AS 81-year-old Subrata listened to a gong echo during a celebration of his ancient Indonesian Indigenous faith, he betrayed little of the trauma of a lifetime of discrimination deriding him as “godless”.
As 81-year-old Subrata listened to a gong echo during a celebration of his ancient Indonesian Indigenous faith, he betrayed little of the trauma of a lifetime of discrimination deriding him as "godless".
Uyukar Domingo Peas, an Ecuadorian Indigenous activist, says if there are still "reservoirs of natural resources" in the world, it is "because we have protected them for thousands of years."
Deforestation in West Papua, Indonesia, in 2014 (Flickr/EU FLEGT and REDD+ facilities)
The threats facing Indigenous people opposing industrial operations on their lands discrimination, harassment and assassination all disproportionately affect women. And the coronavirus pandemic has done little to reduce the danger, say Indigenous and faith leaders. Indigenous women human rights defenders are at the forefront of the resistance against the effects of extractive industries and, more generally, the model relying on the exploitation of natural resources, including through mining, logging, [agricultural] monocultures and dams, Sandra Epal-Ratjen, international advocacy director for Franciscans International, said at a virtual event April 26.
The webinar sponsored by Franciscans International, which brought together United Nations officials with Indigenous leaders from Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Guatemala, coincided with the 20th session of the U.N. Perma