scholarly journals Brazilian Amazon gold: indigenous land rights under risk

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Villén-Pérez ◽  
Paulo Moutinho ◽  
Caroline Corrêa Nóbrega ◽  
Paulo De Marco
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Health ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Mining Operations ◽  
Indigenous Lands ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

Brazilian indigenous lands prevent the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest while protecting the land rights of indigenous peoples. However, they are at risk because they overlap with large areas of registered interest for mining. Indigenous lands have been in the spotlight of the pro-development wing of the parliament for decades, and the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, promised that he would open up these territories for exploitation. Recently, bill PL191/2020 was released to downgrade the protection status of indigenous lands by regulating mining activities in these territories. Mining operations have an unavoidable socio-environmental impact on indigenous communities that is difficult to compensate. First, rapid demographic growth associated with the incoming migrant workforce often causes social disruption and threat indigenous societies. Moreover, sustained pollution related to mining procedures and accidental spills largely degrade the environment and imperil indigenous health. Finally, mining operations drive deforestation both within and beyond their operational boundaries. Mining is already an essential determinant of forest loss in the Amazon, where further deforestation may result in extended droughts with significant social and economic consequences. We conclude that, if mining operations were allowed in Brazilian indigenous lands, indigenous peoples would be imperiled along with regional and global climate and economies.

Recognition of Indigenous Land Rights in Norway and Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Øyvind Ravna ◽  
Nigel Bankes
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Aboriginal Title ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

Many states offer constitutional protection to the traditional lands of indigenous peoples. International treaties protecting ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples also require protection of the rights of indigenous communities with respect to traditional territories. States have followed different routes in identifying the ownership and resource rights of indigenous communities. In Norway, the Courts have traditionally applied the rules on prescription and immemorial usage, developed through centuries in the farming societies of Scandinavia. The legislature has chosen to follow the same approach in the Finnmark area of Norway under the terms of the Finnmark Act (2005). By contrast, in Canada, a settled colony with an English common law tradition, the Courts have developed a sui generis approach to the recognition of Aboriginal title. This article examines the rules for identifying and legally recognising the traditional lands of indigenous people in Norway and Canada with a view to reflecting on similarities and differences.

Indigenous Planning: From Forced Assimilation to Self-determination

2021 ◽  
pp. 088541222110266
Author(s):  
Michael Hibbard
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Indigenous Planning ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

Interest in Indigenous planning has blossomed in recent years, particularly as it relates to the Indigenous response to settler colonialism. Driven by land and resource hunger, settler states strove to extinguish Indigenous land rights and ultimately to destroy Indigenous cultures. However, Indigenous peoples have persisted. This article draws on the literature to examine the resistance of Indigenous peoples to settler colonialism, their resilience, and the resurgence of Indigenous planning as a vehicle for Indigenous peoples to determine their own fate and to enact their own conceptions of self-determination and self-governance.

scholarly journals Indigenous Title and its Contextual Economic Implications: Lessons for International Law From Canada’s Tsilhqot’in Decision

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 215-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwight Newman
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
International Instruments ◽  
Indigenous Land

International law on the rights of Indigenous peoples has developed rapidly in recent decades. In the latest phase of this development, international instruments on the rights of Indigenous peoples have increasingly offered universalized statements. However, the reality remains that the implementation of Indigenous rights must take place in particular circumstances in particular states. The form of domestic implementation of Indigenous rights may or may not connect closely to international law statements on these rights, and there may be good reasons for that. This essay takes up a particular example of Indigenous land rights and a significant recent development on land rights in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Indigenous Land Disputes and Law Reform in India: Lessons for Malaysia

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Izawati Wook
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Land Disputes ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Forest Lands ◽  
Indigenous Land

Disputes on indigenous land rights are a continuing issue in Malaysia which needs to be addressed. Apart from the common law recognition of the land rights of the indigenous peoples, they are increasingly and widely recognised, both, under national and international laws as a stakeholder in the natural resources located within their areas. Since 1992, there has been a dramatic increase in legislation around the world recognising the rights of indigenous peoples and communities to forest lands and resources. An interesting law reform exercise has taken place in India with the introduction of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 (FRA) to address the claim of the indigenous peoples to forest resources. India is relevant as a comparison to Malaysia as both share some common political and legal features. Using a comparative approach, this article analyses processes and mechanisms adopted in the relevant law reform in India and its relevance to Malaysia. Comparative perspectives provide models for practical applications of indigenous peoples’ rights. These will assist policy analysis through learning from the successes and failures of other jurisdictions in improving legal reform. This article provides a new perspective in addressing the issue of land disputes involving the indigenous peoples in Malaysia which is significant to the policy and law reform on this issue. 

Case of the Kaliña and Lokono Peoples v. Suriname

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-154
Author(s):  
Lucas Lixinski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Judicial Protection ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Indigenous Land

On November 25, 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) held that the state of Suriname had violated the rights of two indigenous groups by denying recognition of their juridical personality and their entitlement to collective property and judicial protection. In Kaliña and Lokono Peoples v. Suriname, the Court also considered the impact of nature reserves on indigenous land rights, as well as the legitimacy of private titling of property that encroaches on land for which collective title has not been attained. The decision pushes the Court's previous jurisprudence significantly—and somewhat controversially—by asserting that under the American Convention on Human Rights, indigenous peoples are entitled, as collective entities, to recognition of their legal personality. In so doing, the Court challenged ordinary assumptions about the individualized character of most adjudication regarding international human rights and made the possibility of enforcing collective rights more palpable.

