Last night millions of Kenyans were celebrating a momentous occasion – the country has just voted in a new constitution, the first since colonial times.

Observers had feared the national referendum might deliver a repeat of the terrible violence which marred the 2007 Presidential election, but this week’s vote passed off peacefully.

An Ogiek man prepares his bow and arrows. © Yoshi Shimizu

One of the most contentious issues in the draft constitution is land reform – a topic which could have significant implications for the Ogiek, a hunter gatherer people living in Kenya’s Mau Forest.

Once an expansive, dense forest and a water source for the entire country, the Mau Forest has been steadily destroyed by illegal settlers, farmers and loggers invading the land. In a bid to save the forest before it’s gone forever, the government has recently been reclaiming land and evicting illegal settlers.

Many of the Ogiek, who have lived in the Mau for generations, are uncertain about the forest restoration programme. It could be the only way to stop the Mau disappearing altogether, and could force the illegal settlers who’ve taken over Ogiek land to leave.

But if Ogiek rights to the Mau Forest land are not properly recognized and respected, in the end it could be they – who have done the least to destroy the forest – who suffer the most during its restoration. The Mau is the only home they have.

Under the new constitution, a ‘Land Commission’ will be established to settle land disputes that have caused such bloodshed in Kenya in the past. The Commission will have powers to seize illegally acquired land.

As with the Mau Restoration project, this could be a positive step for the Ogiek. It all depends on how rules on paper are translated into practice and whether the Ogiek territories, defined and agreed before Kenya even existed as a country, are respected.

The new constitution could have significant implications for the land rights of some of the most marginalized indigenous peoples in Kenya, including the Mau Forest’s Ogiek people.

The movie ‘Birdwatchers’, which tells the story of the Guarani-Kaiowá Indians in Brazil, has been shortlisted for a prestigious One World Media Award.

The film depicts a ‘retomada’ where tribe members re-occupy land which has been taken from them. © Marie Hippenmeyer

Birdwatchers highlights the shocking plight of the Guarani, through a love story between a young Guarani shaman apprentice and the daughter of a wealthy landowner.

Exiled from their land and struggling to survive, the Guarani community in Birdwatchers – like many real life Guarani – resolve to take back their land from the rancher who occupies it. And like so many real Guarani ‘retomadas’ (retakings), their attempt is met with violent repression.

A ‘retomada’ sequence. © Marie Hippenmeyer

The film stars Guarani Indians who had never acted before, and who worked together with director Marco Bechis to devise the script. Their moving performances are testimony to the Guarani’s refusal to give up hope.

Guarani pose for tourists in the movie’s opening sequence. © Marie Hippenmeyer

The winners of the One World Media Awards are due to be announced on 22 June.

Birdwatchers is available on DVD. Watch the trailer.

Update: Birdwatchers won the award! “The jury was unanimous in voting as the winner this engrossing and beautifully made film.“

Exactly one year ago today, at six a.m., an indigenous leader called Alberto Pizango was walking to his office in Peru’s capital city, Lima, when his mobile phone rang.

A voice said: ‘Brother, they’re killing us. The government has started the massacre. Listen.’ Alberto listened.

Police attack protesters at Bagua. © Independent journalist courtesy of Amazon Watch

Hundreds of miles away, in the Amazon, near a town called Bagua, police had opened fire on Awajún and Wampis Indians protesting against new laws opening up their land to oil, gas, logging and mining companies.

‘Baguazo’, as this tragic event became known, made international headlines and sparked protests against Peru’s government around the world: 33 people were killed, more than 20 of them policemen, and 200 injured.

The government’s response? A mixed bag including suspending two of the laws, appointing a commission to investigate the killings, and instigating a campaign against Peru’s indigenous leaders that forced Alberto, among others, to seek asylum in Nicaragua.

When the commission published its report, in December, two members refused to sign it and announced, on Christmas Day, that they would write their own instead.

That report, released on 15 April, said exactly what Peru’s government didn’t want to hear: that the police operation at Bagua was ‘badly planned’ and ‘could only lead to disaster’, and that the laws the Awajún and Wampis were protesting against were ‘highly contradictory’ to indigenous rights.

An eyewitness account of the violence that erupted after the Peruvian government decided to break up an indigenous roadblock by force.

Has Peru’s government, one year on, learnt its lesson? Hardly. Two weeks ago, in London, I listened to a delegation from state oil firm Perupetro declare that 10.9 million hectares of Peru are up for auction this year to oil and gas companies.

Almost all of this area is indigenous land in the Amazon, and is in addition to millions more hectares that Perupetro has already opened up to companies.

Police detain a protester. © Thomas Quirynen

Alberto’s organization, AIDESEP, called the auction a ‘new provocation’ and ‘new threat.’

Equally concerning, Peru still allows oil and gas companies into areas inhabited by ‘uncontacted’ tribes.

