Indigenous Territory & Resource Rights

Cross-posted from Christian Science Monitor

By Annie Murphy

Lidia Romero (c.), a member of the Community Police, stands guard on a road at the entrance to the town of Cherán one week ago. Residents of remote regions have taken up arms to patrol and defend their communities from organized crimes and gangs. Alan Ortega/Reuters

About two years ago, citizens in Cherán, Mexico decided to battle illegal logging and drug violence by kicking out the police and running the town according to indigenous tradition.

by Talli Nauman

Cross-posted from CIP Americas.

Idle No More (INM),  started in late 2012 as an aboriginal movement to block regressive legislation threatening indigenous, territorial and treaty claims in Canada, has quickly become a worldwide vehicle for indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental complaints.  By early 2013 It has attracted significant attention from Latin American quarters.

Cross-posted from Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Days Two and Three:

Back-to-back 15 mile days leave marchers' bodies sore, and spirits soaring!

Small farmers in Honduras have taken to the streets, marching to the capital Tegucigalpa in protest of privately owned Charter Cities and industry mining on their land. The following declaration was released by the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, COPINH on February 27, 2013.

Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, COPINH

Walk for Dignity and Sovereignty, Step by Step.
Honduras

COPINH has begun the Dignity and Sovereignty Walk, Step by Step, leaving the headquarters of COPINH to meet the other walkers that have left La Barca, everyone on their way to Tegucigalpa.

Part 3 of the Harvesting Justice Series
By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

Agricultural economist Peter Rosset is with the Center for the Study of Rural Change in Mexico
and the Land Research Action Network. He is also a member of the technical support team of
Via Campesina. Beverly Bell talked with Peter Rosset in Havana in 2009; they updated the
interview in 2012.

There are several fundamental pillars that are necessary to take control over food and agricultural
systems. One is to force even reluctant or reactionary governments to regain control over their
national borders from the flow of imported food. That means canceling free trade agreements
and not signing WTO agreements. It means stopping the import either of incredibly cheap,
subsidized food from agro-export countries which drives local producers out of business, or of
food made ridiculously expensive by food speculation.

“Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of ‘making salt’ has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: César Chávez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement – one that spans the globe – seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems, with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.”

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell

“Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of ‘making salt’ has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: César Chávez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement – one that spans the globe – seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems, with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.”

Cross-posted from Vital Systems

Dear friends,

There's an indigenous community in Ecuador that lives in a part of the Amazon where there are jaguars and more animal life than the whole of North America! It's an incredibly pristine, remote area and the whole ecosystem has been preserved. But the government is threatening to go in and look for oil.

By Beverly Bell
January 7, 2013

In the high desert outside Taos, New Mexico, I drove down a dirt road that parallels the Rio Grande and saw the thick haze of a forest fire. To see the spectacle, I quickly reversed my planned course and drove as close as I was able. Across a long line of mountains, red flames flicked up like snake’s tongues amongst dense black ropes of smoke. Where the blaze had worn down, thinner smoke wisps arose above charred, black land.