Indigene Landrechte in Zeiten des Klimawandels und der Verhandlung um das Freihandelsabkommen Mercosur am Beispiel Brasilien

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-148
Author(s):  
Margret Carstens
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Territories ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
The Eu ◽  
Indigenous Land

How to assess the issue of indigenous land rights in the face of man-m⁠a⁠d⁠e climate change and Amazon fires? How to classify the EU free trade agreement „Mercosur“ and relevant climate, environmental and indigenous rights? What are legal opportunities for indigenous people(s) on the international, inter-American and EU level, to prevent the loss of land and forests, and to protect themselves from climate change? On the basis of indigenous land and environmental rights in Brazil and reactions to the Amazon fires, environmental regulations of the "Mercosur Pact" as well as concerned human and indigenous rights are discussed. Further, this article deals with relevant inter-American law (individual indigenous land rights) and international law (collective land rights). Environmental and climate law provide legal and political options for indigenous people(s), for instance in Brasil. Negative impacts of climate actions on indigenous peoples, the competition between environmental protection areas and indigenous territories, the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in sustainable environmental protection and the allocation of Global Public Goods are discussed. There are various interactions between climate and biodiversity protection, human rights, indigenous peoples rights, and free trade between the EU and South America. While protecting forests as a carbon sink, negative environmental or social consequences must be avoided. Like trade agreements, environmental standards for the protection of the Brazilian Amazon rain forest should be enforceable. To reduce deforestation and to confine the effects of climate change, indigenous peoples rights have to be strengthened. The free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples to projects that may affect their territories is essential. It requires effective, coordinated solutions to protect human rights and indigenous land rights, and it needs a sustainable preservation of climate and forests - nationally and internationally. A collapse of the Amazon forest ecosystem would have global climate effects. In Brazil, alternatives to deforestation and destruction are: strengthening the rule of law and agro-ecology, and to defend indigenous territories.

Winning Title to Land but Not to Its Past: The Toledo Maya and Sites of pre-Hispanic Heritage

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoshaunna Parks
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
The Government ◽  
Customary Land ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Indigenous Land

AbstractThe struggle for indigenous rights to pre-Hispanic cultural heritage parallels the struggle for indigenous land rights in Belize. By Belizean law, material objects and sites of activity older than 100 years in age are the property of the state. Similarly, land inhabited by indigenous communities in southern Belize is held in trust by the government. In 2007 the community of Santa Cruz in southern Belize won customary land tenure over their lands for the first time from the Belizean government. This change in land ownership presents new challenges to the definition of ownership of ancient places in Maya territory. In particular, the transfer of land rights to the community has potential implications for the ownership and management of the local pre-Hispanic site of Uxbenká that may ultimately serve as a paradigm for the future relationship between Maya peoples and ancestral remains throughout the nation.

Land, Listening and Voice: Investigating Community and Media Representations of the Queensland Struggle for Land Rights and Equality

2013 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerrie Foxwell-Norton ◽  
Susan Forde ◽  
Michael Meadows
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Indigenous Rights ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Indigenous Media ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
Indigenous Land

For the most part, the story of the Australian Indigenous land rights struggle has been told by the Australian media – media that have attracted consistent criticism for their portrayal of Indigenous Australians. On the other hand, Australia boasts a vibrant and accomplished Indigenous media sector that has also told the land rights story from a different perspective, albeit to a much smaller audience. The authors are currently a part of a research team seeking to provide a critical analysis of historical and contemporary representations of the land rights movement and the broader struggle for indigenous rights and equality in Queensland. The project seeks to challenge the prevailing dialogue by focusing on the perspectives of people who have been (and still are) involved in the land rights movement. Prioritising and exploring such alternative perspectives will not only present the opportunity to reconsider the role of media representations, but will also enable an Indigenous ‘take’ on them to emerge. This article presents our approach and rationale, discussing the methodological possibilities and challenges of research with Indigenous communities, which ultimately seeks to redress media imbalance and injustice by a retelling that elevates Indigenous voices, stories and pictures.

scholarly journals Constitutional Recognition: reflecting on the prospect and direction in the 46th Parliament

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Cleavin
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Nations People ◽  
Indigenous Australia ◽  
First Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Land Rights ◽  
First Nations People ◽  
Indigenous Land

In an election campaign that spent much time around esoteric ideas like dividend imputation credits and electric vehicle targets, it is strange that little time was spent discussing Labor's proposal to enshrine a Voice to Parliament for First Nations people in the constitution, via referendum. Unlike nations such as New Zealand or Norway, Australia lacks a specified mechanism for First Peoples’ political representation. As with our decades of inaction on constitutional recognition of Australia's Indigenous peoples, this can also be seen manifesting in our inability to improve educational, health, and justice outcomes for Indigenous Australia. Individuals like newly appointed Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Ken Wyatt, and Member for Barton, Linda Burney, can and do break through this glass ceiling. But such examples serve as outliers rather than the norm, as Indigenous Land Rights leader Galarrwuy Yunipingu noted, ‘I have had a place at the table of the best and the brightest in the Australian nation - and at times success has seemed so close, yet it always slips away’ (Yunipingu 2008, para. 20). The Uluru Statement from the Heart sought to show a path forward from the ‘torment of our powerlessness’ and for ‘reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country’.

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