Bolivia’s second largest lake has been completely dried out since 2015. This is due to global warming, which is accelerating evaporation – already very high at 4,000 metres altitude – as well as the mining industry, which consumes a significant amount of water. The Uru Murato people are trying to [...]Read the full article
The global digital and energy transition is increasing the demand for minerals. At the same time, resistance against projects is rising, support networks are being woven and initiatives to guarantee the rights of communities and decent working conditions are being [...]Read the full article
Bernard Duterme:“While the rebels of Chiapas may not have succeeded in reforming Mexico’s constitution, decolonising its institutions or even gaining a foothold in the country’s political scene, they have nonetheless given unprecedented local, national and international visibility to peasant and Indigenous [...]Read the full article
Tamara Gausi:To round up the year, each Equal Times editor picks the stories that have stayed in their heart and mind, long after publication.Read the full article
Martin Léna:“The solutions we seek to provide to the climate crisis must not and cannot be disconnected from social justice and human rights. Those who are most vulnerable to climate change, and who are also the least responsible for it, are equally threatened by the false solutions put forward which claim [...]Read the full article
Despite medical breakthroughs, the stigma attached to HIV remains firmly entrenched in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the impact on those affected is devastating. Structural and economic inequalities are also hindering access to effective [...]Read the full article
Indigenous peoples are often among the workers most discriminated against and in the most precarious jobs, but they have an ally in the trade union movement to help defend their rights and improve their social and working conditions. Māori, Sami and Mapuche trade union leaders talk to Equal [...]Read the full article
The Maricas Bolivia Movement, which has been occupying the media and the public space for over 10 years, fights not only against homophobia and transphobia in Bolivian society, Indigenous communities included, but also against white hegemony in the social imaginary of the institutional LGBTQI+ [...]Read the full article
In Brazil, the ecosystem of the Maricá restinga, a nature reserve 60 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, could be disrupted by plans to develop a luxury resort, the environmental impact of which has been denounced by several researchers.Read the full article
Across Canada, a thriving movement of Indigenous peoples reconnecting with their land and culture and stewarding their Nation’s traditional territories are heralding a new era for conservation.Read the full article
“A striking parallel between both stories of the new capital cities is how both projects only reinforce a colonial state, in spite of their promoters claiming the opposite. Both projects dominate and destroy the life spaces and territories of forest communities for economic and political [...]Read the full article
Hawkers in the state of Meghalaya in north-east India have been successful in ensuring that an unfavourable state law is repealed and a more progressive national law is adopted.Read the full article
Peru, Chile and Colombia are the newest cards on the left in a region that is once again shifting in that political direction, as it did in the first decade of this century. But these are not such prosperous times as they were back then, and the agendas have [...]Read the full article
In 1982, the United Nations declared 9 August the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous peoples everywhere, from Asia across to Africa and Latin America, are constantly battling to defend their cultures, their territories and, above all, their [...]Read the full article
CONNECTAS:The conflict in southern Chile and Argentina, involving political radicalisation and violence, shines a spotlight on an existential problem in Latin America – what is the place of the millions of historically invisibilised Indigenous [...]Read the full article
After more than four decades of fighting for the freedom of their people, the Sahrawis are now tending to put individual wellbeing and the fundamental rights of the population before the collective struggle.Read the full article
A massive construction project in Barbuda threatens to harm a wetland site that is essential to the lives of locals, both as a means of subsistence and as a natural defence against coastal erosion.Read the full article
Indigenous communities and environmental organisations are staunchly opposed to the project, given the catastrophic environmental impact it will have on an area rich in biodiversity and crucial to the conservation of the Mayan [...]Read the full article
How pioneers in Nepal and Zimbabwe are developing the digital infrastructure to preserve and revitalise their languages, and thus, improve access to their culture online.Read the full article
Manuella Libardi:Given the amount of research that shows how ineffective punitive laws are in curbing the number of abortions women carry out, it is difficult to imagine any other reason that they exist, other than to keep women out of the workforce and in [...]Read the full article
“Unions have had the climate at their hearts for a long time. When members’ livelihoods are at risk, unions stand up – and members’ livelihoods are at risk with climate change.”Read the full article
UNESCO estimates that half of all languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century if nothing is done, as speakers face pressures to abandon their native tongue in favour of dominant languages and dialects.Read the full article
