Last week, a coalition of indigenous people and environmental groups filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the massive oil drilling project in the Chukchi Sea.

Consisting of the Native Village of Point Hope, the City of Point Hope, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), as well as The Wilderness Society and the Center for Biological Diversity, among several others - the coalition argues that the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) should not have gone ahead with it’s recent …

Thirty-six years of civil war in Guatemala brought the deaths of over 200,000 people, most of them from Indigenous Nations. In the wake of an amnesty signed in 1996, those who took part in armed struggle against the Guatemalan dictatorship were finally able to return to their lives.

It was at this time that one hundred and sixty people, a diverse group of Quiche, Q’eqchi, Mam, Ladino (mixed Spanish and indigenous) and others decided to continue to struggle by creating a self-sustaining agricultural cooperative; a community that could serve as a just and peaceful model for Guatemalan …

On Jan. 7, about 100 campesinos successfully blocked the spraying of pesticides on soy fields in the Ybypé community of the department of San Pedro, Paraguay. Riot police were mobilized to protect the fumigation tractors, but in a rare and inspiring turn, the campesinos convinced the officers of their right to resist the spraying. The police then refused to break up the blockade.

The Campesinos have so far resisted every attempt to fumigate these fields since the land was sold to Brazilian soy growers, who removed the previous life with …

Honor the Earth, a group that’s comprised of representatives from the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and the Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN) is currently accepting proposals for funding to help Native-led organizations in Canada and the US who work in the areas of: Environmental & Energy Justice, Community Development, and Youth. The grants range from $1,000- $5,000. Proposals are due January 15th, 2007.

Please visit this page for a full explanation of the application procedures.

[PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FAR AND WIDE]

Request for Proposals
Honor the Earth is currently soliciting …

During the second Latin American Parks Congress this week, the Wai Wai established a new precedent for Indigenous People, becoming the first to declare their territory a ‘Community Owned Conservation Area.’

Backed by a government decree and supported by US-based Conservation International (CI), they also banned miners and loggers from their section of the Amazon jungle in remote southern Guyana, near the border of Brazil–and pledged to pursue a sustainable economic strategy based on ecotourism, research and traditional crafts.

According to Cemci Sose, the Kayaritomo of the Wai Wai, …

The following video is a speech delivered by Arundhati Roy on September 18, 2002 at the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Among many other topics, Arundhati talks about the US war on terror, the illusions of contemporary society, the growing chasm between the rich and the poor, and the centuries-old struggles of the people.

If you’d like, you can read a transcript of Come September online….Here’s an excerpt:

Close to one year after the War Against Terror was officially flagged off in the ruins of Afghanistan, in country after country, freedoms are being curtailed in the name of protecting …

Participatory Economics (parecon for short) is a type of economy proposed as an alternative to contemporary capitalism. The underlying values parecon seeks to implement are equity, solidarity, diversity, and participatory self management.

The main institutions to attain these ends are workers and consumers councils utilizing self management decision making methods, balanced job complexes, remuneration according to effort and sacrifice, and participatory planning.

“A great many activists and concerned people ask, quite rightly, what alternative form of social organization can be imagined that might overcome the grave flaws — often real crimes — of contemporary society in more far-reaching ways than short-term reform. …

Food sovereignty is the peoples, Countries or State Unions RIGHT to define their agricultural and food policy, without any dumping vis-a-vis third countries. Food sovereignty includes :

prioritizing local agricultural production in order to feed the people, access of peasants and landless people to land, water, seeds, and credit. Hence the need for land reforms, for fighting against GMOs ((Genetically Modified Organisms), for free access to seeds, and for safeguarding water as a public good to be sustainably distributed.

the right of farmers, peasants to produce food and the right of consumers to be able to decide what they consume, and …

Biomimicry has been a featured topic of discussion and the subject of presentations at a range of recent conferences including Industrial Ecology 2000, The Natural Step annual conference, Bioneers and EnvironDesign 5. This new methodology offers science, industry, municipalities, even individuals, a new way of accessing nature’s intelligence and principles of design.

Janine Benyus, author of the book “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature”, and presenter at the above-mentioned conferences, provided us with a description of biomimicry and its significance to the way it can shape the future.

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning ‘life,’ and mimesis, meaning ‘to imitate’) is a design principle that …