Perenco, Repsol-YPF and ConocoPhillips are all working in a region in northern Peru where there are at least two such tribes.

If contact is made, the consequences could be catastrophic: disease, deaths and epidemics.

And Alberto? He returned to Peru last week, but was arrested immediately at Lima’s airport before being released on bail.

The charges against him are part of what AIDESEP calls a ‘destabilization campaign’ aimed at destroying Peru’s indigenous movement, and which has included forcing other leaders into asylum and a legal move to close down AIDESEP.

We urge Peru’s government to drop all charges against Alberto, to recognize indigenous peoples’ rights to land and self-determination, and to do all it can to make sure that nothing like ‘Baguazo’ ever, ever happens again.

There are reports that the Obama administration, in the wake of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill, intends to suspend new oil drilling in the Arctic.

But what about the Amazon?

Obama is due to meet Peruvian president Alan Garcia in the White House in four days’ time.

Vast areas of the Amazon are being auctioned to oil and gas companies.

Last week, Peru announced it intends to open 10 million hectares of the Amazon to oil and gas companies – in addition to millions more hectares already opened up for exploration and drilling.

Indeed, one of the companies involved is US energy giant ConocoPhillips, which is currently gearing up to explore for oil in a remote Amazon region inhabited by two uncontacted tribes.

These tribes lack immunity to outsiders’ diseases so any form of contact with oil crews could decimate them. Big Oil doesn’t need to spill to kill.

President of Peru Alan García.

Survival is urging Obama to raise these issues with Garcia when they meet on 1 June.

One suggestion, Mr President: if Garcia claims the uncontacted tribes don’t exist, stop your ears!

Supporters of tribal peoples’ rights might be interested to know the position of the main English political parties on this issue.

The Labour government’s position was that the UK should not ratify the international law on tribal peoples (ILO Convention 169), ‘because the UK has no indigenous peoples’.

Davi Yanomami visits the Houses of Parliament to urge the British Government to ratify ILO 169.

Nevertheless, 23% of Labour MPs signed an ‘early day motion’ (EDM) in 2008 disagreeing and saying the government should ratify it.

The Conservative party agrees with Labour’s position. 3% of Conservative MPs signed the same EDM.

The Liberal Democrats have made a formal decision to ratify the law. The same EDM was signed by 87% of LibDem MPs.

Survival has no political position and supports no political party.

We do, however, believe it to be important that all countries ratify the law.

We are urging Survival supporters to ask the candidates in their constituency for their position on this issue.

The percentage of MPs from the three main parties who signed an Early Day Motion calling for the British Government to ratify ILO 169, the international law for tribal peoples.

How many words do the Inuit people have for snow?

At the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End, the anthropologist Hugh Brody entranced the audience with several. He told us the word for fresh snow falling in the air (‘Qanirpuq’); the word for snow thawed to make drinking water (‘Aniuk’), and the word for grainy and crystalline snow (‘Pukak’).

Mark Rylance leading a rehearsal… will it come together in time?

Hugh Brody was speaking from the set of ‘Jerusalem,’ sitting by a fire that cast a flickering light on the actors brought together by Mark Rylance for his one-off theatrical adaptation of Survival’s new book on tribal peoples, ‘We are One’. On a large screen suspended above the stage, the audience watched images of an Inuit family ploughing their way through deep drifts, their children wrapped in caribou skins, the northern winds blowing snow across the icy tundra.

Juliet Stevenson, Imelda Staunton, Emilia Fox and Gillian Anderson around the fire

Throughout the evening on Sunday 18th April, 2010, actors including Julie Christie, John Sessions, Juliet Stevenson, Mackenzie Crook, Imelda Staunton and Edward Fox led the audience from the Amazon rainforest to the Kalahari desert, and the grassy plains of South Dakota.

We heard the thoughts of the Yanomami people of Brazil, the Penan nomads of Sarawak, and the Arhuaco of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. When Derek Jacobi enacted the moving words of the great North American Indian orator, Chief Seattle, the lights went down as he told the audience that ‘every part of this land is sacred in the estimation of my people’.

Seattle’s words had encapsulated the essence of the evening – the importance of land to tribal peoples.

Mackenzie Crook reading the words of Davi Yanomami, from Survival’s book We Are One.

‘We are One’ was a fundraising evening for Survival, and raised nearly £20,000, all of which will go to our campaigns for tribal peoples.

And if you’re wondering just how many different words the Inuit have for snow, don’t ask Wikipedia. Thanks to Hugh Brody’s piece I can now tell you it’s… zero. Not one of the dozens of Inuit words to differentiate the many varieties of snow and ice that have meaning to them refers simply to ‘snow.’

The book ‘We are One’ is available from Survival.

In celebration of the 40th Earth Day, we thought you might like to see some statements from tribal peoples across the world – Penan of Malaysia, Bushmen of Botswana, Yanomami of Amazon river basin – that depict the profound ties tribal peoples have with their lands.

