Further, the 2025 End-of-Year Report from the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) recorded 135 cases of Indigenous territory dispossession, up from 121 cases the year before. The mining sector accounted for the most cases, with 69 incidents affecting 1.06 million hectares. The plantation sector caused the most widespread damage, covering 1.95 million hectares. Indigenous communities lost 3.8 million hectares of their ancestral territories that year, and authorities criminalized 162 Indigenous people for defending their living space.

There are generally three interlocking mechanisms which are driving both ecological damage and violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights: Legislation reduces ecological reality to administrative categories such as state forests and industrial zones; Development extractivism treats nature as a capital that must be exploited. The Mineral and Coal Mining Law, the Plantation Law, and the Job Creation Law form the legal basis for mining and palm oil expansion. Further, conservation and climate policy that exclude participation often repeat the same extractivist patterns. Carbon markets lock up Indigenous forests through bans on access, cultivation shifts, and firewood gathering.

These three mechanisms converge on one point: the bodies of Indigenous women, who tend and care for their lands and communities every day.

The Burden that Lands on Indigenous Women’s Bodies

Indigenous women fetch water, gather firewood, harvest medicinal plants, and tend to rotational gardens. When ecosystems break down, this work grows heavier and riskier. When rivers become polluted, women have to walk farther to find clean water. When the forests disappear, medicinal plants disappear with them, so women care for sick family members without the remedies they normally use.

Ecosystem damage also correlates with health problems. Women near coal mines in East Kalimantan have reported that dust from mine haul roads disrupts their menstrual cycles and their children’s health. Water contaminated with heavy metals causes skin infections and reproductive disorders. Environmental Impact Assessments (AMDAL) rarely capture this data as they measure water quality standards and emission limits rather than women’s domestic workload or reproductive health.

In many territories, when forests are turned into monoculture plantations, women lose their income from non-timber forest products, and their positions within the household weaken.

When forests are turned into monoculture plantations, women lose their income from non-timber forest products, and their positions within the household weaken.

Ecosystem damage also negatively interferes with the transmission of Indigenous ecological knowledge. Indigenous women have obtained knowledge about fruiting seasons, animal migration cycles, and the location of medicinal plants through direct observation over generations. In the Rejang, Serawai, and Malin Deman Indigenous territories in Bengkulu, Indigenous women identify hundreds of forest plant species as food and medicine. When the forests are cleared for plantations or mines, the younger generations lose the chance to learn this knowledge firsthand.

Lastly, Indigenous territories also serve as spaces for women’s ritual life and economic activity.  In many territories, when forests are turned into monoculture plantations, women lose their source of income from non-timber forest products, and their position within the household weaken.

The Climate Crisis Deepens the Double Burden

The biodiversity and climate crises are connected. Deforestation releases carbon stored in the forests and peatlands, which accelerates global warming. Indigenous women bear the brunt of the impacts from both crises. As forests disappear, the land loses its capacity to store water. Dry seasons grow drier, and rainy seasons bring a higher risk of flooding. Women responsible for household water must walk farther during the dry seasons on top of dealing with gardens suffering from damages, as well as contaminated water, during the rainy seasons.

Shifts in planting seasons also disrupt women’s Indigenous knowledge of ecological indicators. When seasonal patterns become unpredictable, harvests decline. In many Indigenous households, women reduce their own food portions first to ensure that their children have enough to eat. Carbon market schemes add new risks. These schemes require large forest areas, and as a direct consequence such schemes often impose access restrictions. As such, Indigenous women’s needs for shifting cultivation, resin, and firewood remain further disrespected.

Ecosystem damage also threatens keystone species that form part of Indigenous women’s knowledge systems. The Sumatran tiger, orangutan, and elephant lose their habitats as forests are converted into palm oil plantations and mines. For Indigenous women, the presence of certain species indicates forest and water quality levels. When those species disappear, women lose the tools they use daily to read and understand their environment.

Women and the Recovery of the Commons

Indigenous women do not only carry the burden. They are the keepers of seeds, they are leaders of agrarian resistance, and they build conservation practices rooted in Indigenous knowledge. The Kendeng Indigenous women, for example, printed their feet in cement in front of the State Palace to oppose a cement factory in the Kendeng Mountains, then continued their advocacy through independent monitoring of spring water quality and flow. Papuan women resisted the expansion of a large-scale food estate project in Merauke, while documenting sago-processing knowledge so it would not disappear.

In Bengkulu, Rejang women store local rice seeds between planting seasons as a living gene bank, while maintaining garden rotation that restores soil fertility. In Merpas and Linau Villages, along the south Bengkulu coastal area, women avoid destructive fishing gear and have agreed on spawning zones in the lagoon. These practices show that conservation does not require removing people from protected areas. Conservation grounded in Indigenous women’s knowledge works through active involvement rather than restricted access.

Commoning Movement builds solidarity among Indigenous women’s communities, works with legal partners, and advocates for policies that require Indigenous women’s Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

Commoning Movement builds solidarity among Indigenous women’s communities, works with legal partners such as Akar Law Office.

Akar Global Initiative developed the Rebuilding the Commons framework to strengthen women’s contributions across four dimensions. Commoning Land restores Indigenous land as a jointly managed space through participatory mapping, restoration based on local species, and collective governance that includes Indigenous women as decision-makers. Commoning Care recognizes women’s care work as ecological labour, supported by clean water infrastructure, documentation of care work, and reproductive health services in affected areas.

Commoning Culture restores ritual practice and Indigenous ecological knowledge through oral documentation and intergenerational education programs, so that younger generations receive elder women’s knowledge before it disappears. Commoning Movement builds solidarity among Indigenous women’s communities, collaborates with legal partners such as Akar Law Office, and advocates for policies that require Indigenous women’s Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for every permit necessary for mining, plantation, and energy. These four dimensions support one another.

Challenges on the Ground

This collective action framework faces three concrete challenges. In many regions, customary structures still place men as the community’s representatives, so formal engagement of Indigenous women often meets resistance. Government and international donor conservation programs still measure success by protected area size or stored carbon volume rather than measuring the impacts on Indigenous women’s living conditions. Without a change in the aforementioned indicators, Indigenous women’s contributions remain officially unrecognized. Pressure from mining expansion and national strategic projects also keeps rising each year, so community-based recovery keeps facing new threats whose scale exceeds what Indigenous communities can respond to alone.

In turn, biodiversity and ecosystem restoration and recovery require legal change, not only technical rehabilitation programs. Environmental impact assessments need to include body-level indicators, such as the distance Indigenous women travel to find clean water and the number of medicinal plants lost from their daily access radius. Legal frameworks need to recognize Indigenous women’s ecological knowledge of seasons, seeds, and ecological indicators as equal to formal scientific studies, through a mechanism that requires Indigenous women’s Free, Prior and Informed Consent as a condition for valid permits.

Indonesia’s biodiversity and deforestation crises are not isolated technical problems. This damage lands hardest on Indigenous women, who fetch water, keep seeds, and carry out the ecological rituals.

Indonesia’s biodiversity and deforestation crises are not isolated technical problems. This damage lands hardest on Indigenous women, who fetch water, keep seeds, and carry out the ecological rituals.

Environmental law paradigms also need to shift from state sovereignty over natural resources toward shared governance, where Indigenous women act as decision-makers, not merely consultation participants. Ecological justice requires reparation, not just financial compensation. This means returning Indigenous land, water sources, ritual spaces, and lost species, paired with ecological regeneration programs led by Indigenous women.

Indonesia’s biodiversity and deforestation crises are not isolated technical problems. This damage lands hardest on Indigenous women, who fetch water, keep seeds, and carry out the ecological rituals that bind their communities to nature every day. Indonesia’s biodiversity recovery will only succeed once policy recognizes Indigenous women as primary agents of recovery, not passive beneficiaries of conservation programs designed without their involvement.

The post Indigenous Women’s Struggle: Facing the Biodiversity Crisis and Deforestation Burden in Indonesia appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

In other words, governments will face an exam to answer a simple but decisive question for the health of the Earth: are they really doing what they promised to halt the destruction of nature and restore lost biodiversity? Bolivia is one of the countries expected to show what it has done. Before facing that exam, at COP17 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to be held in Yerevan, Armenia, from October 19 to 30, 2026, countries first had to account for their progress. They did so through their Seventh National Reports (7NR), in which each government details the measures it has taken and the results it has achieved.

The deadline was February 28, 2026. These reports will provide input for the first global review of collective progress. Bolivia also submitted its report, a document that makes it possible to reconstruct—from the State’s official account—the progress it claims to have made and the difficulties it acknowledges.

The Great Challenge

In 2022, during COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and laid out a roadmap toward a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. To meet that challenge, they established 23 targets for 2030 that not only commit governments to halting biodiversity loss, but also place Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the center—as rights holders and essential actors in the conservation of their territories and ways of life.

