News

Source: Adital / Survival
A controversial mega-project to build a transcontinental railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific has caused outrage among indigenous people and Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights.

Source : Le Monde / AFP
“We are on the verge of a vast cultural extinction”. A series of articles published in American review Science’s last issue from June 5th, found that entire groups of Amazonian indigenous populations are endangered in Peru and Brazil, due to increasing contact with the outside world.

Source: EBC / Agência Brasil
The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) intends to recommend that the court suspend the displacement of riverside dwellers who inhabit the areas affected by the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in Vitória do Xingu, South-East Pará. The initiative, which is currently being discussed by the National Human Rights Council, is the result of a two-day inspection carried out this week by representatives of federal public organizations, including IBAMA.

Source: cimi.org.br
The Federal Court in Cuiabá sentenced a legal action over the licensing of the São Manoel hydroelectric power plant on the Teles Pires River located at the border between Pará and Mato Grosso States, suspending licenses issued by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources (Ibama) due to a lack of impact studies on indigenous peoples Kayabi, Apiaká and Munduruku, all of whom are affected by the works. As is the case with other processes concerning the irregularity of federal government works in the Amazon, the sentence will not come into force and the works must continue due to the legal institute’s suspension of security.

Source: resumenlatinoamericano.org
Latin American review, May 30th 2015. On Friday, representatives of traditional peoples that deliberated over three days, marched to the Plaza de Mayo to hand in the meeting’s final document to the Casa Rosada. They were accompanied by Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and Pablo Pimentel from PAHR.

Source: diaadia.com.pa / EFE
FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) reported today from Panama City that chronic malnutrition in children from indigenous regions of Panama is greater than 19%, well ahead of the Latin American average, which is 12.8%.

On May 27 2015, Laurent Fabius, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, announced the first twenty companies to sponsor COP21. Between November 30 and December 11, France will be hosting over 180 heads of States Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at le Bourget, in order to reach a climate agreement to maintain global warming below 2°C (which would enter into force in 2020).

Chief Raoni (Kayapo people), Chief Davi Kopenawa (Yanomami people), Chiefs Aritana and Pirakuman (Yawalapiti people), and Chiefs Afukaka and Tabata (Kuikuru people), traditional Amazonian chiefs, great knowledge bearers and guardians of the largest green areas of our planet, sealed a pact in Brasilia during a large indigenous mobilization destined to preserve their hard-won rights, which are threatened by global markets.

Source: sciencepost.fr
The organization Forest Heroes has decided to fly a drone over thousands of acres of Indonesian cleared forest to show man how his behavior has affected his environment.

Source: mongabay.com
High in the Andes Mountains, countless minor streams begin their pilgrimage downward, joining forces with the rain to form the tributaries of the Amazon River. The sediments and organic matter they carry with them on their journey seaward are the nutrient-rich lifeblood that nurtures and sustains the vast aquatic and terrestrial web of life in the Amazon Basin.

Source : eluniverso.com
Quito. From dusk to dawn in the jungle, the treetop orchids, the jaguar, the smiles of natives, the birdsong and the humming of insects. All these wonders can be seen and heard in the Centro Cultural on the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Quito (PUCE) campus in the Ecuadorian capital.

Source: telesurtv.net 
The Nobel laureate is in the Ecuador's Amazon region as part of her continuing efforts to support the nation against Chevron. Nobel Prize for Peace winner and internationally renowned indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchu paid a visit on Wednesday to the area of Ecuador's Amazon affected by the United States-based oil company Chevron-Texaco.

Source : intercontinentalcry.org
Tupinambá: The Return of the Land is a new documentary film that hones in on the Tupinambá's ongoing struggle to attain official recognition of their ancestral territory in what is now southern Bahia, Brazil.

Source: huffingtonpost.com / ecosystemmarketplace.com
Colombia's Tolo River People collectively own 32,000 acres of rainforest, and that forest feeds the river on which they depend. But ownership means nothing if you can't protect it. Four years ago, they decided to start harnessing carbon finance to save the forest and preserve their way of life. This is their story.

Source: Latin America Herald Tribune
RIO DE JANEIRO – Three workers were killed and three others injured in the collapse of a cement silo at the construction site of the huge Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant in the Brazilian Amazon, the Belo Monte Construction Consortium, or CCBM, said. 

Source : elcomercio.com
On May 6^th, members of the group Yasunidos visited the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) headquarters with drums in their hands. The aim was to demand the signatures previously handed in on April 12^th 2014, intended to spark a public referendum against the exploitation of Yasuní ITT.

Before building other destructive dams in the Brazilian amazon, EDF owes us more than the truth about the Petit Saut dam disaster.

EDF is entering the controversial large dam market in the Brazilian amazon. We remember at this crucial time for the future of the Amazon rainforest that EDF (an up to 84% state-owned French multinational) is behind a 20-year-old, ongoing ecocide. Thus, we refer to Petit Saut as the “Brazilian Chernobyl” and to why EDF owes us more than the truth concerning the disaster it has caused Guyana’s primary forest, as does France itself, which is set to host the International Climate Summit (COP 21) this December. French Guyana is also one of the nine countries of the Amazon region.

Source : racismoambiental.net.br
Brazil - The assaults and threats initiated more than two months ago by loggers and tradesmen from the region of Centro do Guilherme related to illegal timber trafficking on indigenous Turiaçu territory and aimed at Ka’apor Indians, culminated on the 26th of April with the murder of Eusébio Ka'apor.

Source : La Hora
Oil exploration in blocks 31 and 43 at the heart of the Yasuni National Park should have been followed by public bodies during all stages of exploration, drilling and transportation of hydrocarbons. Such was the initial ruling of the National Assembly authorizing extraction in the National Park.

Source : eluniverso.com
The institutions responsible for the drilling of blocks 31 and 43 in the Yasuní National Park have highlighted the advances of the process in the second monthly report handed to the Assembly.