Kombai children, West Papua © Grenville Charles

For many, their part of the Earth is the very bedrock of their lives – it provides their shelter, food and medicines, is the burial place of their ancestors and the inheritance of their children.

Tribal peoples still understand better than most the vital connections between man and nature, and that in damaging the Earth we are also damaging ourselves and our collective future.

These quotes are taken from Survival’s book We Are One and our archives.

We were made the same as the sand, we were born here. This place is my father’s father’s father’s land.
Bushman, Botswana

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth as ‘wild’. Only to the white man was nature a ‘wilderness’ and only to him was it ‘infested’ with ‘wild’ animals and ’savage’ people. To us it was tame.
Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux, American Indian

Our land belongs to us because we belong to the land.
Wichi, Argentina

I do not think the measure of a civilisation is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.
Sun Bear, Chippewa, American Indian

This land is the house we have always lived in.
Linda Hogan, Chicksaw, American Indian

Over the years, Survival has been accused of all kinds of wild and ridiculous things by those abusing indigenous peoples’ rights and cultures.

These include ‘inventing’ uncontacted tribes to keep companies out of the Amazon, fronting a terrorist organisation, publishing pornography, and being ‘communist excrement’ (article in Spanish) who want indigenous people to ‘remain in misery and ignorance.’

Ayoreo-Totobiegosode family shortly after first contact in 2004. © GAT

And the latest? That Paraguay’s Environment Minister, Oscar Rivas, is on our payroll (article in Spanish). This claim was made by a Brazilian cattle-ranching company, Yaguarete Pora S.A, after Survival exposed the company’s destruction of thousands of hectares of forest belonging to the indigenous Ayoreo-Totobiegosode in the Chaco forest, northern Paraguay.

Paraguay’s Environment Ministry, SEAM, later cancelled Yaguarete’s licence to work there.

Ayoreo-Totobiegosode men talk about the destruction of their land and concern for their relatives in the forest.

Yaguarete’s accusation was reported in the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color on 27 March 2010. The company accused ‘Minister Rivas of being a representative of the NGO Survival,’ ABC states.

‘In the opinion of Yaguarete’s Eduardo Livieres, the Environment minister, Rivas, owner of the NGO Sobrevivencia, is the Paraguayan representative of Survival International. ‘Survival has installed itself in the Environment Ministry,’ said Livieres.’

You can see why the company got its wires crossed: ‘Sobreviviencia’ is the Spanish word for ‘survival’.

However, the fact is that neither Rivas nor Sobrevivencia, a Paraguayan NGO, have anything to do with Survival International.

Indeed, we have never met or even spoken with Mr Rivas, although we have written to him, along with other Paraguayan officials like president Lugo and the head of the government’s indigenous affairs department, about the Totobiegsode.

An Ayoreo-Totobiegosode communal house discovered when a road was bulldozed through their land. © Survival

Rather than trying to tarnish Survival’s reputation, Yaguarete should worry more about its own.

In recent months its destruction of the Totobiegosode’s territory has been covered by media in India, the US, the UK, Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, France, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Paraguay.

Indeed, it is now the biggest international news story concerning Paraguay.

The film Samson and Delilah, released in the UK this Friday, has been acclaimed as the best – and the future – of Australian film-making: a film of ‘delicate simplicity and gut-wrenching power.’

The film depicts an Aboriginal community in the Central Australian desert where two teenagers, Samson and Delilah, live.

Very little seems to happen in their day to day lives. There is a palpable listlessness, a lot of sitting around on fences and wandering aimlessly along the red roads, kicking up dust. The flies buzz, the crickets chirrup, a band plays loud repetitive music from a verandah. And Samson sniffs petrol.

There is a feeling that the collective spirit of this indigenous community has been ground down to such a degree that to grind it down further in solvent abuse matters little.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thousands of people from the Endorois tribe met in ritual celebration last weekend as they returned to their ancestral home, around Lake Bogoria, in Kenya’s famous Rift Valley after an absence of thirty years.

Endorois celebration on the banks of Lake Bogoria in Kenya. © Survival

They were thrown off their lands in a series of evictions that began in 1973, so that the government could transform their land into the Lake Bogoria National Reserve.

The African Union endorsed a ruling earlier this year that confirmed the eviction had been illegal.

The Union confirmed the Endorois’ right to access Lake Bogoria at any time, to return to their ancestral land, and to benefit from the successful tourist operation established there during the tribe’s exile.

The Endorois marched to the banks of Lake Bogoria, lit a ceremonial fire and danced in celebration throughout the day.

At the celebration, one Endorois woman said ‘Time has scattered our little group to the four winds. So much has changed. But God has answered our prayers and hopefully we will be back as one.’

Members of the Ogiek tribe and others also joined in the celebrations. The ruling could have significant repercussions for tribal peoples’ rights throughout Africa.