This relationship between conservation and Indigenous rights runs throughout the Framework. It is particularly evident in Targets 1 and 3. The first calls for spatial planning that reduces the loss of areas of importance for biodiversity while respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Target 3, known as the 30×30 target, establishes that conservation of at least 30% of the planet’s lands and waters must respect these peoples’ rights over their traditional territories. The message is clear: biodiversity conservation cannot be separated from Indigenous Peoples. So, what has Bolivia done over the past four years to fulfill the commitments it made?

If Indigenous territories are part of Bolivia’s strategy to conserve biodiversity, what is actually happening to their forests in the face of deforestation, land encroachment, and the other pressures the State itself acknowledges?

If Indigenous territories are part of Bolivia’s strategy to conserve biodiversity, what is actually happening to their forests?

In its Seventh National Report, prepared by the General Directorate of Biodiversity and Protected Areas, the Bolivian State maintains that Indigenous territories form part of its conservation strategy. Without providing any figures, the document reports progress in the titling of new Tierras Comunitarias de Origen (TCOs) / Territorios Indígena Originario Campesinos (TIOCs), the development of life plans, and the strengthening of Indigenous forms of governance. It also highlights the creation of conservation areas under Indigenous management, as well as initiatives in forest management, sustainable use, restoration, and territorial monitoring.

But the same report points to a more complex picture. Bolivia acknowledges land encroachment, conflicts over land use and overlapping rights, as well as pressures stemming from extractive activities, agricultural expansion, and illegal settlements. It also admits difficulties in updating and harmonizing life plans and, above all, a lack of information to measure land-use change and land tenure in ancestral territories and local communities. The Document states: “No Data Available”.

The paradox is significant. Bolivia presents Indigenous territories as key to conservation and to the international target of protecting at least 30% of the planet’s lands and waters. Yet when it comes to showing what is actually happening within those territories, the State itself acknowledges that it still lacks the data needed to report on one of the indicators established by the Global Biodiversity Framework. If Indigenous territories are part of Bolivia’s strategy to conserve biodiversity, what is actually happening to their forests in the face of deforestation, land encroachment, and the other pressures the State itself acknowledges?

Forests Under Pressure

An investigation by Amazonía Traficada—a journalism project supported by the Pulitzer Center, Mongabay Latam, RAI Bolivia, and Asuntos Centrales—used satellite data to examine a key region for conservation: Bolivia’s Indigenous Amazon. The investigation analyzed deforestation within 48 titled Indigenous territories in Bolivia’s Amazon basin and found that, between 1986 and 2024, these ancestral territories suffered a cumulative loss of 257,000 hectares of forest. That figure represents 3.4% of the 7.6 million hectares deforested in Bolivia during the same period.

To determine how much of that deforestation was legally authorized, the investigation cross-referenced the data with forest-clearing permits issued by the Authority for the Social Oversight and Control of Forests and Land (ABT) between 2003 and 2023. Records show that, over those two decades, the institution authorized the clearing of nearly 80,000 hectares of forest in 41 Indigenous territories. Yet only 17,900 hectares within those authorized areas actually lost their forest cover. Most of the forest loss occurred outside areas where clearing had been authorized.

In other words, between 2003 and 2023, 168,670 hectares were deforested in areas without authorization. The ratio gives a sense of the scale of the problem: for every hectare cleared within an authorized area, more than nine were cleared outside authorized areas. In other words, nearly 90% of the forest loss recorded in Amazonian Indigenous territories during that period occurred outside State authorization mechanisms. The pressure on these territories is part of a nationwide trend. A World Resources Institute (WRI) report shows that in 2025 Bolivia once again ranked second in the world for primary forest loss, behind only Brazil.

A Territorial Struggle with No End in Sight

The pressure on Indigenous territories is not limited to forests. It also extends to land tenure and the legal security of these territories. In its Seventh National Report, Bolivia states that it has expanded the area covered by TCOs/TIOCs through new land titles, although it does not specify how many hectares were incorporated.

However, cross-referencing data from research conducted by the Centro de Estudios Jurídicos e Investigación Social (CEJIS) and the Centro de Investigación y Promoción del Campesinado (CIPCA) shows that the struggle of Lowland Indigenous Peoples for the recognition, titling, and defense of their ancestral territories is far from over.

While much of this territorial demand remains unresolved, the State has continued allocating land to third parties in areas bordering Indigenous territories.

While much of this territorial demand remains unresolved, the State has continued allocating land to third parties in areas bordering Indigenous territories.

From the 1990s through the first decades of the twenty-first century, the 48 Indigenous territories in the Amazon basin collectively requested legal recognition of around 22.7 million hectares. Yet the National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA) titled only 11.7 million hectares—just 52% of the area claimed. In other words, more than 11 million hectares were left outside the titling process.

While much of this territorial demand remains unresolved, the State has continued allocating land to third parties in areas bordering Indigenous territories. Between 2009 and 2019, INRA allocated approximately 318,500 hectares for the establishment of 236 intercultural and campesino communities, whose social organizations were aligned with the political party that governed Bolivia between 2006 and 2025.

When Protection Is Not Enough

The gap between the protection the State says it provides and what actually happens within Indigenous territories also appears in the Seventh National Report itself. Bolivia acknowledges that it lacks information to measure, amongst other things, land tenure in the ancestral territories of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It also acknowledges problems of land grabbing and illegal tenure.

These ancestral peoples face pressure from third-party communities settled around their titled territories with authorization from the National Institute for Agrarian Reform. But they also face land grabbing within areas legally recognized by the State—that is, territories for which they hold collective title.

While Indigenous communities denounce land grabbing and State institutions take months—even years—to act, the trees keep falling and Indigenous territories keep being trafficked.

While Indigenous communities denounce land grabbing and State institutions take months—even years—to act, the trees keep falling and Indigenous territories keep being trafficked.

An analysis of interviews with leaders from 30 of the 48 titled Indigenous territories in the Amazon basin concludes that 28 of these ancestral territories have experienced land grabbing over the past two decades and that, in 22 cases, the conflicts remain unresolved. According to the leaders interviewed, behind these occupations are networks seeking to fuel an illicit land market in the Bolivian Amazon, primarily to open up land for large-scale agricultural activities.

While Indigenous communities denounce land grabbing and State institutions take months—even years—to act, the trees keep falling and Indigenous territories keep being trafficked. But this is not the only pressure. The 30 Indigenous leaders also identified conflicts and threats linked to carbon markets, illegal mining, timber trafficking, and drug trafficking.

Conserving Beyond the Map

In Yerevan, Bolivia will have to show how much progress it has made toward 30×30. It will be able to talk about titled territories, Indigenous governance, and conservation under Indigenous management. Yet behind those figures are territories where trees continue to fall, where disputes over land persist, and where Indigenous communities wait years for the State to respond to land grabbing and the trafficking of their lands.

30×30 may look achievable when viewed on a map. But conservation does not happen on a map. It happens in real territories, where Indigenous Peoples defend their forests, their rights, and their ways of life. The unresolved issue Bolivia will take to COP17 is not simply how many hectares it can declare conserved, but how much of what it says it protects is actually safe—and how effectively it can halt or control the pressures it acknowledges in its own Seventh National Report: the expansion of the agricultural frontier, extractive activities, and human settlements as major drivers of biodiversity loss and deforestation.

In other words, beyond the exam it must sit in October, the Bolivian State—regardless of who happens to be the current occupant of power in La Paz—must be capable of enforcing the rules it has created and guaranteeing the protection of the forests and of those who inhabit these ancestral lands. This is not only an obligation to Bolivians. It is also a responsibility to a planet that no longer has time to wait for promises to become action.

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The territorial boundaries of Taung Pat Lal are demarcated by natural geographical landmarks, including the Tho Doe The Loe creek, Chein Loe Yo (Tiger Creek), El Bra Loe Chee, Chein Loe Htit (Tiger Rock), Thaw Kha Loe Chee, and the ridges of Yae Ka Hday and Kyar Mwe mountains. Within these boundary markers, the community manages a sophisticated zoning system that seamlessly integrates food production, biodiversity conservation, and spiritual protection. Rotational agricultural lands (Shwe Pyaung Taung Ya), family-managed perennial agroforestry orchards, and communal and sacred lands such as protected watershed areas and sacred sites including the Prayer Mountain (Su Taung Taung), a Marian Grotto (Mae Taw Gu), and community cemetery grounds takes part of the community managed zoning system.

Customary land tenure is governed equitably. Inheritance of family orchards and land is granted equally between daughters and sons without gender discrimination. Land boundaries are respected through customary oral agreements and natural landmarks. To safeguard ancestral territories from external land-grabbing, customary rules prohibit selling inherited lands to outsiders from distant areas. If a family must transfer land, it must remain with relatives or community members. Dispute resolution is overseen by village elders, local leaders, and religious figures, terminating in traditional reconciliation practices, such as symbolic handshakes and collective prayers.

