This report documents how government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have not only failed to alleviate the impact of COVID-19 on India’s Indigenous Peoples, but made their often already desperate situation even worse. To make matters worse, the government used the temporary paralysis of the country as an attempt to undermine existing environmental safeguards and laws protecting the rights of ...

This book forms an essential contribution to the process of legitimising the recognition and exercise of the world’s Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination in domestic and international law. It further offers a space for analysis, dialogue and debate aimed at coordinating visions and sharing experiences of the difficult path to building and practising autonomy and self-government.

Indigenous Peoples are at the heart of the struggle for equality, rights, participation and self-determination for a more sustainable and just world. At IWGIA we are proud to stand by and behind Indigenous Peoples. We thank all those who support us to do so. This annual report presents some of the many significant achievements IWGIA supported in 2019 for Indigenous Peoples' rights. 

This fact-finding mission report looks into human rights violations as well as abuses in the Chitwan National Park (CNP) of Nepal. following recent reports by BuzzFeed, The Kathmandu Post and other media, as well as other organisational reports, claiming the World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation (WWF) is responsible for gross human rights violations, including torture, sexual abuse and killings...

Against all the odds, and despite the challenges that climate change represents for Latin America, women are demonstrating day in, day out that they have the ideas and the unique and essential skills to propose a radical change in the matrix of civilisation at this crucial point in humankind’s history.

IWGIA’s latest human rights report examines the sociocultural impacts two particular projects – the Lake Turkana Wind Power project and Olkaria Geothermal Power plants – are having in several Indigenous communities in Kenya.

How can indigenous peoples survive the dismantling of public policies and rights acquired by decades of work in Brazil? This process, resulting from setbacks to democracy, as described by the authors, shows that this is an emergency situation. There is a need to seek alternatives and for pressure from indigenous and civic organizations to help indigenous peoples exercise their rights. This report ...

This book comprises a total of 14 articles addressing the issue of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon and its impacts, not only on the Amazonian environment and wildlife but particularly on the communities inhabiting the area. These impacts are being facilitated by informal dynamics for which the state is largely responsible and has failed to act promptly enough to put a stop to these dynamics a...

If we calculate all the risks, 90 million Adivasis are struggling for their survival, losing access to forests and suffering the gravest threat of being alienated from their forest lands and traditional habitations. This book is an attempt to understand the relationship between Adivasis and the forest, unfolding the ground realities of the Forest Rights Act. It exposes the dual role of the State ...

In the current global economic consensus of neoliberalism, maximizing profit is prioritized on behalf of respecting international human rights regulations. Ensuring multinational enterprises implement adequate corporate responsibility in Peru has been troublesome. This report describes issues of union member harassment, questionable tax practices and denial of local Indigenous communities their ri...

Since early August 2019, the most widespread and enduring fires in Bolivia’s history have been recorded in the country’s lowlands (Tierras Bajas). Widespread due to the large area burned and enduring because climatic conditions, along with the negligence of the authorities and even of those involved in the conflict themselves (who have risked setting fires in order to prepare the land for cult...

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India published the Draft National Forest Policy of 2018 on 14 March 2018 and is expected to finalise the policy soon.  This draft policy provides for the adoption of а completely new legal framework that is discriminatory towards indigenous peoples and seeks to take away the rights of the indigenous peoples already re...

The world today faces many challenges: a global climate and biodiversity crisis, rising inequality, shrinking civic space in many countries, and increasing distrust in international institutions and national political systems. Indigenous peoples make up five percent of the world’s population and are disproportionately affected by much of this; but they are also key to many of the world’s solut...

To create a room for indigenous peoples to discuss and analyse their experiences around autonomy and self-government, the international seminar "Right to Autonomy and Indigenous Self-Government as a manifestation of the Right to Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples" was held on March 11, 12 and 13, 2019 in Mexico. Indigenous representatives from Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Nicarag...

