To blunt climate change, Guyana has pledged to aggressively expand the amount of rainforests protected within its borders. But as the threat of big oil looms, indigenous peoples’ land rights need to be recognized in order to meet this goal.
The Yanomami, an indigenous people in the northern Amazon rainforest, were attacked by illegal gold miners several times in recent weeks, leaving several people wounded and two young children dead. With tens of thousands of miners still illegally occupying their land, the threat of continued violence remains.
Gold mining brings prospectors, disease, and destruction to indigenous lands in Brazil. But indigenous communities are fighting back.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has called on Brazil to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the Yanomami Territory.
The murders reinforce the need for the Brazilian government to immediately expel the more than 20,000 miners illegally operating on Yanomami land.
Indigenous leaders demand the urgent removal of 20,000 illegal gold miners from their lands to prevent the spread of COVID-19
The first of a series of blog posts covering tech-based monitoring strategies for combating deforestation, accompanied by a video by If Not Us Then Who?
The government of Guyana has an international commitment to conserving an additional 2 million hectares of forest. Formally recognizing indigenous collective lands could be the solution.
RFUS’s partners, the Wapichan communities in Guyana, have joined together to create a website and mapping portal that shares their story, culture, and vision.
After a historic meeting of indigenous representatives from across Guyana’s Region 7, the council issues a formal statement about their land rights, addressed to national government.
Peru’s Amazon rainforest is the site of a recent boom in gold mining, a critical threat to the region’s indigenous peoples.
Didier Devers
Chief of Party – USAID Guatemala
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Didier has been coordinating the USAID-funded B’atz project since joining Rainforest Foundation US in April 2022. He holds a Master’s in Applied Anthropology and a Bachelor’s in Geography. Before joining the organization, Didier worked for 12 years in Central and South America on issues of transparency, legality, governance, and managing stakeholders’ processes in the environmental sector. Prior to that he worked on similar issues in Central Africa. He speaks French, Spanish, and English, and is based in Guatemala.