Indigenous Knowledge and Ecosystem Conservation

The conservation value of Indigenous lands comes directly from deep-rooted Indigenous ecological knowledge passed down across generations. In Taung Pat Lal, customary resource management contains mechanisms that regulate extraction and protect forest fauna and flora:

1. Agro-biodiversity and biological pest control

In rotational rice plots, Gheba Karen farmers practice agro-farming by planting Phor Li Phor Par (cockscomb flowers) along rice field margins. These vibrant flowers attract insects away from the rice, providing natural biological control that minimizes crop damage without the use of chemical pesticides and underpins the  importance of Indigenous customary knowledge. Furthermore, rotational plots host a diverse mix of food crops, preserving a genetic bank of resilient local plants and species.

2. Seed-keeping and leadership of Indigenous women

Women (Maetaw Thami) play a crucial role in maintaining agro-biodiversity. Following harvest, women carefully select, sun-dry, and smoke inherited seeds over kitchen households to protect them from insects, storing them safely for the next planting season. Customary rituals reinforce seed purity. When transferring harvested grain to the family granary, a handful of rice and a bouquet of flowers are tied to the main house post throughout the year, ensuring that the spirit of the crops (Saba Leik Pyar) remains tied to the land and is replanted in the spring.

3. Sustainable harvesting rules

The community enforces strict seasonal and biological guidelines for harvesting Non-Timber Forest Products. Bamboo shoots (Myit) are vital for living and livelihoods, with families harvesting bamboo shoots seasonally while maintaining root stock integrity. Medicinal plants such as Bhon Ma Ra Za roots and wild orchids are extracted selectively to prevent depletion.

4. Indigenous herbal heritage and practice

The Gheba Karen Affairs Committee and local youth documented a comprehensive collection of medicinal plants. Local Indigenous healers rely on species like Dwi Yin Kaung (a wild forest fern), which is crushed into a poultice with sesame oil, turmeric, and local binders to treat severe bone fractures and tissue injuries. Other wild forest species, such as Yae Yin Pyar leaves, wild jackfruit leaves, and ginger roots, are used for post-natal care and treating physical trauma.

Increasing Threats: Conflict, Destruction, and Climate Vulnerability

Despite these sustainable practices, Indigenous Peoples in Myanmar’s tropical forests face escalating structural threats that endanger both their rights and their ecosystems.

1. Escalating conflict and human rights violations

The operational environment in Kayin (Karen) State is defined by intense military conflict and displacement. Across Thantaunggyi Township and neighboring Leiktho, civilian populations endure frequent airstrikes, heavy artillery shelling, and village burnings by military regime resulting in thousands displaced across the Thantaunggyi / Leiktho regional corridor. Reports document severe casualties, including regime airstrikes on April 29, 2026 in Thantaunggyi that killed 20 civilians, alongside widespread destruction of homes. Thousands of residents remain internally displaced in forest zones, unable to return to burned down villages. These conditions prevent regular agricultural cycles and threaten human security. Moreover, Indigenous Gheba Karen communities are also bearing the burden of sheltering and accommodating other internally displaced people from Bago Region, further straining their resources and resilience. The ongoing violence not only devastates lives and property but also hinders long-term development and stability in the region. Urgent international attention and support are needed to address these crises, protect civilian lives, and promote sustainable peace and recovery efforts.

2. Loss of biodiversity and Indigenous knowledge

Deforestation and habitat destruction intensified by historical commercial exploitation which have caused severe decline in biodiversity, including a rising threat against rare medicinal plant species. As elder medicinal plant experts die without proper record-keeping, generations of Indigenous healthcare knowledge risk permanent extinction. Documenting these practices is critical to prevent the loss of Indigenous knowledge and ensure that future benefit-sharing mechanisms respect community ownership.

3. Climate shocks and rodent crises

Tropical forest communities are on the frontlines of climate change. In 2024, extreme monsoon rains triggered severe landslides across Taung Pat Lal, destroying upland hill rice fields, turmeric crops, and valuable customary cardamom agroforest systems. This vulnerability is intensified by cyclical ecological crises. In 1975 and 2016, mass bamboo flowering (Mautam cycles) caused rodent population explosions that destroyed upland rice fields, forcing communities into prolonged economic recovery.

4. Top-down conservation and policy exclusion

Historically, state-driven conservation frameworks and top-down initiatives have ignored customary tenure, treating Indigenous Peoples as threats to forests rather than their primary guardians. Modern market-driven conservation mechanisms such as carbon  and biodiversity credits and offsets risk replicating “fortress conservation” models if implemented without Indigenous Peoples right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), threatening to displace communities from their ancestral lands.

The Need to Align Global Biodiversity Goals with Local Realities

The evidence from Taung Pat Lal (Khlo Do) demonstrates that global biodiversity goals cannot be achieved through top-down mandates or corporate offsetting strategies. As CBD Parties negotiate the operationalization of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) at COP17 in Armenia, the experience of Myanmar’s Indigenous communities’ points to fundamental policy priorities:

1.  Implementing Safeguards and Free, Prior and Informed Consent

All conservation, climate mitigation, and offset projects must enforce Section C of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) safeguards. Protected area expansion, green infrastructure projects, or carbon and biodiversity credit schemes should only proceed after obtaining the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples over their ancestral lands and resources. Furthermore, conservation and carbon- and biodiversity credit schemes that drive dispossession of Indigenous Peoples should be eliminated.

2. Direct Recognition of Indigenous Territories

Target 3 (30×30) must not be interpreted purely as the expansion of state-managed protected areas or exclusive national parks. CBD Parties must formally recognize and legally protect Indigenous Territories as distinct, self-governed conservation designations. Systems like Taung Pat Lal’s customary fallow management and communal forest protection are effective conservation models that directly maintain tropical forest territories and biodiversity. For example, customary zoning (sacred areas, orchards, watersheds) successfully conserves intact forest canopy without state enforcement.

3. Protection of Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Ensure the full, equitable and meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples in decision-making and uphold complete land tenure rights. Robust, direct legal protection and funding mechanisms for Indigenous environmental human rights defenders operating in conflict zones should be ensured. In conflict-affected tropical forest zones, Indigenous land stewards act as the final defense against illegal logging, extraction, and ecosystem collapse. Implementing Target 22 requires operational mechanisms to protect environmental human rights defenders operating in high-risk conflict environments, and shield local guardians facing violent conflict, airstrikes, and land grabbing.

4. Direct Climate and Biodiversity Financing

Despite safeguarding crucial carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots, Indigenous Peoples organizations face systemic barriers to direct funding. International financial mechanisms must establish direct, accessible funding streams for grassroots Indigenous Peoples organizations, bypassing centralized state channels to support community-led mapping, traditional knowledge preservation, and climate resilience interventions.

Resilient Stewardship in the Tropical Forests

Myanmar’s tropical forests endure because of the Indigenous Peoples who steward and safeguard them. The customary land governance, agro-biodiversity practices, and Indigenous herbal heritage and practice of Gheba Karen community in Taung Pat Lal (Khlo Do) offer convincing proof that biodiversity conservation and human rights are fundamentally linked. As international leaders gather at COP17 in Armenia to evaluate progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), international policy must be grounded in these local realities. Fully realizing the goals of the KMGBF demands formal recognition of Indigenous territories, legal protection for customary tenure, investment in Indigenous-led monitoring, and robust safeguards for Indigenous frontline environmental defenders.

Due to the sensitive nature of the issues addressed in this article, Indigenous Debates prefers to keep the author or authors anonymous.

The post Defenders of Rights, Indigenous Customary Governance and Biodiversity Conservation in Myanmar’s Tropical Forests appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

High international gold prices have further increased the economic incentives driving the expansion of these activities. According to the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), the Amazon region lost more than 736,000 hectares of primary forest in 2025, with a significant proportion of mining-affected areas located within protected areas and Indigenous territories. Against this backdrop, the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is preparing a regional report examining the relationship between illegal gold mining, human rights violations, territories and governance across countries in the Amazon and the Guiana Shield.

From Alerts to Regional Analysis

The decision to prepare this report builds on several years of monitoring and documentation by the Inter-American Commission and its Office of the Special Rapporteur in response to growing concern over this issue across the region. REDESCA identified it as a priority area in its 2024–2026 Work Plan. In 2019, in its report on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Pan-Amazon Region, the IACHR warned of exposure to high levels of mercury and its impacts on water, biodiversity, and health. In 2021, Resolution 3/21 on the Climate Emergency identified environmental degradation as one of the major threats to human rights in the region.

