Johannesburg - Wherever she goes, Nonhle Mbuthuma expects to feel the cold metal tip of a gun pressed against her head.

The land and environmental rights campaigner knows she could pay the ultimate price in her unwavering fight to protect her unspoilt, ancestral land from mining.

“I don’t feel safe at all,” says Mbuthuma, a founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), of the threats she receives from pro-mining interests.

“My voice is now the loudest. I’m seen as a ‘nuisance’ because I’m protecting my forefathers’ land and my children’s land.”

Death of Jakelin Caal in US custody highlights how land conflicts and displacement fuel flight from indigenous villages.

San Antonio Secortez & Guatemala City - The plantations' outer edges begin fewer than 20km from where seven-year-old Jakelin Caal is buried. The deep green rows of oil palm stretch along rural roads in the Alta Verapaz department of Guatemala.

On 17 December 2018, the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly voted in favour of the ‘Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas’. The declaration is a major step forward for rural communities around the world, and especially in the Global South, as it recognises a wide range of rights such as the “right to land”, the “right to water” and the “right to food sovereignty”.

The move is aimed at ending decades of deadly conflict and granting greater control over land and natural resources

BANGKOK - Nearly three million minority Muslims in southern Philippines voted on Monday in a referendum on autonomy, a move that is aimed at ending decades of deadly conflict and granting them greater control over their land and natural resources.

Native groups are struggling with land encroachment by governments and logging, mining and agribusiness companies

WASHINGTON - Indigenous people from across the globe gathered in the U.S. capital on Friday for a march drawing attention to social and environmental injustices against indigenous communities worldwide, in what organizers said was a first-ever event.

Activists fight to stop construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline, which endangers an ecosystem that is one of the most important bird habitats in the western hemisphere

Deep within the humid green heart of the largest river swamp in North America, a battle is being waged over the future of the most precious resource of all: water.

Indigenous jurisdiction is at the centre of the dispute over the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The same is true of the Trans Mountain expansion. In both cases, the corporations involved have misunderstood or misrepresented the risks associated with jurisdictional uncertainty.

In the annual review of the Agrarian Reform Consortium, secretary-general Dewi Kartika displayed some interesting infographics. Presenting the government, the business sector and civil society organizations (CSO) as three circles, it was evident that over time, the business sector grew in size and edged closer to the government, while the CSOs shrunk in size and grew more isolated. 

The tensions have highlighted the differences between elected and hereditary leadership

The tensions unfolding over a natural gas pipeline project in northern B.C. have raised questions about who a resource company should consult among Indigenous leaders when pursuing a major project: hereditary chiefs or elected band councils?

• PHOTOS

Police officers deployed near checkpoint where protesters have gathered to block the construction of a natural gas pipeline

Indigenous protesters in Canada have called a growing police presence near their makeshift checkpoint “an act of war”, as tensions mount over a stalled pipeline project in northern British Columbia.

The Grand Renaissance Dam is the centrepiece of Ethiopia's bid to become Africa's biggest power exporter

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia's $4 billion dam project on the River Nile, which has been beset by construction delays and criticism from Egypt, will start initial operations in December 2020, the water and energy minister said on Thursday.

• Indigenous leaders in Ecuador say that a lack of progress toward addressing key issues stands in the way of their fundamental territorial rights.
• Concerns include resource extraction projects initiated without proper prior consent and consultation, as well as the activation of several mining and oil concessions in Ecuador.
• The outcry comes at a time when indigenous peoples are increasingly being recognized as key partners in ensuring the protection of the world’s tropical forests.