Indigenous Peoples

The brutal murders of journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira took place in a region, the Javari Valley, beset by a profitable vortex of clandestine economies, resource plunder and land grabbing which the present government does almost nothing to discourage or suppress.

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered in a remote area of the Amazon – almost certainly by or on the orders of those who run the illegal trade in fish, timber, drugs and minerals. President Bolsonaro has fuelled lawlessness by his rhetoric.

The Javari reserve in Amazonas, where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, is a wild-west border region with multiple problems of drug trafficking, smuggling and land grabbing.

Following the murder of Colombian Indigenous leader Albeiro Camayo Güetio in January 2022 by FARC dissidents, independent digital media outlet 070 interview a human rights activist and a researcher at Conflict Responses Foundation to understand the crime and the government’s and FARC dissidents’ responsibility for it.

Honduran environmental defender Berta Cáceres was brutally murdered in 2016 because of her opposition to the construction of the Agua Zarca dam, which threatened indigenous Lenca communities. This podcast series examines her life and death.

‘Resisto, luego existo’, the new exhibition at Bogota’s Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliacion opens to the public with documentaries about centres of resistance around the country.

Cristina Calderón, who has died at the age of 93, was the last surviving speaker of the Yaghan language, from Tierra del Fuego. She was renowned and recognized by Chile and by UNESCO.

Intag communities in Ecuador are resisting development of a copper mine at Llurimagua, proposed by Enami and Codelco. In Peru, residents of Aquia, Ancásh, accuse the Antamina mine of encroaching on their land without consultation.

The 'packet of destruction' raft of new bills is set to pass in Brazil's congress, with the enthusiastic endorsement of President Bolsonaro. It spells death and destruction for the Amazon and for indigenous communities.

The latest report by APIB and Amazon Watch, is the fourth in their Complicity in Destruction series covering the perpetual destructive mining practices in the Amazon and the impacts these have had on the lives of the indigenous populations of the forest.