In April 2024, during an in loco visit to Colombia, the Commission and its Office of the Special Rapporteur identified illegal mining as a driver of water pollution, forced displacement and the financing of criminal organisations. In October of that year, the IACHR and REDESCA raised concerns about the situation of the Yanomami people in the Orinoco Mining Arc, where communities faced displacement, mercury contamination, and the presence of armed groups. In March 2025, REDESCA called for stronger international cooperation, improved gold traceability and tighter controls on the trade in inputs such as mercury. In March 2026, it issued a further alert on the impacts of illegal mining on the human right to water. The issue has also been consistently documented in the Office of the Special Rapporteur’s annual reports on countries across the region.

REDESCA pays particular attention to the differentiated impacts on Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant and tribal communities, women, children and adolescents, and human rights and environmental defenders.

REDESCA pays particular attention to the differentiated impacts on Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant and tribal communities, women, children and adolescents.

The objective of the report is to analyse, from a human rights perspective and, in particular, from the perspective of economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, the impacts of illegal gold mining, as well as the territorial, cross-border and governance dynamics associated with its expansion. REDESCA pays particular attention to the differentiated impacts on Indigenous Peoples (including those in voluntary isolation and initial contact), Afro-descendant and tribal communities, women, children and adolescents, and human rights and environmental defenders.

Without prejudging the conclusions of the report, which is currently under preparation, the information gathered to date highlights several dimensions of particular relevance to the analysis: mercury contamination and other impacts on health and food; deforestation and ecosystem degradation; loss of territorial control; the expansion of illicit economies and the presence of armed actors; weaknesses in institutional responses; and challenges in ensuring traceability and due diligence throughout the gold supply chain.

A Process Developed through Dialogue and Consultation

The development process of the report has drawn on a range of mechanisms for dialogue, consultation and information gathering. As part of this process, the IACHR convened a regional hearing on its own initiative during its 195th Period of Sessions, held in Guatemala City, with the participation of civil society organisations and representatives of communities and Indigenous Peoples. REDESCA subsequently sent requests for information to States and issued a call for contributions from organisations, affected communities and experts.

From 15 to 19 June 2026, REDESCA conducted a working visit to Brazil, holding meetings with authorities and civil society organisations in Brasília and Boa Vista, Roraima. During the visit, it participated in the 8th General Assembly of the Hutukara Yanomami Association, alongside Indigenous leaders. In July, the Office of the Special Rapporteur held a hybrid consultation with experts in Bogotá and participated in the Regional Meeting on Mining, Territorial Governance and Indigenous Rights in the Amazon, held in Tena, Ecuador. The meeting was organised by PAKKIRU, FOIN Ecuador and the Sacha Supay Quichua Institute of Biotechnology, with the support of IWGIA. There, REDESCA engaged in dialogue with Indigenous leaders from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

These spaces have made it possible to incorporate not only information on the impacts of illegal mining, but also the experiences, knowledge and responses of Indigenous Peoples themselves. Across the region, Indigenous communities, organisations and authorities have developed territorial monitoring and protection mechanisms, mapping and environmental documentation tools, early warning systems and strategies for engaging with public authorities. Incorporating this knowledge and experience is essential to understanding the territorial dynamics of illegal mining and to developing responses that recognise Indigenous Peoples’ autonomy, ensure their effective participation and reflect the priorities they themselves have identified.

Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights, Territory and the Continuity of Community Life

The impacts of illegal gold mining extend beyond pollution and the loss of forest cover. In Indigenous territories, deforestation, changes to watercourses and ecosystem degradation can affect the territorial relationships that sustain food, health, livelihoods, cultural and spiritual practices and, more broadly, the conditions necessary for the continuity of community life. From an Inter-American human rights perspective, the protection of forests is therefore closely linked to the protection of territories, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, cultural identity and the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.

Mercury contamination is one of the primary concerns emerging from the information gathered. Once released into the environment, mercury can be converted into methylmercury and accumulate in fish and other aquatic organisms, thereby entering the food chain of people living in the Amazon. The contamination of rivers can therefore also undermine the right to food by affecting the diets of many Indigenous and riverine communities and putting traditional food practices at risk.

Across territories in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries, evidence points to links between the expansion of mining, forest loss, the degradation of water sources and increased pressure on protected areas and Indigenous territories.

Across territories in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries, evidence points to links between the expansion of mining, forest loss and the degradation of water.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of the serious neurological effects associated with exposure to methylmercury and the particularly high risks faced by children and pregnant women. Studies cited in the information reviewed by REDESCA have found elevated mercury levels in Indigenous communities in Brazil and Peru. Other health impacts add to these concerns: the transformation of territories associated with mining can create conditions conducive to the proliferation of disease vectors, including those responsible for the transmission of malaria.

Deforestation and habitat fragmentation constitute another key dimension of the challenges facing the Amazon. Across river basins and territories in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and other countries, evidence points to links between the expansion of mining, forest loss, the degradation of water sources and increased pressure on protected areas and Indigenous territories. These dynamics are further exacerbated when they converge with other illicit economies and actors competing for territorial control.

Illegal Mining, Illicit Economies and Territorial Governance

Illegal gold mining does not operate in isolation. Across the Amazon, it is intertwined with drug trafficking networks, illegal logging, smuggling, the illegal trafficking of mining products, and other illicit economies. This convergence can lead to territorial control by armed groups, threats against Indigenous communities and authorities, restrictions on freedom of movement, and the weakening of State capacities for prevention, monitoring, enforcement and protection.

Gold has characteristics that facilitate its integration into ostensibly legal supply chains: it has a high value-to-weight ratio, can be melted down and mixed with gold from legal sources, and can be traded using irregular documentation or through jurisdictions with inadequate controls. Responses therefore cannot be limited to the places where extraction occurs. They require effective traceability mechanisms, cross-border cooperation and coordination among environmental, customs, financial and judicial authorities, as well as clear responsibilities for businesses involved throughout the gold supply chain.

The risks are particularly severe for Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, as any external interference can have irreversible consequences. Women, children and adolescents, Afro-descendant and tribal communities, and human rights and environmental defenders are also affected in distinct ways. In adverse contexts, these groups and individuals may face threats, harassment and violence.

A Report Designed as a Tool

The challenge does not end with documenting the expansion of illegal mining or identifying its impacts. The central question is how to translate human rights standards into responses that can effectively protect territories, prevent further harm and strengthen the capacity of Indigenous Peoples to participate in decisions that affect their ways of life.

The regional report being developed by REDESCA seeks to contribute to this objective by systematising relevant standards and developing recommendations for States, businesses and other relevant actors. At the same time, the process seeks to incorporate the experiences, knowledge and perspectives of Indigenous Peoples and affected communities, not merely as sources of information, but as essential actors in understanding territorial realities and developing appropriate responses.

Faced with an illicit economy that cuts across borders, supply chains and territories, responses must likewise be coordinated, preventive and cross-border in nature. The aim is for the report’s findings and standards to serve as practical tools for dialogue, the promotion of rights and the adoption of measures that place the protection of human rights and forests, as well as the right of Indigenous Peoples to determine the present and future of their territories, at the centre of the response.

The views expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of REDESCA, the IACHR or the Organization of American States (OAS).

The post Gold, Territories and Rights: Illegal Mining in the Amazon and the Guiana Shield appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

Yet, this longstanding relationship is increasingly under pressure. In several parts of southern and eastern Cameroon, forest territories are affected by logging, agricultural expansion, extractive activities, infrastructure development, and the expansion of conservation areas. The consequences go beyond the disappearance or degradation of trees. As the forest deteriorates, the Baka have to travel longer distances to find certain fruits, medicinal plants and other non-timber forest products. Fish and game are becoming increasingly scarce, while access to certain traditionally used areas is becoming more difficult.

In southern and eastern Cameroon, restrictions on access to forest resources and difficulties related to securing land directly affect the livelihoods of Baka communities. Recent studies show, in particular, that the Baka depend more heavily on non-timber forest products than other communities. Additionally, these studies show that the decline of these resources, particularly when resulting from restrictions on access to the forest, can profoundly alter their patterns of production and consumption. These situations demonstrate that forest protection cannot be separated from securing the land rights of Indigenous Peoples that depend on them.

When Conservation Becomes a Matter of Justice

The challenge is particularly visible in certain protected areas. Biodiversity conservation is essential to preserving the forests of the Congo Basin, but conservation models that exclude populations from their Indigenous territories can have adverse effects on human rights. Research conducted in southern and eastern Cameroon has documented the socio-economic consequences of “fortress” conservation models, under which Baka communities have limited opportunities to negotiate their access to forest areas.

The question, therefore, is not whether to choose between forests and Indigenous communities, but how to protect the forest together with these Indigenous communities. The Baka possess detailed Indigenous knowledge of species, seasonal cycles, water sources, medicinal plants, and hunting and gathering areas. This knowledge constitutes an ecological heritage that can contribute to conservation objectives. At the same time, Indigenous communities must be regarded as rights-holders and not merely as beneficiaries of environmental projects.

