Human thought is inextricably tied to language. Diversity of language indicates diversity of humanity, so when a language dies, we are all impoverished. It seems from reading the articles listed below that only a couple of NGOs and some academics are concerned that the last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the…
Measures to stop global warming risk being as harmful to tribal peoples as climate change itself, according to a new report from Survival. The report, `The most inconvenient truth of all: climate change and indigenous people’, sets out four key `mitigation measures’ that threaten tribal people:
Satellite photos have revealed how the only uncontacted tribe in South America outside the Amazon is having its forest rapidly and illegally bulldozed by ranchers who want their land to graze cattle for beef. Survival International
A few days ago, an article was published in the Irish Independent, which can be prety much summed up by part of the last paragraph: “Ethiopia was rescued by outsiders from its self-made famine 25 years ago, and it then rewarded this kindness by promptly doubling its population, but without doubling its own food supply…
South African farmers suffered millions of dollars in lost income when 82,000 hectares of genetically-manipulated corn (maize) failed to produce hardly any seeds. “Monsanto says they just made a mistake in the laboratory, however we say that biotechnology is a failure.You cannot make a ‘mistake’ with three different varieties of corn.’ More at Freerepublic.com
Most media are presenting the recent clash between Indians and oil interests as “Nine Peruvian Police killed by indigenous protesters”. An article on Mongabay.com seems to have a more informed insight. More than 70% of the Peruvian Amazon has been allocated for oil and gas extraction, and the current government of Alan Garcia has been…
Wildland conservation has a recorded history and a literary tradition. Aborigines evicted from their homelands in the interest of conservation have only memory and the bitter oral narrative I heard again and again while visiting their makeshift villages and refugee camps; their pre-eviction experience is rarely recorded outside the literature of anthropology. So the concept…
Yammu and Kashmir’s traditional graziers, the nomadic Gujjars, rue the dying out of several indigenous species of goat and sheep after the introduction of foreign high-yielding breeds. The nomadic Gujjars move to highland pastures in summers and come down to the plains when winters set in. “These foreign breeds are not successful for nomadic conditions,”…
“Your children need land and nature alive and standing. We Indians want respect for our rights. You can learn with us and with our shamans. That is important not only for the Yanomami but for the future of the whole world.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled that the Indian reservation known as Raposa-Serra do Sol should not be broken up. A powerful group of rice farmers who live inside the reserve wanted the reserve’s boundaries changed so they could remain. But by 10-1 the judges ruled that the reserve should remain intact. The President of the…