This archive covers documented progress on Indigenous rights, sovereignty, land protection, cultural preservation, and community health. Stories here highlight policy wins, legal milestones, and Indigenous-led initiatives that are improving lives and strengthening self-determination around the world.
Under the new reform, Indigenous communities will receive 5% of a mining operation’s profits. Concessions will no longer be granted in areas with water shortages or in protected areas.
Tribal-led conservation is finally getting the funding it deserves — and the scale of this commitment reflects how seriously some funders are taking that responsibility. Fifteen philanthropic organizations have pledged $102.5 million over five years to support Indigenous-led stewardship, a meaningful shift given that less than 0.5% of philanthropic dollars have historically reached Native communities. The 574 federally recognized tribes already manage more than 140 million acres, yet annual funding for that work has remained strikingly thin. Because the pledge is voluntary and self-determined, sustained follow-through will matter far more than the launch itself.
The Yasuní Strip of Diversity and Life was created to protect the area’s Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and to uphold the rights of Indigenous and farming communities in the region.
A provincial court recognized that the mining companies violated the communities’ constitutional right to consultation and the rights of nature guaranteed by Ecuador’s Constitution since 2008.
Since last August, thousands of Awá have been forcibly displaced or suffered threats, intimidation, torture or forced recruitment by organized crime groups participating in drug trafficking and illegal mining.
The invasion of miners has contributed to the spread of malaria among the Yanomami, with devastating consequences
One of the decrees annuls mining in Indigenous lands and protected areas, another resumes plans to combat deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and a third reinstates the Amazon Fund.
The Wirangu have been granted native title to more than 5,000 square kilometres of land on South Australia’s west coast.
The country’s Indigenous pygmy people are now legally recognized as a distinct people with rights and must consent before the government and industries can exploit their land.
Ngāti Maniapoto won a landmark settlement on September 23, 2022, when New Zealand’s parliament unanimously returned 36 culturally significant sites and pledged NZ$177 million in redress to the Waikato-based iwi. Hundreds of members rode a charter train nine hours to Wellington to witness it, filling the public gallery with waiata and haka as the vote passed. The crown formally apologized for indiscriminate killings during the Waikato Wars and generations of deprivation that followed. For the nearly 46,000 iwi members, it was recognition that 30 years of negotiation had been worth sustaining. As Indigenous communities from Jamaica to the United States press for accountability, New Zealand’s framework shows that binding reparations are possible when political will meets sustained advocacy.