This approach requires, in particular, ensuring the effective and meaningful participation of the Baka in decisions concerning their territories and respecting their right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent where measures or projects are likely to affect their lands and resources or ways of life.

Rights-Based Conservation

The experience of the African Indigenous Women Organization Central African Network (AIWO-CAN) shows that such participation can take very concrete forms. One particularly revealing example dates back to 2010, when Baka and Bagyeli Indigenous women leaders, accompanied by AIWO-CAN, participated in the creation of a rainforest garden presented at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. The women presented their traditions, as well as the challenges facing their Indigenous communities, including deforestation, industrial expansion, discrimination and loss of access to forest biodiversity. Maps produced by the Baka to represent their traditional use of the forest were also incorporated into the project.

This example is important because it shows that Indigenous Peoples can document their own relationship with their territories and convey their own messages in international spaces. A map is therefore not merely a technical tool: it becomes a means of making visible a territory and patterns of forest use that may be absent from administrative maps or management plans.

A conservation project cannot be sustainable if affected communities have no means of raising their concerns, challenging a decision or seeking redress when they believe that their rights have been affected.

A conservation project cannot be sustainable if affected communities have no means of raising their concerns.

More recently, the Dja landscape provides a particularly interesting example of this shift towards more inclusive governance. Within the framework of the GEF-8 programme dedicated to the Dja landscape, AIWO-CAN was tasked with contributing to the establishment of a Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) designed to enable Indigenous Peoples, as well as local communities to voice their concerns and have access to a grievance mechanism. The mechanism is designed to complement the right of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent process.

This experience is particularly important for the conservation of the Congo Basin. A conservation project cannot be sustainable if affected communities have no means of raising their concerns, challenging a decision or seeking redress when they believe that their rights have been affected. The establishment of culturally appropriate dialogue and grievance mechanisms can therefore transform conservation: from a model in which Indigenous communities are merely informed, towards a model in which they can participate, question, propose and demand accountability.

Indigenous Women at the Heart of Conservation

The participation of women is also essential. Indigenous women in Cameroon play an important role in transmitting knowledge relating to plants, food, traditional healthcare, and the use of natural resources. They are also directly affected by the economic and social consequences of resource degradation.

AIWO-CAN’s experience demonstrates the importance of strengthening their capacities so that Indigenous women can participate in decision-making processes, defend their land rights and contribute to climate and environmental policies. This approach is particularly relevant in the context of the Congo Basin, where conservation and climate change adaptation must be grounded in the realities of communities.

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity therefore provides an opportunity to recall that conservation of the Congo Basin cannot be separated from the rights of the peoples who live there.

The conservation of the Congo Basin cannot be separated from the rights of the peoples who live there.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provides an important opportunity to rethink conservation policies through a rights-based approach. Its implementation in Cameroon should not be assessed solely through the number of protected areas or species conserved, but also through the extent to which the rights and participation of Indigenous Peoples are guaranteed.

Achieving global conservation objectives should therefore not result in the further exclusion of Indigenous forest communities. On the contrary, biodiversity policies should recognize their knowledge, guarantee their effective and meaningful participation, protect their territories and ensure their involvement in decisions affecting their lands and resources. The 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity therefore provides an opportunity to recall that conservation of the Congo Basin cannot be separated from the rights of the peoples who live there.

Towards Conservation with Indigenous Peoples

This situation reveals a fundamental of human rights issue. The loss of, or restrictions on, access to forest territories affect the rights to culture, food, health, livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples of the Congo Basin, as well as participation in decisions concerning land and natural resources. Finally, it may also undermine the transmission of Indigenous knowledge.

The future of the Congo Basin forests will depend not only on forest policies, international investments or the expansion of protected areas. It will also depend on the ability of States and conservation actors to recognize Indigenous Peoples as equal partners and rights-holders. In Cameroon, the experience of the Baka shows that the forest can simultaneously be a space for subsistence, culture, knowledge transmission and biodiversity conservation. The initiatives to which AIWO-CAN has contributed also demonstrate that Indigenous participation can be organized in concrete ways: community mapping, participation in forest policies, grievance mechanisms, Free, Prior and Informed Consent and strengthening the role of Indigenous women.

The question is therefore no longer simply how to protect the forests of the Congo Basin, but also who decides their future and what guarantees are provided for those who have lived there for generations. Sustainable conservation of the Congo Basin must be rights-based conservation: conservation that protects ecosystems without displacing the Indigenous Peoples who have traditionally protected them, that values Indigenous knowledge without exploiting it, and that transforms Indigenous forest communities into genuine partners in biodiversity governance.

The post The Forests of the Congo Basin in Cameroon and the Rights of the Baka People appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

Enforced disappearance is a form of continuous torture that was used against political dissidents and guerrillas in the 1960s and 70s, both in Mexico and in other regions of Abya Yala (the Americas). From 2006 onwards, however, it became widely employed by both state and non-state armed actors as a strategy of punishment, territorial control and terror, when then-president Felipe Calderón (2006–2012) launched what became popularly known as the “war on drugs”. This strategy militarised Mexican society, increased the circulation of firearms throughout the country, and incorporated methods of torture and body-handling techniques that the armed forces had learned in the context of armed conflicts.

While right-wing governments initiated the “war on drugs”, the centre-left governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024) and Claudia Sheinbaum (2024– ) have continued this strategy, granting the Mexican military even greater power and impunity. Despite rhetoric placing the fight against inequality and the rights of women, victims and Indigenous Peoples at the centre of government policy, in practice these governments have continued implementing policies that militarise public security while enabling land dispossession and human rights violations by police, military and migration authorities. This was denounced by search collectives during their mobilisations during the FIFA World Cup.

More Than 70,000 Unidentified Bodies

Among the demands of this movement is the identification of the more than 70,000 bodies currently held by the state in morgues, forensic institutions, hospitals and prosecutors’ mass graves. With 133,000 people who remain disappeared and the remains of more than 70,000 individuals in state custody, families know that many of their loved ones could simply be waiting to be identified before they can finally return home. The state’s response has been that it lacks the financial and material resources needed to carry out this task. Alejandro Encinas, then Undersecretary for Human Rights, described this reality as “Mexico’s forensic crisis.”

Yet the World Cup’s financial gain tells a different story. There may be no money to search for and identify disappeared persons, but there is enough to invest $1.323 billion in infrastructure projects to make the World Cup possible. Faced with this reality, groups of families of disappeared people took to the streets in the three World Cup host cities chanting: “Mexico, world champion in disappearances.” While the World Cup venues were filled with banners announcing the return of the ball home, the families demanded: “The ball is coming home, but when will our disappeared loved ones?”

Violence in Indigenous Territories: Dispossession and Disappearances

In the context of the FIFA World Cup, groups of families of disappeared people sought to expose another side of the so-called Fourth Transformation governments: centre-left governments that have continued policies of death and impunity, enabling the disappearance of 67,000 people in just the six years of López Obrador’s administration and the first two years of Claudia Sheinbaum’s. Although there are no precise figures indicating how many of those disappeared are Indigenous, as official data are not disaggregated by ethnic origin, we do know that extreme forms of violence tend to be concentrated in impoverished and racialised territories where Indigenous communities live.

The stories of Indigenous people who have disappeared in Sinaloa, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Chiapas and Chihuahua reveal a continuum of violence that includes the structural violence preceding enforced disappearance and forms part of the harm suffered by victims and their communities. Racism contributes to concentrating disappearances in the country’s poorest and most marginalised regions. Colonial structures assign certain bodies to particular territories, which receive fewer resources and less attention through public policy. In a racist and racialised society such as Mexico’s, Indigenous identity significantly increases the likelihood of experiencing violence. Reporting disappearances, searching for disappeared relatives, and accessing justice become even greater challenges for those who do not speak Spanish and have no access to interpretation services, as well as for families who lack the financial means to travel to the cities where judicial and search institutions are based.

This is the other side of World Cup Mexico that search collectives sought to reveal by taking to the streets and reminding football fans that, in the areas surrounding the stadiums, clandestine graves conceal the bodies of those who remain disappeared.

This is the other side of World Cup: in the areas surrounding the stadiums, clandestine graves conceal the bodies of those who remain disappeared.

This is why we speak of the multiple absences of disappeared Indigenous people. Beyond their physical absence from the communities to which they belonged, until recently their ethnic identity went unrecognised in official statistics on disappearances, while the issue itself remained largely absent from Indigenous mobilisations. Many of their bodies have ended up in state-run mass graves, with no forensic records that would allow their relatives to identify and recover them.

Alongside the thousands of anonymous Indigenous young people who have been forcibly recruited by organised crime and disappeared or murdered for resisting recruitment, there are documented stories of 46 Indigenous land defenders who, since 2019, have been murdered or disappearedfor defending their territories against dispossession driven by mining and other development projects. This is the other side of World Cup Mexico that search collectives sought to reveal by taking to the streets and reminding football fans that, in the areas surrounding the stadiums, clandestine graves conceal the bodies of those who remain disappeared.

