The Leading Source for News, Reports, Videos, Articles and more on Indigenous People from around the World
Today, our world is experiencing a rapid decline in cultural diversity and the eradication of indigenous peoples and their lifeway. One in five people in the world speak the same language: Mandarin Chinese. Spoken by the largest single ethnic group in the world - the Han - whose 1.3 billion speakers represent 92 percent of the mainland Chinese population and 19 percent of the world's population, while 235 languages make up the other 8 percent of China's population. Likewise, in India - the world's second most populous country - there are 415 living, recognized indigenous languages, but the majority of people speak either Bengali or Hindi. Around the world linguists recognize some 6,000 to 7,000 spoken languages, of which 5,000 or so are spoken by indigenous peoples who represent an estimated 6 percent of the world's population.
Many of these indigenous people, their language, culture, and lifeways face a questionable future. The relatively rapid decline in language diversity parallels the decline in cultural diversity. These changes are due in part to the product of both historical relationships - imperialism, colonialism, global economic development, and militarism - as well as cultural beliefs that rationalize or justify actions that have served certain cultures at the cost of others. In many instances, this cost has been disproportionally sustained by indigenous peoples.
Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources is dedicated to providing information, news, articles, videos, and resources for those concerned about, and for, indigenous peoples around the world. We recognize that our actions effect indigenous peoples in all parts of the world - the consequences of water diversion and hydroelectric energy projects, militarization, global and national events, consolidation of natural resource access, and the like are all having an unprecedented impact on the world's indigenous peoples. But we can do something.
It is our belief that cross-cultural communication, cooperation, and understanding - as well as easily accessible information and resources - is one of the keys to helping indigenous peoples maintain their language, culture, and identity. We hope that you also share this belief. Diversity is one of the strongest components to a healthy world. Together we can help and make a difference - from large to small.
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October 8 - 15, 2013: Five Key Indigenous Peoples Issues - United States, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Russia, Canada
United States: Hopi Tribe Faces Danger Of Losing Federal Programs
Federal programs operated by the Hopi Tribe are in danger of being taken over by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Indian Health Service (IHS) because the Hopi Tribe is seriously delinquent in submitting audits for Fiscal Years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Because of the severity of the problem, the BIA has designated the Hopi Tribe as a “High Risk” tribe and imposed a Level III sanction on the tribe. The BIA Hopi Agency, by federal law, must now take steps to take over these programs and stop all funding to the tribe. Other federal agencies may also pull their funding.
One requirement for receiving federal funding by Indian tribes is to complete annual organization-wide audits (referred to as single audits) within six months of the end of each fiscal year. Audits must be done in conformance with the Single Audit Act and Office of Management & Budget (OMB) rules. When an Indian tribe fails to complete its audits, the federal government takes steps to hold the tribe accountable, including stopping and pulling federal funds, terminating grants, and levying sanctions on the tribe.
The Single Audit Act requires that when a tribe is seriously delinquent in completing its annual audits, federal awarding agencies must take action to sanction the tribe, withhold funding, and terminate the grants. This is why the BIA has issued a Level III sanction on the Hopi Tribe and is not paying the tribe for overhead costs. Read more about the Hopi tribe and the danger of losing Federal programs here....
Costa Rica: Indigenous Rights Still Neglected
An international human right mission highlights weaknesses regarding indigenous rights.
The indigenous peoples of Costa Rica face the historic and constant infringement of their rights, while public policies in this field, however well-intended, are insufficient, at best.
Such are some of the findings by an international mission on indigenous rights, headed by Argentine human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (1980) Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, after a five-day visit, in August, to this Central American nation.
The International Observers’ Mission on the Situation of Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights also found “increasing organization and mobilization of the indigenous peoples, through different forms of expression which coincide with their deep respect for Mother Nature, their demand for autonomy and other rights linked to the exercise of their own culture.”
“There are open mechanisms [for dialogue] between the indigenous peoples and State authorities, but they must be reinforced through concrete actions that create the essential trust between the parties,” the mission further pointed out. Read more about the current rights of indigenous people in Costa Rica here....
Indonesia: Indonesia’s Batak Keen On Recovering Grabbed Lands
Manuhap Pandiangan easily climbed a ten-inch-diameter straight tree through two small pieces of two-foot long hard wood tightly fastened around the tree with a nylon rope. Then he uttered some prayers, and -- around the tree up to about over 20 feet (5.88 meters) high -- pierced the tree’s bark with a sharp knife, leaving several wounds on the tree’s bark.
