All over the world environmental conservation laws clash with the interests and rights of indigenous communities. In Asia, for example, millions of indigenous people are threatened with forced relocation due to the establishment of new or the strict enforcement of policies on existing protected areas. The case study presented in this paper shows how an indigenous community in Thailand has successf...

The aim of the guidelines is to offer conceptual and practical tools for improving natural resource management activities and to open a dialogue among practitioners as to how gender and indigenous concerns can best become an integrated part of any natural resource management process anywhere in the world. The First Part offers a number of case stories on the consequences of excluding and includin...

This newsletter is an outcome of a project implemented by SWEEDO in Kenya. The project focuses on Samburu womens rights in relation to traditional practises. Indigenous pastoralist women in northern Kenya, including the Samburu women, suffer from many human rights violations as both belonging to marginalized indigenous communities and as being women who are victims to various forms of harmful trad...

The military has played a decisive role in Bangladesh. Its influence over political, economic and social affairs is particularly pronounced in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), a region of natural abundance and home to 11 indigenous groups numbering approximately 700,000 people; this is a region, however, which has experienced decades of relentless human rights violations. Despite occupying only ...

An estimated 260 million indigenous peoples live in Asia. Most of them inhabit forested uplands where a large number of them practice shifting cultivation, which is also called as swidden cultivation or rotational farming. For them, shifting cultivation is not merely a technique of farming; it is their way of life. Government policies and laws have attempted to limit or outright ban shifting culti...

Available as book and CD. In 61 country reports and 12 reports on international processes, The Indigenous World 2012 gives a comprehensive update on the current situation of indigenous peoples and their human rights, and reports on the most important developments in international processes of relevance to indigenous peoples during 2011. The majority of the country reports document how the escala...

Vietnam is home to 53 ethnic minority groups who mostly live in the forested uplands. Numbering over twelve million people, they highly depend on forests for their livelihood and development. But the pressures on these forests are ever increasing, posing a serious threat to the lives and stability of millions of people. Since the early 1990s, Vietnam has attempted to address deforestation by dece...

The Republic of Kenya has a multi-ethnic population, among which more than 25 communities identify as indigenous. The concept of indigenous peoples is not recognized in Kenya but the government acknowledges the existence of “marginalized communities” and the new 2010 Constitution identifies these in terms very similar to the language used in the UNDRIP. These communities include hunter-gathere...

La Commission africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples a mis en place un Groupe de travail sur les populations/communautés autochtones (Groupe de travail) qui formule des recommandations et propose des mesures pour prévenir et remédier aux violations des droits de l’homme et libertés fondamentales des populations et communautés autochtones. Le Groupe de travail a effectué une visit...

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has established a Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities (Working Group) that formulates recommendations and proposals on appropriate measures to prevent and remedy violations of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and communities. The working group paid a research visit to the Republic of Kenya from Mar...

Exploitation, abuse and discrimination are some of the vices rampant on children growing up in pastoralist communities. The young ones are denied that special protection that is essential to develop physically, psychologically, spiritually, morally and socially. Some aged as young as five end up suffering from such retrogressive cultural practices as beading, female genital mutilation, early and ...

Over the last ten years, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) has taken bold steps to understand, expound and address the human rights situation of indigenous communities in Africa. The African Commission’s Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities (Working Group) has been the institutional anchor for these efforts. Through various sensitization se...

Les Peuls sont principalement des pasteurs nomades et semi-nomades fermement attachés à leur système de valeurs traditionnel et qui migrent à travers l’Afrique de l’ouest avec leurs troupeaux depuis plus de 6,000 ans. Au Niger, ils sont victimes de plusieurs préjugés et stéréotypes négatifs. Ils sont souvent associés au banditisme et leur mode de vie traditionnel est perçu comme arc...

This briefing note aims to show how Indigenous Peoples’ exclusion from political decision-making processes - locally, nationally, regionally and globally - places them in a position of extreme disadvantage vis-à-vis imposed industrial activities that affect their individual and communal lives, territories and resources. This is particularly evident in the case of the extractive sector. At the e...