Search Collectives and the World Cup

Mexico City hosted the opening ceremony and opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the Estadio Azteca, a tournament venue located in Santa Úrsula Coapa, an Indigenous community whose territory was fragmented by the construction of the stadium. For the third time in its history, the community of Santa Úrsula has had to live through a FIFA World Cup while access to its territory has been restricted and disrupted. Furthermore, as in previous World Cups, the social context of Mexico is not what the government has tried to portray to the world.

Faced with a city that has become increasingly hostile to its own residents and a FIFA under suspicion of corruption and influence peddling, those searching for their disappeared loved ones prepared a schedule of mobilisations and memorials to disrupt the green grass of the host stadium and voice their demands for justice. Even in the face of threats and repressive actions by the authorities, they found a way to become part of the World Cup atmosphere without confronting it directly. As they themselves explain, their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and friends are football fans too. That is why they took to the streets to say that there should not be another World Cup until their loved ones have finally come home.

These protests took place not only in Mexico City but also in Guadalajara and Monterrey—the three World Cup host cities in Mexico—and received widespread coverage in both the national and international press. Guadalajara attracted particular attention, not only because of the demonstrations themselves but also because search collectives documented the discovery of several clandestine graves in the vicinity of Estadio Akron.

The families’ mobilisations took many forms: a march and overnight vigil on the eve of the opening match; the demonstration held on opening day, during which some families managed to reach the vicinity of the Estadio Azteca after crossing the police cordon that had prevented them from gaining access; visual interventions inspired by World Cup imagery; posters featuring the faces of disappeared people designed in the style of Panini World Cup stickers; large-scale campaigns to paste up posters featuring disappeared persons; cascaritas—the informal football matches played between friends in Mexico—held “for memory and against forgetting”; and the creation of the Searching Axolotl, a mascot inspired by the amphibian endemic to the lakes of the Valley of Mexico and revered as a deity in Mexica culture.

Faced with this series of protests, memorial events, cultural activities and interfaith gatherings, the federal government led by Claudia Sheinbaum responded in a way that few expected. It even suggested that the search collectives had received illicit funding to organise the demonstrations. Rather than committing to investigating the disappearances themselves—many of which occurred during Sheinbaum’s administration—the government announced that it would instead investigate the alleged source of that funding, a move the families denounced as a further act of revictimisation.

The official response consisted of hostile rhetoric, police cordons and repeated attempts to restrict the protests. One particularly troubling incident occurred when Mexico City police used force against search collectives and supporters taking part in a peaceful demonstration on one of the main avenues linking the city centre to the Estadio Azteca, on the day of the Mexico–Ecuador match. Fernando Vargas, the father of Olin Hernando Vargas, who disappeared in 2024, was injured during the operation. Meanwhile, the mobilisations for memory and against forgetting continue.

“Everyone to the Stadium!”: A Chronicle of the Night March Before the Opening Match

On 10 June 2026, a march took place in Mexico City under the slogan “Light the Way for the Search.” Setting off from the Registro Federal light rail station, participants aimed to reach the Estadio Azteca. At eight o’clock that evening, we began marching, accompanied by a massive presence of national and international media. One of the family members coordinating the event took the megaphone and called out: “We ask everyone to keep their faces uncovered!” The request underscored the peaceful nature of the demonstration and sought to prevent outside actors from discrediting its genuine purpose.

A few hundred metres before reaching the boundary of the “last mile”—a restricted security perimeter around the stadium, accessible only to local residents and ticket holders—the march became more cautious. The protesters linked arms and decided to keep moving. As we covered those final metres, an unfamiliar scene began to take shape in the distance. At the top of the avenue, a line of lights appeared to block the road. At first, some of us thought they were the flashes of journalists’ cameras. But as we drew closer, the picture became clearer. At least ten rows of police officers stood across the road, blocking our way, while the streetlights reflected off their riot shields. On one side stood the police line; on the other, the families, raising their megaphones and chanting: “Why do we search for them? Because we love them!”

When we came face to face with the police lines, the families kept their spirits high. Some sang and prayed together, while others improvised an altar where they placed the candles carried during the march. Others organised cascaritas—informal football matches—right there in the middle of the road. Gradually, as the night wore on, the crowd began to disperse and the area around the stadium emptied. Yet just as the World Cup was about to begin, so too did the protests that surrounded it.

“Let’s Make It Happen!”: The Cascarita for Memory and Against Forgetting

Near the Glorieta de las y los Desaparecidos—renamed by families searching for their disappeared loved ones—the asphalt has spontaneously become the football pitch where today’s match “for memory and against forgetting” is being played. White paint marks the boundaries of the field, while a couple of backpacks serve as the goalposts. The players wear Mexico national team shirts that have been altered to raise awareness and protest the situation: some bear the names and faces of disappeared persons; others display messages denouncing the country’s disappearance crisis. The teams are not playing against one another. Instead, they play together to “score against forgetting.” Every goal scored is a goal for memory.

Among the players and spectators, banners and placards bear the names and faces of those who remain disappeared—the people for whom this cascarita is being played. Verónica, Benita and Dioni, members of the Uniendo Esperanzas search collective, play for one of the teams. Their shirts carry the names of their sons who have disappeared: Diego Maximiliano, Fernando Iván and Guillermo David. Their side is completed by Leo, Benita’s young grandson, together with a group of young women and men who stand alongside them in the search for their children. They play with skill and determination, giving everything they have on the pitch.

The cascarita for memory and against forgetting—for truth and justice—continues until every one of those who remain disappeared has been found.

The cascarita for memory and against forgetting—for truth and justice—continues until every one of those who remain disappeared has been found.

The match goes on and the scoreboard is still active. The teams take turns on the pitch. Every goal is celebrated. Every act of solidarity counts; every lack of it is ruled offside. At one tense moment in the match, Sister Pao—a volunteer referee and Catholic nun who accompanies the families searching for their disappeared loved ones—firmly brandishes a red card against injustice. She quickly puts the ball back into play, not before reminding everyone that this is a collaborative match. Among the players are people who also give everything they have in support of other just causes. Collaboration between all those on the pitch is the key to scoring goals for justice.

Just before the rain begins, the last goal of this day of Mexican street football is scored. The cascarita comes to an end. Players run for shelter wherever they can. But the main match is far from over. That is the match the families searching for their disappeared loved ones play every single day. The cascarita for memory and against forgetting—for truth and justice—continues until every one of those who remain disappeared has been found.

The Chance to Play One More Match

During the 39 days of the FIFA World Cup, families searching for their missing loved ones never stopped raising their voices, scoring goals for remembrance and reminding the public that Mexico remains fractured and incomplete: more than 133,000 people remain disappeared. In the face of a football-centred nationalism that often showed little empathy for the families’ pain, search collectives revealed another side of World Cup Mexico. Faced with a government and a society that continue to deny the country’s disappearance crisis, these families continue to lay bare the face of a profoundly wounded Mexico.

Indigenous territories continue to be dispossessed, occupied and transformed into football stadiums or clandestine cemeteries, while the government floods the media with Indigenous rhetoric about laws and public policies that  do not respond to the realities of dispossession, violence and impunity experienced by Mexico’s Indigenous Peoples.

While the country continues to conceal the scars left by disappearances, clandestine graves and countless human rights violations, families searching for their disappeared loved ones refuse to let the names and faces of the more than 133,000 people who remain disappeared fade from public memory. Their protests and mobilisations are acts of remembrance against forgetting. Let us hope that each of these absences will be remembered not only by the families who search every day, but also by all those who believe that everyone deserves a fair chance, a dignified remembrance, and the equal opportunity to watch—or even play—one more match with the people they love.

The post The Ball Returns to Mexico—But What About the Disappeared? appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

The rural schoolteacher from Cajamarca remained in office for only one year and 132 days, from July 28, 2021 to December 7, 2022. He was removed from office irregularly on the grounds of “permanent moral incapacity” and accused of attempting a coup d’état that never actually materialised. Since such conduct was not legally defined as a criminal offence under Peruvian law, the charge was subsequently amended to “conspiracy to commit rebellion”. Pedro Castillo’s removal enabled the so-called “mafia pact” to appoint puppet governments under its direct influence, including those led by Dina Boluarte (2022–2025), José Jerí León (2025–2026) and José María Balcázar (2026).

The Rural Vote and the Coastal Vote

Since Alberto Fujimori first took office in 1990, Peru has been experiencing a crisis of political representation marked by the collapse of the political party system. Against this backdrop, the 2026 electoral process was shaped by Fujimorism to create conditions that best served its political interests. Law No. 30995 drastically reduced party registration requirements: it went from requiring 700,000 signatures of adherents to approximately 25,000 members (0.1% of the electoral roll). This reduction was in effect from 2019 until early 2024, which allowed dozens of political organisations to begin or complete the registration process.