After two weeks, he expects the tree’s pierced barks to produce myrrh resin, a highly prized product used for various medicines, scents and incense for religious rites. “This (myrrh resin) is one of our main sources of cash,” says Pandiangan, a 39-year old father of three.
Myrrh is not only a major income source; it is also a source of pride among the Batak. They believe that myrrh -- one of the prized gifts that one of the three kings gave to the newborn Jesus at that lowly stable in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago as narrated in the biblical New Testament gospels – came from Sumatra through an ancient flourishing trade between their community and the Middle East.
Pandiangan and some elders of Pandumaan and Sipituhuta villages in North Sumatra province last August 28 accompanied participants of a global conference on mapping to the community’s forests, some tree species of which produce benzoin and myrrh resin. Read more about the Batak indigenous people of Indonesia and the fight to get their land back here....
Russia: Traditional Forager Culture, Assimilation, And The Cash Economy In Northern Siberia
The existence of pristine foragers has generated considerable debate and a latent controversy remains associated with this notional category of human subsistence life-ways. Scholars of traditional Siberian forager culture and Russian government officials have not yet reached a consensus for a singular definition to describe these groups. This is a taxonomic task that must be resolved for the benefit of the “numerically small peoples of the North” as they are currently defined by the Russian government and known to scholars who participated in the 1993 Seventh International Conference of Hunting and Gathering Societies. Indigenous peoples’ rights, livelihoods, environment, and physical and cultural survival are all dependent on a proper understanding of the term “traditional foragers.” The fact that this descriptive category has been politicized leads inexorably to the conclusion by more powerful entities that for some vague rationale these peoples should be viewed as inferior; and that this devaluation is justified because the foraging spectrum is considered to be at or near the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. This view is highly prejudicial and at the same time unwarranted.
A much more balanced view of the foraging spectrum is provided by anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in his seminal work “The Original Affluent Society.” The foraging spectrum is not merely a primordial survivor of prehistory, but a modern human adaptation for coping with natural environments just as agriculturally-based civilized societies are today. The indigenous peoples of Northern Siberia have maintained a traditional nomadic or semi-nomadic foraging subsistence life-way centered on hunting, fishing, gathering, and reindeer-herding. They subsist by utilizing largely wild animal and wild plant resources which lie “outside the cash sector of the economy.” The “numerically small peoples of the North” may thus be properly defined as “pristine forager-herders” when unmolested by the duress imposed on them by government or corporate activities. According to anthropologists Peter Schweitzer, Megan Biesele, and Richard Hitchcock, it is a truism that very few groups fall into this “pristine” category in the modern world because historical, social, political, and economic forces have created a situation in which most of the affected peoples now engage in a mixed economy of foraging and cash-generating activities. In order to preserve their traditional forager-herder life-ways, a solution will have to be devised which permits the self-determination of the northern Siberian indigenous peoples and the concomitant self-sufficiency this implies. Read more about indigenous people in northern Siberia and current issues impacting them here....
Canada: Tsilhqot’in Call On Harper Government To Heed The Science And Ignore Industry Lobbying In Fish Lake Decision
Will the Harper government listen to their own experts?
B.C.’s Tsilhqot’in Nation is calling on the Harper government to listen to its own scientists and ignore the political lobbying by Taseko Mines Ltd. (TML) and the mining industry that could undermine the Environmental Assessment process in the case of the latest bid to create a massive, but very low-grade ore mine at Teztan Biny (Fish Lake).
TML has even boasted of its lobbying success with federal Ministers, reporting that it believes the government is on side after meeting with Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, and has run a media campaign to discredit as “misinformation” concerns about its new proposal – concerns that have been raised by experts from various federal and provincial ministries during the panel process.
“This lobbying is particularly alarming when you combine it with the company`s mischaracterization of the scientific evidence at the environmental hearings. We are in Ottawa to make sure that everyone has their facts straight. This is a bad project that threatens our Nation and culture. Contrary to the company’s claims, approval of this project would be bad news and put the government and the mining industry on a collision course with the Tsilhqot’in people and First Nations from across Canada who stand by our side,” said Chief Joe Alphonse, Chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government. Read more about the Tsilhqot'in Nation and their fight to save Fish Lake from mining here....