Dr. Ruth H. Matamoros-Mercado (Miskitu) is a scholar and Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography & Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From an interdisciplinary perspective, her work bridges law, geography, and Indigenous studies to understand and raise awareness of the struggles for land, community resistance, and environmental justice in Central America. Originally from the northern Moskitia region of Nicaragua, Dr. Matamoros-Mercado brings to her research a perspective deeply rooted in the lived experience of the Miskitu people.

By Bobbie Chew Bigby (Cherokee Nation)

On December 17, 2025, Russian special services arrested Daria Egereva, a member of the Selkup Indigenous Peoples from the Tomsk region of Russia, on charges of “terrorism.” The next day, the court decided to detain her in custody for two months. Her next hearing is scheduled for the end of February and could deprive her of her freedom for up to 20 years. Egereva is a prominent Indigenous human rights defender and climate activist.

By Sandra Pelaez (CS intern) and Alison Guzman (CS Staff)

By Mathias Tooko (Maasai, CS Fellow)

By Brandi Morin (Cree/Iroquois)

By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Fellow)

​Each year on February 2, the world observes World Wetlands Day, marking the 1971 adoption of the Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran. What began as a modest international agreement has grown into a global framework for recognizing the ecological, social, and economic importance of wetlands, ecosystems once dismissed as wastelands, but now understood as essential to life on Earth.