As a result, the Registry of Political Organisations included 43 parties authorized to participate in the 2026 elections—a historic record. Moreover, the suspension of the Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Primary Elections (PASO) further fragmented the electoral landscape, resulting in 35 presidential candidates and an extraordinarily long ballot. In this context, Keiko Fujimori ran for the presidency for the fourth time, despite facing serious allegations of corruption and having spent three separate periods in pre-trial detention for alleged money laundering and illegal campaign contributions linked to the Odebrecht case. Between 2018 and 2020, Keiko Fujimori spent a total of 16.5 months detained. “The main charge was thrown out in 2025 by the Constitutional Court, whose members were appointed by a Congress under strong Fujimori influence,” notes political scientist Omar Coronel.

Roberto Sánchez secured a majority of the vote in rural districts, whereas Keiko Fujimori prevailed primarily in densely populated coastal regions, in addition to an advantage gained from the votes of Peruvians living abroad.

Roberto Sánchez secured a majority of the vote in rural districts.

The election results reveal a country that is divided, fragmented and— it could even be argued— polarised and distrustful of democratic institutions. In the first round, Keiko Fujimori advanced to the run-off with 17.8 percent of the valid vote, while Roberto Sánchez (Juntos por el Perú) qualified with just 12.03 percent. Together, the two candidates accounted for less than 30 percent of the valid votes cast in the first round. Most of the remaining 35 candidates received less than 10 percent of the vote, illustrating the dispersion and fragmentation of the electorate. Although Roberto Sánchez prevailed by a narrow margin nationwide in the runoff, Fujimori’s lead among Peruvians living abroad ultimately tipped the final outcome in her favour.

Juntos por el Perú won 18 of Peru’s 25 regional constituencies (comprising 24 departments and the Constitutional Province of Callao), whereas Fuerza Popular won in only seven. Furthermore, Roberto Sánchez secured a majority in rural constituencies, while Keiko Fujimori prevailed primarily in densely populated coastal regions, in addition to securing a decisive advantage from the votes of Peruvians living abroad.

The Indigenous and Environmental Agenda Adrift

Indigenous and environmental issues were largely absent from the election campaign, with no concrete proposals put forward. This reflects the deterioration of these issues over the past decade— a period of profound political instability during which Peru saw eight presidents in ten years. A major setback was the amendment of the Forestry and Wildlife Law via Law No. 31973 of 2024—known as the Anti-Forestry Law— which was enacted despite repeated warnings regarding its disastrous consequences. Public opposition was widespread, and the law was criticised even by state institutions. In March 2025, the Constitutional Court declared two articles of the law unconstitutional by a majority of five votes to two, while upholding the law’s most pernicious provision: the Sole Final Complementary Provision.

Manuel Pulgar Vidal, of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), summarizes the election debate: “Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a weakening of environmental safeguards in the country. This is also an indirect consequence of significant political instability Peru has experienced over the past decade. As a result, environmental issues have virtually disappeared from media coverage. No political party has a robust environmental agenda in its platform, nor do they have a qualified official capable of outlining the basic elements of such an agenda.” Additionally, a serious concern for Indigenous Peoples and the natural environment is the rise in organised crime, particularly illegal mining. Faced with this challenge, the candidates failed to present firm proposals and instead adopted an overly lenient stance.

For her part, Isabel Calle, Executive Director of the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), notes: “Illegal mining has become one of the primary threats to the Amazon, governance, and national security. It is compounded by illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, land trafficking, and the unchecked expansion of activities operating outside the law. These activities are not merely environmental problems; they are manifestations of criminal networks that seize territories, corrupt institutions, incite violence and erode public trust. Combating them requires far more than isolated enforcement operations. It demands financial intelligence, an effective State presence, institutional strengthening, coordination across levels of government, and sustainable economic alternatives for local communities.”

The Peruvian Model and Structural Inequality

Observers of Peru’s macroeconomic indicators from afarare often struck by the apparent success and promise of the “Peruvian model.” During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the country was one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America. Between 2000 and 2019, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) nearly tripled, driven by a boom in mining exports, private investment and macroeconomic stability, resulting in a substantial increase in public spending. However, this growth has been uneven, with its benefits concentrated in Lima and the coastal regions. Many Andean and Amazonian continue to rely on low-productivity economic activities and experience a minimal state presence.

Labour informality remains a major obstacle to a more equitable income distribution. Approximately seven out of ten workers hold informal jobs, earning low wages and lacking access to social security, pensions, or unemployment protection. Another contributing factor is the inequality in access to public services. Although the national budget has increased significantly over the past two decades, the quality of education, healthcare, access to safe drinking water, sanitation and internet services remains highly unequal, even between districts within the same region.

Furthermore, Peru maintains one of the lowest tax burdens in Latin America and remains heavily dependent on extractive industries and the informal economy. This limits the State’s redistributive capacity and reduces the resources available to sustain universal, long-term public policies. Indeed, one of the country’s defining characteristics is the persistence of historical and cultural inequalities. Indigenous, Afro-Peruvian and rural populations continue to face barriers in accessing public services, markets, and opportunities. These disparities stem from long-standing processes linked to centralism, territorial exclusion, and discrimination.

Drifting towards Authoritarianism

The outlook projected by a Fujimorist government mirrors that of recent years: legislation favouring criminal activity and a legislative package granting amnesty and impunity to the Armed Forces and Police. These are creating a regime of terror. Analyst and photographer Ezio Macchione warns: “I see no reason for optimism. I see a country that is exhausted, fractured, fearful and weighed down by a backlog of unresolved problems, with a political class that has repeatedly proven itself to be wholly inadequate to the gravity of the moment. Above all, I see the danger of confusing order with authoritarianism, security with repression, stability with silence, and governability with the capture of the State.”

For his part, Omar Coronel, professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, writes: “Since 2022, the country has effectively been governed by an authoritarian coalition in which Fujimorism has played a leading role. The 2026 elections have now given that leadership electoral legitimacy. The president enjoys the backing of business associations, the Armed Forces, and a police force protected by guarantees of impunity for human rights violations. If she governs with low approval ratings and is confronted by social unrest, her track record suggests that she will resort to repression as her principal means of maintaining control, with the support of the country’s leading media outlets. Ultimately, Fujimorism represents the most organised threat to democracy in Peru, and the one with the country’s most powerful allies.”

“Peruvian democracy will first have to struggle to preserve or recover the formal institutions that minimally define it as a democracy. Beyond that, it will also have to ensure that it once again becomes representative of the nation to an acceptable degree.”

“Peruvian democracy will first have to struggle to preserve or recover the formal institutions that minimally define it as a democracy.”

In the same vein, American analyst Steven Levitsky emphasises the concentration of power: “Fujimori would control the Executive branch, wield significant influence in Congress and, as we know, exert influence over other institutions, including the Judiciary, electoral authorities, and sectors of the armed forces and security services. Additionally, she would have a friendly government in Washington under the Donald Trump administration. This would give her the opportunity to consolidate a great deal of power, and the opposition would need to organise and work much more seriously if it wants to defend basic rights and a competitive democratic system in Peru.”

Similarly, the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru warns: “Peruvian democracy will first have to struggle to preserve or recover the formal institutions that minimally define it as a democracy. Beyond that, it will also have to ensure that it once again becomes representative of the nation to an acceptable degree.” Meanwhile, social and community activist Nury García notes: “I think the challenge is to forge a new political coalition capable of connecting memory, precariousness, criminal violence, extractivism, inequality, the ecological crisis, care work, and new forms of social suffering. The challenge is to build a broad political subject without erasing the specific memories of each individual struggle.”

The Way Forward Is Collective

A primary practical challenge is for the congressional opposition— which champions human rights and democratic freedoms— to remain united and build active alliances with social movements and civil society. To achieve this, it will be essential to sustain persistent, active and non-violent mobilisation to avoid giving the government the pretext for repression it seeks. The Indigenous movements and civil society organisations risk being overwhelmed by authoritarian power if they remain fragmented and isolated, each pursuing its own agenda instead of building meaningful dialogue and alliances that broaden the horizons of their respective struggles.

Sectarianism, opportunism, and individualism remain burdens that divide and weaken the capacity for resistance and struggle among those defending rights and freedoms in a world increasingly plagued by denialism, authoritarian tendencies—on both the left and the right—and polarisation driven by transnational interests. Similarly, it works to the advantage of grassroots sectors that the electoral promises and illusions of Fujimorism will inevitably begin to clash with reality and public expectations. The failure to address and fulfill these expectations will erode credibility and fuel frustration.

