Hundreds of members of the Dongria Kondh tribe, together with many tribal and non-tribal allies, formed a human chain at the base of their sacred Niyamgiri mountain on the 27th January to prevent British mining giant Vedanta from bulldozing it.
There is mounting evidence that violence and repression in West Papua are intensifying. Over the Christmas and New Year period, there were several reports of killings and shootings, and a rise in ‘accidental deaths’.
Ranglai Mro, leader of the remote Mro (or Mru) people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, was released on bail today after almost two years in prison.
Illegal goldminers shot dead a Yekuana leader and injured his son on Wednesday in the Brazilian state of Roraima.
An Anglo-French oil company hoping to drill for oil on uncontacted tribes’ land in the Peruvian Amazon may be forced to abandon the project after the government threatened to withdraw investment in it.
A delegation of one hundred Indigenous leaders and representatives of Indigenous organizations is travelling by ship down the Amazon to the World Social Forum.
In the month the world saw the inauguration of the first African-American as president of the United States, two Indigenous leaders were inaugurated as mayor and vice-mayor of a town in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
A cartoon published today by Survival International lists protecting the rights of an uncontacted tribe in Paraguay as one of President Lugo’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2009.