Calls are being made for the Finnish government to suspend a €9.5 million fund to the Kenya Forest Service because of escalating human rights abuses of the country’s indigenous Sengwer people.
This week, Pope Francis will meet with indigenous peoples in Peru and Chile contending with poverty, conflict, discrimination, and environmental destruction.
17 January 2018: The European Union has suspended a multi-million euro project in the face of mounting evidence that its funds were being used to carry out violent human rights abuses.
FPP supports the appeal from Asian regional organisations – indigenous peoples and other civil society actors – asking for the Asian Development Bank to retain existing public access to information and to strengthen the policy in key areas.
41-year-old Robert Kirotich has today been shot by EU-funded guards working for the Kenya Forestry Service. Another wounded man, David Kipkosgei Kiptilkesi was taken away by the guards and his condition unknown.
Three independent experts appointed by the UN have expressed concerns about recent reports that indigenous Sengwer peoples in western Kenya have been attacked and forcibly evicted from their homes.
Indonesian NGOs have protested strongly to the Indonesian government authorities and RSPO about an incident they recorded on 18th December 2017, when police security forces shot and wounded two farmers. The shootings allegedly took place in one of Wilmar International’s oil palm plantations in Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo.
A powerful press conference was held this morning, 4 January 2018, in Nairobi, attended by over 20 press representatives and 26 Sengwer community members. Milka Chepkorir and Yator Kiptum spoke powerfully about the suffering their Sengwer community are experiencing at the hands of the Kenya Forest Service.
Nairobi, December 29, 2017 – In a remote region of Kenya this week, a government agency — flush with funds from the European Union—is sending armed security guards house to house
The tools, techniques and strategic use of community-based mapping and monitoring by indigenous peoples and local communities across the world was the focus of a three-day workshop held in December.
Three weeks after the Global Dialogue on Human Rights and Biodiversity Conservation held at Mt Elgon, Kenya, meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) also placed more focus than ever on
International NGOs have condemned an announcement by the Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group (IOI) that it intends to sell its stake in a controversial palm oil plantation that has been at the center of a longstanding conflict with communities in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Community-based monitoring to evidence human rights violations and changes to the ecosystem was the focus of a workshop attended by indigenous peoples from six African countries.
On the 11th December a community delegation from the community of Santa Clara de Uchunya accompanied by representatives of FECONAU and IDL conducted a field visit to confirm reports of invasion of their lands farmed by community members close to the banks of the river Aguaytia.
On the international day of human rights, indigenous federation FAPI issued a statement expressing solidarity with the Jejytymiri community of the Ava Guaraní people, denouncing further abuses committed against the Makutinga indigenous community, of the Mbya Guaraní people.
Human rights defenders, whistle-blowers and witnesses face a huge variety of dangers while fighting to expose human rights abuses and related illegal resource use, land grabs and corruption. Recent reports show that defenders are facing ever higher risks, yet current protection mechanisms are failing to keep up.
Indigenous peoples in Geneva call on the UN, governments and corporate actors to urgently ramp up efforts to prevent human rights abuses by corporations and introduce effective mechanisms to hold them to account. Key messages include:
More than 22 times now, our community has been forcefully evicted from our ancestral land in Embobut forest, Cherangany Hills, by the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), a government agency that is supposed to be responsible for the protection of forests in the country.
For the Sengwer, this is their home.
The August 26th killing of a Batwa youth by an eco-guard was tragic in itself, but also represents a far more widespread conservation-related tragedy.
