By John McPhaul
A recent report of a commission named by the University of Costa Rica’s University Council to investigate clashes between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous residents in the southeastern Bri-Bri territory of Salitre blames the Costa Rican government for the historic marginalization and treatment of Indigenous Peoples leading to the recent unrest.
Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund provides small grants designed to support Indigenous Peoples’ community advocacy and development projects. Since 2007, the Fund has provided nearly $2.5 million in grants and technical assistance to over 350 Indigenous-led projects in 64 countries around the world.
Zapotec, Wixarica, Odami, and Nahuatl are four of the 68 Indigenous languages spoken in Mexico. Cultural Survival supports many Indigenous community radio stations around the world, including two organizations that are producing radio programs to be broadcast in these languages.
Cultural Survival condemns the murder of the Purépecha environmental activist Guadalupe Campanur Tapia, whose body was found on January 16, 2018 in the municipality of Checrán, Michocán, Mexico. She was strangled to death by two unidentified killers. Investigators have not indicated that Campanur’s death was due to her activism, but they have not ruled it out either.
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.