On October 31, 2013, Canada’s Federal Environmental Review Panel submitted an extensive report with their major findings regarding Taseko’s plan to mitigate adverse impacts of the “New Prosperity” gold-copper mine, a project proposed on the lands of the Tsilhqot’in First Nation. Weeks earlier, the Panel heard considerable testimony from members of the Tsilhqot’in community. The Panel was required to review information presented by Indigenous groups in British Columbia.

On November 7, the Tsilhqot’in community members appeared in Canada’s Supreme Court to assert their title to traditional lands. This comes more than 20 years after a lawsuit was filed against the government of British Columbia over commercial logging on land the Tsilhqot’in claim as traditionally theirs.

By Jess Cherofsky (CS STAFF) “Food sovereignty is knowing the species we have on our lands, knowing what kind of seeds to plant in each territory,” said Clemencia Herrera from the Colombian Amazon in the working group on food sovereignty and the World Conference of Indigenous Women, which took place in Lima, Peru, October 28-30, 2013.

By María del Rosario Sul González

Carol Gonzalez Aguilar is the coordinator of Women and Family from Organización de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonía Colombiana (OPIAC) located in the village of Sano in the department of Vaupéz in Colombia. She was a participant observer at the World Conference on Indigenous Women  held in Lima, Peru, from 27 to 30 October 2013.

By James Phillips

By First Peoples Worldwide

Food assistance and distribution programs, foster-care programs, school bus routes, elderly care programs, and college scholarship funds are just some of the services on Native American reservations that are threatened by the recent government shutdown.

On October 1, 2013 hundreds of Indigenous and non-Indigenous protesters gathered in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, to challenge a constitutional change that would allow encroachment by agribusinesses and extractive industries on Indigenous owned land.

On the morning of September 28, 2013, a military helicopter hovered over the Q’anjobal community of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango. Mynor Lopez, a community leader in the resistance against the Hidro Santa Cruz hydroelectric project was captured and taken into custody by the police.

By Ben Ole Koissaba

On Thursday, September 12, 2013 the Honduran government granted more than 1.6 million acres of coastal lands to the Indigenous Miskito people, who occupy the northeastern corner of Honduras known as La Moskitia, which runs along the border with Nicaragua and the Caribbean coast, The Miskito consist of about 21,800 people in more than 100 villages and sparsely populated towns.