The report on the current state of Indigenous Peoples’ Lands, Territories and Resources (LTR) was prepared by the Indigenous Peoples Major Group (IPMG) to inform the implementation of global commitments to Sustainable Development and the various related processes for transformational change. It is a summary of regional reports written by indigenous researchers and experts under the guidance of t...

Rising tensions between states and indigenous peoples are reaching a tipping point, and with an ever-shrinking civic space worldwide, the topics of criminalisation of Indigenous Rights Defenders’ activities and their organisations; land rights issues; and access to justice are more important than ever. The Indigenous World 2019 adds to the documented records, highlighting the increase in attac...

An International Seminar to assess the global status and trends with regards to indigenous autonomies is taking place in Mexico City in March 2019. This meeting follows the work developed by indigenous organizations and the organizing institutions over the last few years. In January 2018, at its annual Expert Meeting, the UN Permanent Forum was requested to compile information on indigenous autono...

This synthesis report of marginalized and vulnerable indigenous peoples in Thailand represents the cases of ten indigenous groups who are targets of the Community Knowledge-Based Database System (CKBDS) project for empowering the most marginalized and vulnerable indigenous groups in Thailand, namely Mlabri, Kow (Umpi), Bisu, Chong, Yakoor, Saek, Moken, Moklen, Urak-Lawoy and Mani. These groups are...

Human rights defenders are dying, attacked and criminalized all over the world. This is happening at an increasingly alarming rate. In 2017, over 400 people were killed while protecting their community’s land or natural resources. Approximately half of these were indigenous peoples. The conference aimed to understand why in particular and increasingly indigenous peoples from developing countries...

In light of the urgency of both forest conservation and the recognition of indigenous communities’ rights to land and resources, along with the documented potential for creating conservation synergies through recognition of community rights, this study tries to look at the approaches to forest conservation taken in Myanmar so far, and to take stock of their achievements and impact with respect t...

The rising tensions between states and indigenous peoples are reaching a tipping point and The Indigenous World 2018 adds to the documented records, highlighting the increase in attacks and killings of indigenous peoples while defending their lands. The Indigenous World is a one-of-a-kind documentation tool, that offers a comprehensive yearly overview of the developments indigenous peoples exper...

Naga society is a casteless and classless society where, traditionally, women have enjoyed a high social positioning and a fair spirit of independence, playing very central roles in family and community affairs; however, it is also a patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal society where, for instance, family names are carried forward through sons, who are also the family members that inherit fami...

In 2003, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) established the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa (WGIP) with the responsibility to advise the Commission on matters relating to the rights of indigenous populations/communities on the continent. In this capacity, the WGIP found it appropriate to commission a study on extractive industries, land righ...

Four reports illustrate how the method “participatory action research” can benefit Indigenous Peoples by acknowledging traditional knowledge and documenting land use and ownership for future generations.

Four reports illustrate how the method “participatory action research” can benefit Indigenous Peoples by acknowledging traditional knowledge and documenting land use and ownership for future generations.

Four reports illustrate how the method “participatory action research” can benefit Indigenous Peoples by acknowledging traditional knowledge and documenting land use and ownership for future generations.

Four reports illustrate how the method “participatory action research” can benefit Indigenous Peoples by acknowledging traditional knowledge and documenting land use and ownership for future generations.

In the global quest for land and natural resources, indigenous peoples are particularly negatively impacted. While most local communities, peasants, farmers and other local land users are affected by this global land rush, embedded discrimination, a lack of recognition of land tenure and vulnerability mean that this recent land rush is affecting indigenous peoples particularly badly. The following...

Standing tall, head held high, her dignity on full display. That’s the image of an empowered indigenous woman confronting discrimination and violence, saying “enough is enough” to the tragic impact of extractive industries and other development projects in her ancestral territories. The play of shapes that combines an indigenous woman’s silhouette with mountains, lakes, trees, and moon/sun...

Recent texts on the rights of indigenous peoples clearly show that indigenous ownership of marine and coastal spaces must be respected. In addition, their rights to their sea spaces must be guaranteed according to local perceptions, and this is masterly described by some articles in this book. This is expressed in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in...