Shocking images have been released over the past few days showing the suffering of Yanomami Peoples in the Brazilian and Venezuelan Amazon. In the third week of January 2023, Yanomami people in Roraima, northern Brazil, were found with severe malnutrition, especially in children. According to the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, nearly 100 children between the ages of 1 and 4 died in 2022 from malnutrition, malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea.
Swapping seeds is essential to protecting biodiversity. January 28 is National Seed Swap Day and an occasion to share the incredible work of Las Delicias Botanical Garden in Misak territory, San Fernando, Silvia municipality, Colombia. Their work centers around the protection of native seeds through their circulation among families, the orchard, and the seed bank.
Michael Joseph is a consultant with our Capacity Building Program working in Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan, Mexico. Michael has worked for peace, justice, and human rights in Latin America for over 20 years. From 2007-2019, he worked with the Prophetic Call's human rights documentation program in Colombia which documented more than 10,000 human rights violations during Colombia’s internal armed conflict. From 2017-2019, Michael coordinated the Cafepaz Peace Studies Center based at the Baptist University and International Seminary of Cali. Michael and his wife Yazmín (Yucatec Maya) are co-directors of the Nojolo’on Community Peace Center in Peto, Yucatán which works for Indigenous rights, peacebuilding, and community organizing in Peto, Yucatan.
Maya Q’eqchi’ and Mopan Peoples from southern Belize have always fought for their right to live peacefully in their own lands.
Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund grant partners, the A’i Cofán de Dureno community in Ecuador, have been mobilizing to defend their ancestral lands against oil exploitation by the national oil company Petroecuador for six months.
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.
