The $20 billion Maya Train project in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico has sparked division among locals, who, while eager for the promised economic benefits and increased tourism revenue, are also deeply concerned about the environmental destruction that will come with the railroad’s construction. The four-year megaproject has eschewed Environmental Impact Assessments and ignored scientists who say the railroad and the trainline will have harmful environmental consequences.

Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabeg) says racism is alive in the USA and it fuels hate towards Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth, making it easy for radical alt-right arguments to enter into politics and take away any idea of environmental protection and put business first. Now, the current U.S. Administration is supporting pipelines for Enbridge but made promises to help Ojibwe Peoples.

On February 20, 2019, Samir Flores Soberanes was murdered. He was one of the founders of Amiltzinko community radio where he was a communicator, a member of the Peoples’ Front for Defense of Land and Water for the states of Morelos, Puebla, and Tlaxcala (FPDTA); a land defender against the Morelos Integral Project (PIM); and a promoter of community education and Indigenous Peoples autonomy. 

For decades, legal challenges have been launched with an underlying goal of undermining Tribal governance and sovereignty across the United States. Last year, in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta (2022), the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of its previous landmark ruling in McGirt v.

Dear European Commission President von der Leyen,

We would like to convey our congratulations on your recent visit to Latin America, meeting the Presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico.  

We appreciate that the European Union is committed to strengthening the rules-based international order alongside Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), through, among others, the Global Gateway promoted during your last tour in Latin America.  

My landlord hasn’t removed the wooden boards from my windows yet. So, every morning I wake up to a dark apartment. It’s disorienting as much as it is a reminder of the darkness that is consuming our island; a darkness that is both literal and figurative. Literal, because half of the island’s power has yet to be restored. Figurative, because economic disparity is palpable (and sickening), especially in this time. This time that is post-disaster.

Cultural Survival continues its work in advancing the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples internationally.

The extractivist growth model for transition minerals has emerged in Latin America in recent years, fueled by a sharp spike in demand for batteries and other technologies for the transition to the so-called “green economy” by industrialized countries and rising superpowers alike.

On June 15, 2023, the Constitutional Convention of the province of Jujuy, in the north of Argentina, approved a constitutional reform that severely rolls back achievements made at the national level in terms of human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. The reform also criminalizes the act of protesting.