Front Page Pictures
COFAN - ECUADOR
Cofan territory in Ecuador marks the transition between the northeasterly Andes Mountains and the Amazon Basin lowlands, with their tributary rivers and rain forests. As such it is some of the most biodiverse, resource-rich land remaining on earth. Governments; oil and hydroelectric corporations; mining, agricultural, timber and pharmaceutical interests; conservationists – all have shown a persistent intense interest in Cofan land. And that is long after the invasive triumvirate of colonization – disease, violence and dispossession – carried off the great majority of Cofan.
But today, the usual patterns of indigenous disruption have been disrupted in their turn. The Cofan have begun to regain their ancestral land. Only a patch of it, about the size of Delaware, is legally in their possession. But Delaware was the first American state, and Cofan claims are extensive.
The Cofan, with key allies, laid the foundation for their claims by repatriating information – primarily maps, centralized planning data and historical documents – from government agencies, universities, corporations, and anywhere else they could find them. Territorial mapping became the basis of a broader asset mapping process the Cofan could rally around, organizing to carry out decisions for the defense and care of their homelands and resources. First Peoples Worldwide supported the repatriation effort with a grant to Indigenous-led Federacion Indigena de la Nacionalidad Cofan del Ecuador. (Photo by Richard Warner)
Also in Ecuador, First Peoples funded participation in a workshop on Indigenous Peoples and conservation; as well as another Indigenous group, Federacion de Centros Awa del Ecuador, that has set out to regulate Awa natural resources through a sustainable harvest system that tracks the effects of both traditional and introduced practices.
And in neighboring Columbia, where the Cofan also have ancient roots, First Peoples supported Fundacion Zio A’I to construct a Cofan Community Ceremonial House and garden where discussion, education, medicinal traditions, and an improved quality of life will all contribute to the sustainable future of Cofan land – and the people who live on it.
KHANTY - RUSSIA
The Khanty cling to traditions of reindeer herding, subsistence fishing and hunting, and nomadic migration in Russia’s far north. But years of Russification and industrializing economic development have reduced the number of Khanty landowners and led many to more sedentary, urban settings. Now, a new national land code has left them without federal legal standing on their customary land. Symptoms of cultural loss, including alcoholism, have become more prevalent among the Khanty. But just as many Native American tribes have made a comeback on the shoulders of the buffalo after its near decimation, so many Khanty families are sustaining their heritage through a renewed commitment to endangered reindeer and the culture they create. (Photo by N. Scott Momaday)
First Peoples Worldwide has made two grants in Russia, to other reindeer cultures. The Todzhi of the Altai region in southern Siberia are one of several Turkic-speaking tribal peoples, sometimes referred to collectively as Altai or Altay. Nomadic, dependent on reindeer and other livestock, they are menaced as unique peoples by climate change, Russian industrialists and Chinese financiers. Through the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai, the Todzhi are compiling a protective inventory of their sacred sites and traditional lands. In addition, the Telengit and Tubalar peoples are working through the same organization to assert place-based traditional knowledge as a resource for adaptation to climate change, as opposed to the modern technology and infrastructure imposed by distant investors. In the words of one of the elders who have been instrumental to the information-sharing project: “Living on the earth, each person must respect their place. … We must protect it, respect it, and it will give us life.”
KAREN – BURMA
In March 2010, First Peoples Worldwide convened an Asian Pacific-wide roundtable in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with participation from at least a half-dozen of the country’s Indigenous groups. First Peoples Worldwide’s Karen grantees in Thailand, including Karen Human Rights Group, assist Karen communities across the border in Burma (also known as Myanmar), where they are ruthlessly persecuted by the military government. (Photo by Neni Rochaeni)
In addition, First Peoples has supported the Mirror Foundation of Thailand in hopes of helping the Mlabri people to a more celebrated place in the national consciousness. A hill tribe, nomads of the jungle, hunter-gatherers – the Mlabri are classic victims of ecological eviction, forced to abandon traditional land, and the life that went with it, as commercial logging and agriculture whittle away at the jungle and its resources. The Mlabri have turned to tourism, but they are the attraction. A museum will showcase Mlabri culture in a manner the community settles on as appropriate and beneficial. Training sessions at the museum will demonstrate community development models, empower women, and foster leadership skills.
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First Peoples Worldwide
857 Leeland Road • Fredericksburg, VA 22405 • USA
info@firstpeoples.org • (540) 899-6545
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