This year IWGIA is celebrating its 30th anniversary. In August 1968, anthropologists and ethnologists working in the North and South America met at an international conference, anthropologists coming directly from the field documented serious atrocities being carried out against indigenous peoples in Brazil, Colombia, Peu and Venezuela. For example, the participants at the conference were inf...

This book is a collection of articles written by internationally known experts, activists and politicians. The document provides a broad and in-depth picture of the consequences of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor concentrating developments in recent years. East Timor is a small country where a regional superpower, Indonesia, has violently occupied and annexed the territory of the indigenou...

One of the fundamentals in understanding indigenous cultures is the indigenous peoples´ relationship to their lands and territories. To approach this issue, we have to accept that land and territories are something different from - although not opposed to - nature. For the sake of clarification, however, we must distinguish between these three components.  

This book provides an overview of the present situation and crucial developments in 1997 and 1998 among indigenous peoples in Asia, Africa, the Arctic, the Pacific and the Americas.

Indigenous Peoples and Nations of the Pacific - an Overview The present issue of Indigenous Affairs deals specifically with indigenous peoples´ issues in the Pacific. IWGIA wishes in this way to draw the attention to the indigenous peoples of Oceania. We have been able to produce this special issue as a result of many valuable personal contacts IWGIA has established over the years. The indigenou...

The book is the result of a conference held in Pucallpa, Peru, where representatives from indigenous organizations, environmentalists and independent experts met to discuss different methods for managing the protected areas of Latin America. This is a particularly important issue for the region given that 80% of Latin America's protected areas are inhabited by indigenous peoples. The meeting discu...

"Indigenous Women: The Right to a Voice" contains a collection of articles and interviews focusing on the situation of indigenous women today. With a few exceptions, the articles have been written by female indigenous grass roots activists and academics from the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The document gives a vivid picture of the many different realities and problems indigenous women are ...

This book is an attempt to reflect the process of implementing an ambitious project of territorial planning in the Ucayali region for the demarcation and titling of indigenous communities. The first section of the book, written by lawyer Pedro García Hierro, concerns the background of the project, describing the conditions of slavery to which the indigenous peoples of Ucayali were subjected. In t...

IWGIA's Annual Report presents the results of IWGIA's activities in 1997 and highlights examples of projects and processes implemented or supported by IWGIA throughout the year.

Despite increased and ever more vocal participation by indig­enous peoples at the international political arena, the human rights situation of indigenous peoples remains criticaI. A major threat to the lives, cultures and dignity of indigenous peoples is the rapidly ongoing loss of ancestral territories and the loss of access to and control over land resources. On so many occa­sions indig...

This book provides an overview of the present situation and crucial developments in 1996 and 1997 among indigenous peoples in Asia, Africa, the Arctic, the Pacific and the Americas.

Den här artikelsamlingen bygger på en foredragsserie om ursprungsfolk och miljöfrågor som "IWGIA-Lundagruppen för ursprungsfolk", anordnade i Lund under 1995 och våren 1996. Föredragsserien var ett försök att uppmärksamma och diskutera en allvarlig och ofta förbisedd miljökonflikt i många delar av världen. Inspirerad av det mottagande som föredragen fick och den entusiasm som föred...

I would love to open up the charter of the United Nations´s said one indigenous representative during the second United Nations workshop on the establishment of a permanent forum for indigenous peoples. It was held in Santiago, Chile, on 30 June to 2 July, 1997. and the Chilean government was the host. As it is known to all who have followed the work within the UN for securing indigenous peoples...

Overalt i verden fratages indfødte folk deres jord. De bliver udnyttet økonomisk og ender ofte som gældsslaver. Med eksempler fra Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Indien, Nepal, Taiwan/Kina, Filippinerne og Indonesien beskrives nutidige former for slaveri. Det handler om gældbundne indfødte, der - fordi de er indfødte - diskrimineres, frarøves deres jord og ender som gældsslaver. Der er omkring 35...

Since the publication of Update 2 of 'Life Is Not Ours' in May 1994 the Awami League has returned to power in Bangladesh after 21 years, through parliamentary elections on 12 June 1996. 1 Sheikh Hasina Wazed has become the new Prime Minister. The Awami League has a majority in Parliament and again power relations in the country have changed. Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was forced to resign in March...

Indigenous Peoples win Prize on Oil Issue On 13 March 1997, the Peruvian indig­enous organisation, the Native Federa­tion of the Madre de Dios (FENAMAD) received the Bartolomé de las Casas award from the Spanish Prince Felipe of Asturias in Madrid. FEnamad's President, Antonio Iviche and Harakm­hut representative, Hector Sueyo, ac­cepted the prize on behalf of the indigenous peopl...

The book describes and reveals how indigenous peoples suffer from slavery often in the shape of debt bondage and prostitution. The cases discussed cover indigenous peoples in India, Nepal, Taiwan/China, the Philippines and Indonesia in Asia. In South America cases from Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay are revealed. The enslaved peoples are often tropical rainforest dwellers or mountain hill tribes. In t...

When the United Nations approved the Study on Treaties, Agreements and other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples in May 1989, Treaty Six Chiefs invited the Special Rapporteur, Miguel Alfonso Martínez, to attend an Elders and Treaty Six Chiefs' meeting. The meeting was not an attempt to make a historical reconstruction. It was a spiritual and descriptive re-creation of ...

This book aims to examine and critically analyse the possible legal mechanisms and processes which could be used by indigenous peoples in the protection and management of their cultural and intellectual property. This IWGIA document studies the historic and legal context in which the debate on the rights of indigenous peoples has developed and analyses mechanisms such as the Convention on Biologic...

The book is a compilation of the proceedings of the conference of the same title held in May 1995 in Zürich, Switzerland, supplemented by a few other relevant articles on the issue. The authors of the articles are well known environmentalists, indigenous and non-indigenous scholars and activists like Pedro Garcia Hierro, Prasert Trakansuphakon, Darell A. Posey, Jeffrey A. McNeely, Sona Jharia Min...

IWGIA's Annual Report presents the results of IWGIA's activities in 1996 and highlights examples of projects and processes implemented or supported by IWGIA throughout the year.

The history of frontier settlement in South America has been characterized by a rather uneven penetration towards the interior of the continent. At the time of the formation of South American repub­lics, the areas of dense demographic concentration were confined to the Coast-highland strip along most of Western South America and part of the eastern coast of present day Brazil (Butland 1966196)...

The Akuriyo of Surinam are a Carib speaking population which numbers at the moment about 60. Until 1970 they knew a completely nomadic way of life, hunting and gathering in the forests of Southeast Surinam, on the Oelemari, Litani and Loe rivers, or rather on the smaller tributary creeks. Occasionally some of them drifted into Brazil (Paru river area).

In October, indigenous peoples once again travel the well-worn route to Geneva to participate in the second meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights´openended Working Group which is discussing the draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Although a technical meeting the discussion is critical because it provides indigenous peoples with an opportunity to try to explai...

This book provides an overview of the present situation and crucial developments in 1995 and 1996 among indigenous peoples in Asia, Africa, the Arctic, the Pacific and the Americas. Out of print!

The Saami call their territory Sapmi. Conceptually, the term encompasses the geographical area, the Saami territory and the Saami people, all in one. The land and the peo­ple are intrinsically united. During. the colonisation of Sapmi. the territory and the people were divided between four different nation-states. This is to say that. among other things, the Saami as a peo­ple became ...

Rapport d'évaluation de la situation des Twa et pour la promotion des droits des Twa dans le Rwanda d'après-guerre. Traduit par Jean-Claude Monod.