EL ALTO, Bolivia
Every morning from 6:00 to 8:00 AM, native people in this sprawling working-class suburb of La Paz, Bolivia listen to the programme broadcast by former education minister Donato Ayma in the Aymara language.
Peru will debut a new mechanism for prior consultation with indigenous peoples by seeking their approval for a new stage of oil drilling operations in the infamous Lot 1AB in the northeastern Amazon region of Loreto.
Up to 80 Yanomami men, women and children in a remote community in the Amazon jungle in southern Venezuela were reportedly killed in early July by wildcat gold miners from Brazil, according to indigenous organisations.
Although they are only five percent of the global population, indigenous people account for up to 15 percent of the world’s poor, according to a new study published by members of the World Bank.
Indigenous leaders from all over South America are making their way by foot, canoe and eventually on buses to be part of the Kari-Oca Caravan to Rio de Janeiro, to talk to world leaders at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20.
"Midwives in Guatemala attend to women during pregnancy, the birth and the post-partum period. They give the women warmth and support, because they speak the same language and belong to the same culture," said Silvia Xinico with the Network of Organisations of Indigenous Women for Reproductive Health.
A unique response to the challenge of global warming is happening in rural areas of Peru, where a network of indigenous elders is working out how to adjust weather forecasts in the light of climate change, while taking measures to safeguard their crops.