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 CS Staff
The rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and natural resources constitute the material and spiritual basis of their self-determination, cultural identity, food systems, political organization, and intergenerational continuity.
By Nichodimas Cooper (Nama, CS Journalism Fellow)
By Gregory Jones (Shawnee)
By Mathias Tooko (Maasai, CS Fellow)
By Jagat Man Lama Dong, Chairperson, Indigenous Rights Foundation
The rural municipality of Umakunda, located in the ancestral homeland of the Sunuwar People, is a prime example of the disruption to communities caused by climate change. Many Sunuwar are leaving for cities because they can no longer earn a living from farming, their traditional occupation. Biren Sunuwar (Sunuwar) from Kubukasthali articulates the trend: “There is nothing in the village. It’s impossible to make a living here.”
By Lucas Kasosi (Maasai, CS Fellow)
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.
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.
