The Senate has voted against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling by a 52-48 vote, largely along party lines. California Democrat Barbara Boxer celebrated the vote, calling it a “a huge setback” for the Republicans’ agenda. Just before the vote began, Alaska senator Ted Stevens bluntly warned the Senate: “People who vote against this today are voting against me and I will not forget it.” As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens holds significant power, yet senators were apparently not swayed by this threat.

The Ecuadorian government is now using the term “force majeure” (literally “major force” or “Cause beyond control”) to describe the opposition to oil concessions on indigenous land in the Amazon. The term is usually used to describe natural catastrophes or major upheavals like war, which can void a legal contract. Because of this change in provision, two transnational companies have been allowed to cancel their oil concession contracts with the Ecuadorian government.

Minority Rights Group has issued a report calling on the government of Rwanda to implement laws to secure the land rights of the Batwa, or Pygmies. The report states that Batwa are subjected to “systematic discrimination” in Rwanda by the much larger Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups, and that the Batwa have been “steadily dispossessed of their lands over several centuries.” The Batwa are living in extreme poverty, and receive little support in the way of government or development programs.

In a violent operation last week, over a thousand “tribals”, as some indigenous peoples are called in India, were evicted by Indian security forces from the Muthanga wildlife sanctuary in the southern state of Kerala. Reports vary, but anywhere from two to 20 people were killed during the exercise, and many more, both tribals and policemen, were injured. The action has been widely condemned by international civil society groups and human rights activists.

Isolated indigenous people living in the Peruvian Amazon are being exposed to disease and social disruption due to forced contact with workers from the $1.4 billion Camisea Gas Project, Pluspetrol of Argentina, and Hunt Oil of Texas. The 1.1 million acre Nahua-Kugapakori Reserve is the home of the Nahua, Nanti, Matsigenka, and Kirineri peoples, estimated at a population of 1,000 to 2,000 people. These peoples live in isolation from Peruvian society and have minimal contact with other indigenous populations.

Representatives of CGC and ChevronTexaco, the companies conducting oil exploration on the territory of the indigenous Kichwa people of Sarayacu, claim that Burlington Resources, another corporation, has bought all of ChevronTexaco’s interests in Block 23. The people of Sarayacu claim that they have received information indicating that the interests have only been leased, suggesting that ChevronTexaco still expects to make a profit from their activities in the area.

This week the government of Botswana denied that there were any connections between what it termed the “relocation exercise” of Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and diamond exploration in the Reserve. Officials claimed that Basarwa communities were resettled outside of the Reserve boundaries in order to “empower” them, and to avoid land use conflicts.

In a radio declaration on February 17, Ecuador’s Minister of Energy and Mines guaranteed government support of CGC, a foreign corporation conducting seismic exploration on the territory of the Kichwa people of Sarayacu. The minister claimed that 28 communities in “Block 23” – the area demarcated as an oil concession by the government - also support the company’s activities, and that resistance was only coming from two people from Sarayacu.

Business News Americas reported today that CGC, the company performing seismic exploration on Sarayacu territory known as “Block 23”, is pulling out of the area due to “safety concerns”. The news comes just days after a commission from the Kichwa Sarayacu community in the Ecuadorian Amazon met twice with representatives of the national government. Government officials visited Sarayacu on February 3, and the Kichwa people had an opportunity to reiterate their opposition to all oil operations in their territories.

The Kichwa community of Sarayacu located in the Pastaza province in the Amazonian region of Ecuador has a population of about a thousand people. Its name means “River of Corn”. The Sarayacu maintain their traditional lifestyles and culture, but the threats to that continuity have never been greater.

The International Red Cross says that over 665,000 people across 17 of Mongolia’s 21 provinces are struggling to survive this winter, and the cold is expected to kill millions of livestock. This is the fourth year that extreme winter conditions called “dzud” (a winter disaster that follows widespread drought in the summer and is specific to Mongolia) will devastate animals and herders of this region. At least 24,000 animals have perished since the beginning of this year, and the three preceding dzuds have already killed over six million livestock.

The latest loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the Bolivian company Transredes, which is partially controlled by U.S.-based corporations Enron and Shell, suggests that if a business’ practices are deemed too shady for the United States, publicly administered overseas lending institutions have no qualms about using U.S. taxpayer money to export those methods to lesser developed countries.Transredes is jointly administered by Shell and Enron, which together have a 25% share in the company.