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30.4 (Winter 2006) Land & Resources in the Americas

The Valley of Gold

Indigenous people in Chile’s Huasco Valley have held onto their land and their identity for 4,000 years despite conquerors, dictators, and a dominant culture that didn’t recognize their existence. Now they face a new threat, one that glitters.

The Secret Life of Beads

For outsiders, the elaborate beadwork worn by Maasai herders may seem nothing more than a colorful decoration that enlivens ceremonies and dancing. But for the Maasai themselves, the beads capture their whole world.

The People of the Corn

For Mexicans, maize is not a crop but a deep cultural symbol intrinsic to daily life. Corn was domesticated from a grass called teocintle by the peoples of Meso-America approximately 10,000 years ago. Often referred to as humanity’s greatest agronomic achievement, maize is now grown all over the world. The yellow corn commonly found in the United States pales in comparison to the shapes, sizes, and colors of the traditional maize varieties cultivated by the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

Sharing One Skin

I am from the Okanagan, a part of British Columbia that is much like most of California in climate—very dry and hot. Around my birthplace are two rock mountain ranges: the Cascades on one side and the Selkirrks on the other. The river is the Columbia. It is the main river that flows through our lands, and there are four tributaries: the Kettle, the Okanagan/Smikanean, the San Poil, and the Methow.

Land and Resources

With a population estimated at 40 to 50 million and with 400 identified ethnic and linguistic groups, indigenous peoples represent approximately 10 percent of Latin America’s population. Although their demography varies from state to state (in Bolivia and Guatemala indigenous people constitute the vast majority of the population, while in Venezuela and Brazil they represent approximately 1 percent of the total population), indigenous peoples throughout the region share a common experience: social and economic discrimination.

Human Rights Delegation Finds Colombia Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

In September a delegation of human rights experts from Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Canada, including representatives from the United Nations and the European Union, investigated the state of indigenous peoples in Colombia and issued a statement charging the government with crimes against humanity and other, lesser charges. The group, called the International Verification Mission on the Humanitarian and Human Rights Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Colombia, was organized by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia.

For the Love of Furniture

Big-Leaf mahogany is one of the most valuable types of wood in the international market and highly prized by furniture makers. As a result, it has been logged from most of its original range. The one area that still contains significant numbers of mahogany trees is the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon, and loggers are flocking there despite the trees being protected. Unfortunately, this region is also home to several voluntarily isolated indigenous peoples—groups at severe risk because of the illegal logging.

Fighting for the Right Rights

This edition of the Cultural Survival Quarterly, which focuses on the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and resources, goes to press during the count-down to the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is thus an opportune moment to reflect on what we at Cultural Survival mean when we say we “promote the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Fighting for Rights in the Philippines

Joan Umaming Carling has been an indigenous rights activist in the Philippines for 20 years, and has been associated with the Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance (CPA), an indigenous organization, for more than 12 years. Thanks in part to her work there has been a growing recognition of indigenous issues in the Philippines, but also a growing repression from the government. In the five years since Gloria Arroyo became president, 115 activists and journalists have been killed by armed men who are widely believed to be working for the government.

Extraction: In Colombia, a Mine Takes Much More from the Land than Coal

“It was very beautiful. There was plenty of food; the people here hardly ever got sick because everything was clean; there was a beautiful pond, unpolluted. This was what life used to be like here. It was very safe; you could go wherever you wanted, at any hour of the day or night…

“My house, mine and my husband’s, was a memory that was very dear to us… We had two bedrooms, a dining room. That was the dining room, a bedroom there, and there another bedroom. And the bathroom there. With the toilet there..!

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