Indigenous Peoples of South America: Land and Resource Rights
The destruction of the Amazon rainforest highlights a growing disregard for environmental impacts, as evidenced by the increasing deforestation rates. Various organizations are addressing this issue through different strategies.
Indigenous Peoples of South America: Land and Resource Rights
What organizations or individuals are addressing this issue?
UNFCC: Aims to effectively observe and support local Indigenous communities and the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change to implement climate policies. They want to respect and protect the fact that resources, land and development belongs to Indigenous people.
Subtopic
What does a growing or declining trend tell you about the issue under investigation?
The growing trend in deforestation tells us that the people destroying the Amazon rainforest don't care about their actions and the issues that they’re causing.
Does a timeline of evidence show that people are more concerned about this issue or less concerned about this issue?
As of today, 11,088 sq km of the rainforest has been destroyed and continues to be. It seems that the companies destroying the Amazon are unconcerned about this issue, but as awareness spreads and people learn about deforestation, there are more and more people trying to protect the Amazon rainforest from these companies.
Are there patterns that show if the organizations or individuals addressing this issue are doing so in a similar manner?
International Working Group For Indiginous Affairs is a group that focuses on protecting indiginous cultures and land. One way to protect them and their land is to work on constructing legal property rights so that they can control how their land is used and hopefully reduce logging.
Organizations such as the Amazon Conservation Association are focusing more heavily on resource rights and dedicate their time to reconstruction of the Amazon rainforest. Amazon Conservation Association have planted over 275,000 trees to date in an attempt to heal the forest.
Some organizations take an entry level approach in focusing on spreading awareness which is just as important as directly dealing with the issue. Bringing awareness to issues such as land rights promotes the public to get involved.
Multiple approaches are being tackled in the means of fighting for land and resource rights in the Amazon since there are multiple different issues arising.
What evidence is provided to support this issue as a social justice issue?
Climate change, a major factor of this is western companies extracting resources, has caused Indigenous people to lose their homes and traditional aspects of their land (ex. deforestation)
Power which people of colonial attitudes hold over Indignous people allows them to destroy Indigenous lands and resources they use which leads to extinction of their culture
Exploitation of the Amazons resources affects the livelihood of Indigenous people who live in these areas.
Policies and Acts protecting Indigenous peoples territory often are ignored or are not even enforced because of governmental powers.
Indigenous people are forced off their land and have been depleted of their resources due to Western societies needs.
The lack of political and economical power Indigenous people have when in comparison to First World countries allows them to be continuously oppressed.