The descendants of the victims of Namibia’s genocide have vowed to continue their quest for direct reparation, after disowning the settlement struck between their government and Germany.Read the full article
From the Amazon rainforests to Central America, young, Indigenous artists are reclaiming their ancient heritage through music, mixing ancestral rituals and instruments with rap, electronica and reggaeton to fight racial discrimination and historical [...]Read the full article
Fiore Longo :On 22 April, the world celebrated Earth Day and the importance of saving biodiversity. Unfortunately, the messages conveyed by many governments and international organisations put very little emphasis on one of the essential aspects of the fight to save the environment: human [...]Read the full article
“This is a very simple story - a story of ongoing colonialism in the 21st century, carried out, perpetuated and perpetrated by both the British and US governments.”Read the full article
Paramilitary groups in Mexico are using the pandemic as an excuse to increase attacks on Indigenous communities and rights activists.Read the full article
Women from the main Indigenous ethnic group in Chiquimula, Guatemala, one of the country’s poorest departments, from which many people migrate, are taking on entrepreneurial and leadership roles in addition to their traditional roles in the home. The trend has been reinforced by the pandemic and [...]Read the full article
Almost four years after the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights recognised the Ogiek’s ancient title of the Mau Forest and ruled that they should be allowed to return there, the Kenyan government is yet to implement this [...]Read the full article
Heather Elaydi:Aligning domestic law to international law is not enough: women’s rights on paper must also be reflected by their lived experiences.Read the full article
“Sensitivity to the currently unfolding climate and environmental crisis is unequally distributed. Those who are directly affected are not always those who are most concerned. The populations most exposed to the effects of environmental imbalances are not always the most worried about the future [...]Read the full article
A 28-year-old social entrepreneur has created an innovative solution to help rural folk artists in India create sustainable livelihoods and preserve the country’s richest oral heritage.Read the full article
Ainu Indigenous leaders are aware that their ancestral knowledge is endangered: “We are being wiped out. In 30 years, we will all be Japanese”.Read the full article
Annick Berger:The international community gave itself ten years to protect biodiversity effectively. In 2020, the situation is catastrophic. The year 2021 must be the turning point in the fight to protect species and to combat climate change, with the adoption of a new global [...]Read the full article
Víctor Báez Mosqueira :For almost a year now, Bolivians have been enduring massacres, repression, detentions and exile. According the Defensoría del Pueblo, the de facto government “has committed crimes against humanity.” A country crying out for a return to the rule of law will finally get a chance to vote on 18 [...]Read the full article
Beyond its health repercussions, the coronavirus pandemic is making it even harder for Indigenous people in many parts of Asia to defend their civil and land rights, with governments and companies taking advantage of the pandemic to brush them [...]Read the full article
Living in conditions that are often more precarious than the rest of the population and with much higher health risk factors, Indigenous peoples around the world know that their very survival is on the line if the coronavirus reaches their [...]Read the full article
“Given that we have a federal government that has labelled itself as ‘feminist’, we’ve been hoping that this will be the period in which a National Action Plan on Violence Against Women happens. We’re still waiting.”Read the full article
The wave of protests that has gripped north Africa since 2010 has presented an opportunity for social, cultural and political movements that were languishing in a region stifled by fossilised dictatorships. One of these is the movement advocating for the rights of the Amazigh [...]Read the full article
Renewable energy companies are repeating the same business practices for which the fossil fuel industry has been criticized – practices that are very far from being clean.Read the full article
The sheer scale of the fires consuming the Amazon rainforest during 2019 has brought the idea of the Amazon being collectively managed by the international community back to the fore. But the notion of ‘internationalising’ this region is by no means [...]Read the full article
“Our union members should not be afraid, they should continue to fight for their rights. We know we have the backing of international solidarity and this will protect us as long as we continue our work in our union.”Read the full article
The current political upheaval in Bolivia threatens to undo the reforms undertaken by Evo Morales over the last 13 years, as well as the economic turnaround promoted by the former president.Read the full article
Several Indigenous groups have accused major fashion brands of copying their designs without compensation and causing serious harm to their cultures.Read the full article
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is raising tensions and pushing the country even further away from its climate commitments.Read the full article
Mathilde Dorcadie:The critical state of our common natural heritage is all of our responsibility. The rainforest is burning because we’ve let it happen.Read the full article