fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

A month-long blockade of logging roads by indigenous people in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia set to protest illegal logging on their communal lands is about to be broken up by police.

More than 100 indigenous Kenyah people gathered at the blockade site on the upper Moh River on the island of Borneo claim that the blockade is their only way of calling on representatives of the Samling Timber Company and government authorities to have a consultation and meet with them to listen to their problems and demands.

Indonesian Military & Police’s alcohol business kills Papuans

* Illegal alcohol business run by Indonesian Military & Police
* Alcohol smuggled in on Indonesian military transports
* Hundreds of Papuans are victims of alcohol poisoning
* Regent’s wife is one of main illegal alcohol traders

(Tanah Merah [red earth], Boven Digoel is in the south of West Papua, near the PNG border)

http://maroke.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/bisnis-miras-tni-polri-di-boven-d...

This is the story of the Dani, capturing a glimpse of their daily lives. Content with their basic life in the mountains, strong western influences are now severely changing the way they live. The film is made by Clara Collins, new member of fPcN South Africa.

Report by the Environmental Investigation Agency & Telepak

Extract: Official complicity

For the full report, see:
http://www.eia-international.org/files/reports93-1. pdf

Companies involved in timber theft from Papua are aided every step of the way by officials from the military, police and forestry department, as long as the requisite bribe is paid.

Tue, 10/16/2007 - 12:18 — A German narrated film, about the Hadza, from the Rift valley, titled - "No need for development" this documentary from fPcN Germany describes the situation of the last hunter and gatherer in Tanzania, the Hadzabe, back in the late 1990s.

Hadzabe - Kein Bedarf nach Entwicklung ist eine Filmdokumentation von Freunde der Naturvölker e.V. und beschreibt die Situation des letzten Jäger- und Sammlervolkes in Tansania, die Hadzabe.

Mon, 07/30/2007 - Indigenous peoples living in the tropical rainforests of Central Africa are widely dispersed and identify their groups by a variety of names. Numbering a total of 300,000 to 500,000 people, those members of communities from several ethnic groups characterized by their small stature are identified under the generic name of “pygmies” (see WRM Bulletin Nº 119).

The end of the Batak had come and gone. Their culture was already gone. The language was all that remained. Do you doom yourself and your children to lives of abject poverty, ridden with disease and living with hunger on a daily basis just to preserve a language?

For the last 15 years my family and I have been close to the Ayoreo in the Paraguayan Chaco. I wrote my thesis on their learning and knowledge-sharing practices, my brother is currently writing on their concept of territory and maps and my dad is working full time supporting the life projects of the Ayoreo Peoples as ethnical collectivity to be self-reliant in the context of modern society. More information here: www.iniciativa-amotocodie.org

JAYAPURA, Weat Papua, The future of nature conservation water catchment areas in the Papuan cities of Jayapura and Sentani is under threat from rampant illegal logging.

4,330 people have illegally settled in the conservation areas -- known as Cycloop -- thanks to lax government control.
"These people have illegally felled trees and developed farming," Jayapura Regent Habel Melkias Suwae said. He said human settlement of the area was limiting its effectiveness as a water catchment.

A short, German narrated, film about the life of the Hadzabe bushman, of East Africa.

This film can be bought from us, in DVD or PAL VHS, or high res MPEG. See our Media Order form under the Films section.

Organizations from eight different countries are requesting the Forest Stewardship Council –a labelling scheme that certifies good forest management practices- to withdraw the FSC certificate awarded to a number of companies in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Ireland, South Africa, Spain and Uruguay. The challenged certifications in all cases involve large-scale tree plantations which the organizations point out violate the FSC’s mandate of promoting “environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests.”

Forty-two children from the isolated Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands have been hit by disease in the last three weeks, in an epidemic which could wipe them out. The figure represents 16 percent of the tribe's total population of 270.

Dear Friends,

Please consider signing up on this urgent petition sent by The Grail. There is a petition attached. Organisations can also endorse by going to www.banterminator.org Further information below. URGENT: Petition - Terminator Technology

The next meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity is March 21 -312006 so we need to submit as many signatures as possible by March 15.
Below is a media release on Terminator and find more background info at: http://www.banterminator.org

News Release, 22 February 2006

My name is Roy Sesana; I am a Gana Bushman from the Kalahari in what is now called Botswana. In my language, my name is ‘Tobee' and our land is ‘T//amm'. We have been there longer than any people has been anywhere.

When I was young, I went to work in a mine. I put off my skins and wore clothes. But I went home after a while. Does that make me less Bushman? I don't think so.

The President’s directive that more than 12,000 Ogiek shall be issued with title deed in the Mau is ill timed and a monumental conspiracy to expropriate Ogiek ancestral land in Nakuru and Narok districts to other mainstream societies for political expediency. The Ogiek land struggle is as old as our independence and to date the Ogiek people are not legally among the 42 tribes of Kenya.