Skip to main content

Throughout the world, solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the day are either nascent or fully thriving. Organized people's movements - sometimes with help from supportive government - are changing the structures which cause violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction.

Indigenous Territory & Resource Rights

chiapas arco irisWith the world’s supply of natural resources increasingly depleted or polluted, the carefully protected repository on indigenous lands is now a target of big business.  Globalization has increased the risks for indigenous peoples living on lands that contain such strategic resources as water, oil, gas, forests, minerals, and biodiversity.  All this - not to mention knowledge, plants, animals, and human genetic information - are subject to privatization by government and to sale on the stock market.

Indigenous Territory & Resource Rights

BIRTHING JUSTICE: Our Hope is in Our Struggle – Reclaiming Land and Life in Honduras

Submitted by admin on Fri, 04/27/2012 - 15:47


By Lauren Elliott
April 27, 2012

Consuelo Castillo | Bajo Aguán, Honduras
My name is Consuelo Castillo and I have been fighting to defend the land for five years. Our goal is for everyone who is part of the land occupations to have access to land.  Land, well, it’s our first mother. For us farmers, we don’t have life without land. That’s the reason we’re in this struggle.

We want a better Honduras, a different Honduras where there is equality for everyone. A Honduras where everyone can enjoy the wealth generated by this country and the fruits of our land. We’re fighting for the changes that we truly need and, well, I believe that with everyone’s strength and work, we’re going to reach the goal.

 

  • Read more
  • Share this

Indigenous Lenca Community in Honduras Wins Community Land Title. Comunidad indígena Lenca de Yance logra la titulación comunitaria.

Submitted by admin on Mon, 04/23/2012 - 11:28

Below is an announcement from COPINH, a Lenca organization in Honduras, announcing they've won a community title for over 300 hectares of ancestral land.

¡Victoria Indígena! ¡También compartimos nuestras alegrías y luchas!

Después de innumerables acciones de lucha de manera sistemática y permanente, la comunidad Lenca de Yance, hemos logrado el primer título comunitario de nuestra tierra ancestral. 
Somos comunidad Lenca afiliada al Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras COPINH y la misma celebra el día sábado 21 de abril la entrega del título comunitario de una parte de nuestras tierras ancestrales, esta entrega se desarrollará por parte del Instituto Nacional Agrario, ocasión que se aprovechará para la entrega de la personería jurídica de las comunidades de San Bartolomé y Río Blanco del municipio de Intibucá.

Thousands of Peasant Farmers 'Reclaim' the Land with Honduras Occupations

Submitted by admin on Fri, 04/20/2012 - 09:47

Originally published on Thursday, April 19, 2012 by Common Dreams
- Common Dreams staff

On Tuesday, small scale farmers and their allies around the world observed the International Day of Peasant's Struggle, by organizing more than 250 actions and manifestations all over the globe.

The international small-farmers movement -- driven by the grassroots network La Via Campesina, which represents nearly two million small-scale growers --mobilized this year, according to its website, "to oppose the current offensive by some states and large corporations at international level to grab land from the farmers, women and men, who have been cultivating it for centuries.


Video on Land Dispute and Resistance in Bajo Aguan, Honduras


Territorial Paradise in Dispute: Aguan, Honduras 
Created by John's Doe Main and a US Solidarity Delegation that participated in the International Gathering for Human Rights in Aguan, Honduras this past February 16-23.  

BIRTHING JUSTICE: Without Firing an Arm, We Created a Revolution

Submitted by admin on Fri, 04/06/2012 - 16:04


By Beverly Bell
April 6, 2012

Ilda Martines de Souza | São Paulo State, Brazil

My parents lost their plot of rural land in the ‘60s; the landowner expelled them. After that, we didn’t have anywhere to live. I was young, and I went to São Paulo to try to make money to buy land for my father. I never could, since it was difficult to work and make enough money to buy land.

I got involved with the struggle at a very early age – I was eighteen – and I really liked it. I became an activist with the Workers Party; my children were activists, too. Then, I got involved in the São Paulo housing movement for the homeless and those living in the favelas, the slums. It was really gratifying. Each family you kept off the streets was a great joy.

BIRTHING JUSTICE: Women in Peace-Building: Peace amidst War for Resource Control

Submitted by admin on Mon, 04/02/2012 - 06:54


by Beverly Bell
April 2, 2012

Welcome to Birthing Justice: Women Creating Economic and Social Alternatives. The series features twelve alternative social and economic models which expand the possibilities for justice, equity, and strong community. They are based in the US, Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Some are national-level, some global-level. Some are propelled by people’s movements, some forced or adopted into government policy. In first-hand narratives, women describe their role in having created the models and show us their unique perspectives and challenges in the movements.

"Resistencia": Land Occupation in Honduras

Originally posted here by the film makers, Jesse Freeston and Amy Miller. 

FINAL DECLARATION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL GATHERING OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN HONDURAS, FEBRUARY 17-20, 2012 (English Version)

Submitted by admin on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 18:39
Below is the final declaration from the International Gathering for Human Rights in Honduras that took place February 17-20 in Tocoa, Colón, in the Bajó Aguan region of Honduras, the site of some of the worst repression in Latin America by agro-business owners against campesinos organizing to reclaim land taken from them. Also read this article by Stephen Bartlett about La Confianza, one of the reclaimed communities that, despite constant threats by large land owners, is building up a dream out of rows of African palm trees.
Tocoa, Bajo Aguán, Colón, Honduras – February 16th- 20th, 2012

Originally posted on the MioAguan webpage. 

Informe Global 2011 de Otros Mundos AC/Chiapas

Submitted by admin on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 19:01


Check out the 2011 update from Otros Mundos, our sister organization in Chiapas, Mexico.

The announcement and update (all in Spanish) are on their website, here: http://www.otrosmundoschiapas.org/index.php/sobreomch/75-sobreomch/1143-....

El año 2011 ¡ha vuelto a ser de mucho mucho trabajo!
Aquí les contamos lo que hemos hecho, gracias a las muchas y muchos que han participado con nosotros y nosotras en este año.

Final Declaration from the International Gathering of Human Rights in Honduras, February 17-20, 2012 (Spanish version)

Submitted by admin on Fri, 02/24/2012 - 11:00
English translation will be available soon
February 19, 2012
 

En Tocoa, bajo el sol que anuncia un verano ardiente, con el duelo en el corazón indignado por los últimos acontecimientos ocurridos en Comayagua, Comayaguela, y El Progreso, en donde incendios que han acabado con vidas y modos de trabajo de cientos de personas nos hacen pensar en planes de horror contra el pueblo. Nos hemos reunido, bajo el inagotable ánimo de la rebeldía y la solidaridad, más de mil personas desde el norte hasta el sur, que incluye muchos pueblos de Nuestra América y  activistas de Europa, EE.UU y Australia.