On March 8, 2012 several hundred Indigenous people began a two week march across Ecuador to call attention to their protest of a large-scale open-pit copper mine. Ecuacorriente, a Chinese company, has been authorized by the Correa government to develop a mine near El Pangui, Zamora-Chinchipe Province, in the southern part of the country.
By Ella Nathanael Alkiewicz (Labrador Inuk)
Five percent of Canada’s total population is Indigenous. Canadian Inuit, First Nations, and Métis are living, working, buying, and being alongside settlers, four-leggeds, winged-ones, and fins with the flora and fauna.
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Intern)
“Our Elders hunted lions to protect our herds. Today, we are hunting for something else, plastic. It doesn’t roar, but it’s killing our way of life.”
— Ipato Kenta, Founder of Tembea Make An Impact
Over the past six months, Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin has travelled repeatedly to Ecuador, reporting on the impact of Canadian mining projects on the Indigenous Peoples who live there. In February, she spent time with the Shuar people, whose ancestral territory is threatened by a Solaris Resources copper mining project.
By Brandi Morin (Iriquois, Cree)
By Pablo Xol (Maya Qʼeqchiʼ, CS Staff)
By Verónica Aguilar (Mixtec, CS Staff)
On May 22, the International Day for Biological Diversity, Cultural Survival presents the practice of chaku, or vicuña wool harvesting, in the La Angostura area of Catamarca Province in Argentina. Chaku is an economic and cultural activity that promotes the conservation of nature on Indigenous lands.
By Esther Mwangaza
The Lemera cluster in the Democratic Republic of Congo is rich in cassiterite, a valuable mineral used in the global electronics industry. However, the pursuit of this mineral has led to conflicts with the ancestral land rights of Indigenous Pygmy communities. Mining operations have displaced many Pygmy families from their farmlands and cassava fields without consultation, leaving them without sustainable livelihoods and access to natural resources like water wells and sacred sites.
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.
