Two community activists who have been outspoken against the illegal logging and land concessions within the Prey Lang forest in Cambodia are being targeted by local police. Roeun Sopheap and Sim Sean have reported patrols of police waiting outside their homes and have been living in hiding throughout the past month.
On December 15th, GCM held its annual shareholders’ meeting in London, amidst throngs of protesters demonstrating outside the building. Protesters waved banners tagging the project as”modern day colonialism,” and carried “eviction notices” from the people of Bangladesh telling the company to abandon the Phulbari Coal project and leave the country, according to a report from the news site Morning Star.
This short documentary about threats to the Prey Lang forest and the Kuy community’s efforts to protect it was produced by Cambodian student Kim Samath as part of the Southeast Asian Student Documentary Award Competition. To make her film, "Prey Lang - Fire of Light, Light of Hope," she traveled to the Prey Lang Forest to investigate how people live within Cambodia’s largest forest, which is under constant threat of deforestation.
See the film here:
In a vote of 2 to 1, Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ruled that the Chinese owners of the Ramu nickel mine may dump toxic waste from their mine and refinery directly into the Bismarck Sea at Basamuk. The plaintiffs in the case were Rai Coast landowners Louis Medaing and 1083 others, representing thousands of Indigenous families whose livelihoods depend on the health of the marine ecosystem.
Over 250 activists were confronted by police during a Buddhist prayer ceremony for the protection of Prey Lang forest in Cambodia. Held at the Angkor Wat complex on December 14th, the event was organized by the Prey Lang Network to call attention to the destruction occurring within the Prey Lang forest, an area that is currently under threat from 33 separate
Yesterday a Kenyan court recognized the transfer of title to the property known as Eland Downs, from the African Wildlife Foundation to the Kenya Wildlife Service, the government agency that manages Kenya’s national park system. The decision is disputed by Samburu people who were evicted from the property last year when former president Daniel arap Moi sold it to the African Wildlife Foundation. In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, the African Wildlife Foundation transferred title to the property to the Kenya Wildlife Service to create a new Laikipia National Park.
Forest activists in the Prey Lang Network are gathering today in Cambodia’s famed Angkor complex to pray for Cambodia and its future. Cambodia has lost its forests at an alarming rate. Now Prey Lang, the last large lowland evergreen forest, is at risk.
International: Indigenous Peoples Condemn Climate Talks Fiasco And Demand Moratoria On REDD+
Indigenous representatives from different parts of the world are meeting in Durban, South Africa from November 28 to December 9 for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to take a stand and claim their rights. Grouped together in the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), the various delegations posed a second period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-1010) to the COP, and posed that this be legally binding for all countries. T
An opinion piece published by Al Jazeera yesterday gives an in-depth review on the threat by Russian company Gazprom to build a gas pipeline between Russia and China through the sacred Ukok Plateau.
Read the article here.
Mexico has assigned a special commission to consider the protests of the Wixárika (Huichol) people against mining and other environmentally destructive projects within the Wirikuta Natural and Cultural Reserve, according to a letter Cultural Survival received from Mexico’s Office of Mining. Signed by the General Director of Mining, Lic.
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.