The DRC is a multi-ethnic country with some 250 ethnic groups, including several indigenous Pygmy groups. The concept of ―indigenous‖ has recently begun to be used in relation to Pygmy peoples, who, according to recent estimates, number about 660,000 (1% of the total DRC population). Found over most of the country, these peoples live in the forest as nomadic hunter-gatherers (30 to 40,000), or...

A manual for indigenous community trainers While the first guide in our manual series, "What is REDD?" aims to help indigenous communities to understand what REDD+ is and what its implications may be for them more generally, this manual looks at REDD+ on the project level. The purpose of this manual is to provide guidance to indigenous trainers to prepare and conduct trainings on Community-based R...

Over 370 million individuals worldwide are Indigenous. Mostly inhabitants of developing countries, they represent more than 5,000 distinct peoples. Indigenous Peoples are particularly vulnerable to industrial development.

La Commission africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples (CADHP ou Commission africaine), qui est l’organe des droits de l’homme de l’Union africaine, s’occupe de la situation des droits des peuples autochtones depuis 1999. Les populations autochtones font partie des groupes les plus vulnérables et les plus marginalisés du continent africain. Depuis la 29ème Session ordinaire de l...

The African Commission's Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities undertook a country visit to the Republic of Congo in March 2010. The aim of the visit was to encourage the government to adopt a law on indigenous peoples’ rights and to follow up on a visit conducted in September 2005. The report gives an account of meetings held with government authorities, civil society organization...

Briefing paper informing about indigenous peoples in South East Asia, the impact of climate change and the possibilities and threats represented by REDD +. It considers the responses of the ASEAN regarding these global challenges and makes recommendation as to how ASEAN should promote and protect the rights of indigenous peoples in relation to climate change and climate change. Contents: The ind...

Rapport du groupe de travail de la Commission Africaine sur les populations/communautés autochones en la Republique Democratique du Congo, 9-25 Août 2009.

This report describes the situation of the indigenous populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and makes recommendations to the government, civil society organizations, and the international community. The report is based on research and meetings with government authorities, civil society organizations and indigenous communities in Kinshasa, North Kivu, and South Kivu (Goma and Bukavu) unde...

The Annual Report 2003A is a status report that describes the activities of IWGIA in 2003. You can order a copy through: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak512b556e31404250cfa352202abb3ce9').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy512...

The Annual Report 2004 is a status report that describes the activities of IWGIA in 2004. You can order a copy through: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloakf5c1976386b11193155a3ec74259c681').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addyf5c1...

The Annual Report 2005 is a status report that describes the activities of IWGIA in 2005. You can order a copy through: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. document.getElementById('cloak24f3abc31033d57cb8da8707bfb7eced').innerHTML = ''; var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to'; var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '='; var addy24f3...

More and more people in Asia identify themselves as belonging to Indigenous Peoples This however does not mean that we claim to be the only people native to our countries. In most cases we are the “aboriginal” or “native” people of the lands we live in, and other people have come to settle there later. But we have also lived side-by-side with other peoples, native to their own lands, who ...

For many indigenous peoples, climate change is already a reality. Melting ice sheets in the Arctic makes hunting sea mammals and fishing difficult and risky, erratic rainfalls reduce productivity of fields and pastures, storms and floods destroy crops and homes. While indigenous peoples’ diverse and resilient livelihood systems have enabled them to survive in often harsh and forbidding environme...

In the age of global climate change, resource use and management practices that rely on the use of fire and thus emit carbon are coming under increased pressure. This is particularly the case with shifting cultivation. Because shifting cultivation is so different from the forms of agriculture practiced in the lowlands and by the majority populations, it is one of the most misunderstood land use sy...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007 confirmed that deforestation causes 18-20% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. This amount is more than the total carbon emissions from global transport sector that relies heavily on fossil fuels. Deforestation is, therefore, a major cause of climate change. Apart from this, forests are also referred to as “sinks.” They ha...