center on the West Coast of South Africa. For years the San (or Bushman peoples) have been the victims of a rapidly growing tourism industry in South Africa, but they have shared very little of the economic benefits and have had no control over how their artwork and culture is used. Worse, because of poverty, marginalization, and official indifference, the San are at risk of losing their cultural heritage.

Cultures Within Cultures: When laws ignore reality

When compared to the Americas, African practice on indigenous rights protection is unguided by law. This state of affairs is largely the result of Special Rapporteur Martínez-Cobo’s famous 1984 Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations, which literally made all Africans indigenous, without any need for extra protection of any particular group. That mindset, which is shared by African leadership, long prevented any meaningful attempt at addressing the issues that specifically affect indigenous people in Africa.

The Hardships and Successes of Being Indigenous in Africa

In Africa indigenous peoples face a lot of challenges ranging from marginalization and nonrecognition by governments and other ethnic groups, to poverty, AIDS/HIV, and illiteracy. At the same time there have been remarkable achievements by indigenous people in the last 10 years, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Central Africa, Nigeria, and other eastern and central Africa communities.

In Africa, indigenous people can be classified into two major groups, namely livestock pastoralists and hunter-gathers.

Stories From Home:<br>San Won IPR and Land Rights Victories

Indigenous Activists Tell Cultural Survival What The Decade Meant To Them

The San of southern Africa have made important steps during the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

The Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) was set up in 1996 to support, lobby for, and network among San communities in South Africa, Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. Since its inception, it has assisted the San in fighting for their basic human rights.

An Ecotourism Challenge: The South North Tourism Route

South Africa’s Northern Cape, home to the Nama, Griqua, and Cape Khoi peoples, is one of the most biologically diverse flora regions in South Africa, extending in the northwest region of the country from the craggy desert mountains of the Richtersveld to the coastal seascapes of Hondeklipbaai. The local peoples’ ancestors date back to the early San Bushmen. Despite their ingenuity, fortitude, and sense of the outdoors, they have found that the sting of the former apartheid era has left them in a precarious state with few economic opportunities.

Transfrontier Parks in South Africa

In southern Africa, as in other parts of the world, indigenous peoples are integral components of parks and protected areas. Indigenous Africans are mostly from hunting and gathering societies or from nomadic herding peoples. Although there is controversy about the term “indigenous African,” in southern Africa it is widely accepted that hunter-gatherers such as the San and Khoe are the First Peoples of the region.

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