The state of Michigan on Friday handed a huge defeat to Indigenous People, environmental groups and others who have actively opposed a controversial sulfide mine that the Kennecott Minerals Company - an international mining company with one of the worst environmental records in the world - wants to build in the pristine Yellow Dog Plains near Lake Superior.

Kennecott plans to tunnel below a prime trout stream (the Salmon-Trout River - that feeds Lake Superior) and use an acid-leaching process to extract nickel and other minerals - leaving in …

Last Monday, the Klabona Keepers won a temporary injunction against Shell Canada, forcing them to halt road construction for the coalbed methane project their pushing on Klabona Territory (Tahltan).

The injunction will only be in effect for about a week, when a Canadian court will can hear the application for a second injunction against Shell; but Rhoda Quock, a Tahltan elder and spokeswoman for the Klabona Keepers says “we are treating this injunction as a significant victory and the best way we can celebrate the 10th Anniversary of …

The farmers of Daechuri and Doduri have long resisted the Korean government’s attempts to force their eviction in order to make way for the expansion of the “Camp Humphreys” (K-6) US Military Base. After years of legal battles, in December 2005, the Central Land Expropriation Committee approved a request for imminent domain acquisition of the two villages, instantly making the farmers criminals trespassing on federal property.

Three months later, the farmers marched to the local government office to declare that Daechuri and Doduri were autonomous from Korea. They renounced …

For months now, the community of Cutumay Camones, which resides near Santa Ana, El Salvador, has been protesting against the construction of a new landfill site that threatens to contaminate their drinking water. The landfill is positioned directly above a local aquifer, just 700 meters away from the community spring.

The government doesn’t care in the least. Not about the thousands of threatened families that make up the community, not about the Ombudsman’s recommendations to immediately halt construction because of the forthcoming water contamination, and not even about the …

Under the cloak of justice and benevolence, ethnic violence heavily increased around the world last month, providing the backdrop for several emerging conflicts and the advancement of dozens more facing Indigenous and landless People.

Propaganda continues to be utilized by both states and corporations, and indigenous leaders continue to be assassinated while innocent people are punished for standing up and defending themselves.

On the bright side, Indigenous People around the world continued working to protect the land and defend their ways of life. De facto sovereignty is becoming …

This ten-minute video, “Por el Territorio Wichi” (For the Wichi Territory) brings you to the heart of Indigenous struggle. It looks at the Wichi of northern Argentina, who’s land has been steadily invaded over the last 100 years.

Since then, loggers have felled their forest, and settlers have introduced cattle. These cattle not only turn the land already stolen from the Wichí into desert, but also break into the tiny plots of land which the Wichí have managed to hold on to, destroying their crops. The Wichí have been left almost landless and without their livelihood. The local Salta authorities have, …

This 12-minute video, produced by the Seventh Generation Fund, discusses the Defenders of the Black Hills, “a group of volunteers, without racial or tribal boundaries, whose mission is to ensure that all of the provisions of the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868 are upheld by the federal government of the United States.”

In doing so, these volunteers are also upholding the Constitution of the United States which, in Article Six, states that “treaties are the Supreme Law of the land.” Until the

Treaties are upheld, the actions of the Defenders are to restore and protect the …

photo courtesy of www.paqg.org/

Rights Action sent out a reminder today about the ongoing legal case against the group of Mayan Farmers known as the GoldCorp 7.

If you’re not familiar with the case—in January, 2007, residents of the communities neighboring Goldcorp’s open pit, cyanide-leeching mine in San Marcos set up a blockade in an effort to start a dialogue with the company. Prior to this, the community repeatedly tried to talk with the …

The following message is a request for action in support of the Wayuu People in the Alta Guajira region of Colombia. For more information, please visit organizacionwayuumunsurat.blogspot.com.

Thanks to Ana for posting this on her blog

URGENT SUPPORT FOR THE WAYÙU INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN COLOMBIA

The displaced community of Bahìa Portete found in the Alta Guajira once again denounces the latest incursión of the paramilitary group CONTRAINSURGENCIA WAYUU under command of the alias “ PABLO ” into their ancestral territory that has once already been bathed in blood. This …

The following video clip is from “Sa Ngalan ng Mina?” (In the Name of Mining) a film that shows how politicians in the Philippines have been selling the country’s natural resources to foreign mining companies, and how those companies are impacting the environment and the cultures and livelihoods of Indigenous People. This particular clip focuses on the exploits of Canadian mining firm Toronto Ventures, Inc (TVI) in Siocon, Zamboanga del Norte.

TVI’s operations are said to be “one of the most shameful of the existing mining operations encroaching on IP lands;” and “one of the more well documented cases …