The lacklustre presidential inauguration speech and the composition of the first cabinet reveal a lack of experienced political and technical personnel capable of governing effectively. Likewise, the sweeping request for powers to legislate by decree makes it clear that Keiko Fujimori’s government intends to make key decisions behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny and with little regard for the public.

The post Peru: The Challenge of Confronting an Authoritarian Government appeared first on Debates Indígenas.

During Gustavo Petro’s administration (2022–2026), Colombia made significant progress in recognising the ethnic, territorial and environmental governance rights of Indigenous Peoples. One of the government’s priorities was to protect and guarantee Indigenous Peoples’ territorial, cultural and environmental rights through “regulatory advances in territorial autonomy, the strengthening of Indigenous knowledge systems, and the recognition of Indigenous environmental authorities”. Over the past four years, the government also advanced land claims in Indigenous resguardos through collective reparations, the restoration of ethnic territorial rights, and land restitution. As a result, the total number of legally recognised Indigenous resguardos has reached 935.

The Politics of Racism and Stigmatisation

During the election campaign, the far-right project was marked by discriminatory rhetoric, threats, and stigmatisation. Racism opportunistically surfaced in the attacks directed at the vice presidential running mate of the left-wing candidate, Indigenous mayora (female elder) and Nasa senator Aida Quilcué. Abelardo de la Espriella claimed that the Indigenous leader was unfit to assume the office of Vice-President: “Would you feel at ease if something happened to Mr Cepeda and his running mate took over? I’ll leave that with you—think it over. That would not be responsible towards the country. That would not be responsible towards Colombia.”

These remarks were accompanied by stigmatising statements, threats, and potential restrictions on the legitimate right of Indigenous Peoples to protest and mobilise: “Under my government, they will either get organised and become real citizens, or they will find out just how hard the tiger bites. I will not tolerate this disorder from Indigenous people, nor their constant extortion and pressure. They already own 33% of Colombia’s land and still demand more, claiming there is an ancestral debt that, in their view, can never be repaid. Indigenous people should realise that blocking roads is one thing without the tiger and quite another with the tiger in power, because I am the kind of tiger that roars—and bites.”

These false claims have already fueled discrimination, hatred, and racism among his supporters, while ignoring the long-standing historical efforts to restore the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, who have been systematically dispossessed of their rights and excluded from national political life despite their vital contributions to protecting and restoring ecosystems essential not only to their own continued existence, but also to the survival of the country’s human and non-human communities. This strategy has also served to instrumentalise and fracture Indigenous organisational and community processes by exploiting the dissatisfaction of some communities over the outgoing government’s failure to fulfil its commitments. At the same time, the campaign sought to bring Indigenous leaders into its ranks in order to build political capital and soften the image of a political project otherwise characterised by threats and racist stigmatisation.

Proposals Affecting Indigenous Peoples

The far-right government plan sets out proposals that would amount to dangerous setbacks in the guarantee and protection of the collective right to free, prior and informed consultation. In doing so, it disregards existing jurisprudence governing this right while simultaneously opening the door to extractive projects that would have a profound impact on biocultural ecosystems across the country.

In the “Economy” section, the plan portrays environmental licensing procedures and the right of communities to free, prior and informed consultation as obstacles and burdens on the private sector. It therefore proposes fast-track environmental licensing and the acceleration of consultation processes. In the “Mining and Energy Policy” section, it argues that the extractive sector has been constrained by ideological prejudice and dismisses efforts to advance a just and people-centred energy transition, a process that had already progressed under the current government administration in consultation with local communities.

The lack of mention of multiculturalism and ethnic and cultural diversity not only makes the contribution of ethnic groups to national cultural policy invisible, but could also foreshadow a possible defunding of Indigenous Peoples’ initiatives.

The lack of mention of the country’s multiculturalism and ethnic and cultural diversity makes the contributions of ethnic peoples to national cultural policy invisible.

In the rural sphere, the “The Countryside” section of the government plan claims that Colombia has undergone a “false agrarian reform”, disregarding the achievements of land restitution and land allocation processes for rural communities, particularly Indigenous resguardos. It also proposes to “expand the productive agricultural frontier,” presumably through large-scale industrial monocultures, which would severely endanger ecosystems essential for the survival and integrity of Indigenous territories and their vital resources.

Finally, the section on culture proposes “fiscal support for new cultural enterprises and major cultural and sporting events that attract foreign revenue”. In doing so, this would reduce culture to market forces. The proposal’s failure to acknowledge the country’s multiculturalism and its ethnic and cultural diversity not only overlooks the contributions of Indigenous and other ethnic groups to Colombia’s cultural life, but could also signal a reduction in public funding for Indigenous initiatives. Ultimately, a lack of resources could jeopardize the protection of Indigenous knowledge systems, the revitalisation of Indigenous languages and the continuity of ancestral practices, all of which contribute directly to the physical survival of Indigenous Peoples.

Appointments That Herald the Storm

The recent appointments to key ministries responsible for safeguarding the rights of ethnic peoples, particularly the Ministries of the Interior and the Environment, also appear to herald a series of far-right policy measures. Representing a 180-degree shift from the previous administration, these policies could be implemented at an early stage through presidential decrees during the first 90 to 100 days of the new government, which will take office on 7 August.

The incoming Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, co-authored Statutory Bill No. 134 in 2018 while serving as a senator. The bill sought to regulate the right to prior consultation by establishing procedures, timeframes, the powers of public authorities and the legal effects of consultation, as well as mechanisms for coordination between the State and ethnic groups. During the legislative debate on the bill’s articles, criticisms were raised that several of its provisions could restrict the exercise of this right. Additionally, criticisms noted that there was a lack of provisions for broad consultations with the directly affected communities. As Minister, Lara Restrepo could therefore advance a legislative agenda aimed at restricting the right to prior consultation and other collective rights.

The incoming Minister of the Environment, Fabio Arjona Hincapié, has likewise described prior consultation as an “entirely transactional” mechanism. He has also argued that “the prior consultation process can no longer function as a mechanism for extortion”, remarks that seriously undermine the legitimacy of this right. In his view, consultation processes have hindered infrastructure development. Statements of this kind could further fuel the stigmatisation of Indigenous communities by portraying them as obstacles to a neoliberal and extractivist model of development that disregards Indigenous Peoples’ own life plans and their right to self-determination.

Warnings for the Future

In the first months of the administration, the appointment of ministers with the abovementioned profiles will likely facilitate the implementation of policies aimed at realizing the large-scale extractive model proposed in the government plan. This is precisely what Abelardo de la Espriella promised during the election campaign: “Under the Tiger government, we’re going to exploit the country’s subsoil resources to the fullest!” Such a stance not only disregards but also threatens the alternative models of development and well-being that ethnic communities have been building through territorial governance and their own ways of sustaining life.

Finally, I would like to reiterate the warning voiced by the opposition, led by Iván Cepeda, regarding the risk of increased repression and the criminalisation of social protest under the incoming government. This could translate into restrictions on the many forms of Indigenous and popular mobilisation. Colombia has a long history of emblematic Indigenous mingas that have brought thousands of people onto the country’s roads and streets to demand respect for and protection of collective ethnic and territorial rights, as well as the right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination—rights that are essential to building peace from a territorial perspective in Colombia.

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Another key question is whether the conflict succeeded in halting the structural reforms to the country’s economic model—which initially entailed rolling back hard-won social gains—or whether it instead served to strengthen the protesters’ demand for the president’s resignation, which became the movement’s central demand during its final phase. On this point, several leaders of social organisations and peasant communities explained that the movement envisaged the resignation of the head of state, followed by the constitutional succession of Vice-President Edman Lara and the calling of fresh elections within three months. Some even advocated for allowing former president Evo Morales to stand as a candidate, although the courts have so far ruled out that possibility.

A President No One Saw Coming

Rodrigo Paz Pereira, the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora, came to power as a complete surprise. The son of a left-wing political family with a guerrilla past, his father served as president and led the former Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) after forging an unlikely political alliance with the right-wing former dictator Hugo Banzer following the 1989 elections. In 2025, Paz Pereira defeated former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in the presidential run-off, benefiting from the votes left politically adrift by the collapse of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). Drawn largely from popular sectors, these voters would never have supported a far-right candidate such as “Tuto”.

Once in office, Paz temporarily eased the fuel shortage through agreements with the United States and allied countries in the region. Before long, however, he began issuing decrees and resolutions aimed at dismantling what he himself described as the Estado tranca (“gridlock state”). In practice, these measures favoured the powerful economic interests of Bolivia’s eastern lowlands while alienating the electorate that had brought him to power in the Andean region. His government abolished the wealth tax and enacted Supreme Decree No. 5503, whose 121 articles introduced a fast-track procedure for approving foreign investment contracts in infrastructure and natural resource exploitation without parliamentary approval or the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples concerned. It also eliminated almost all subsidies on liquid fuels, doubling the price of petrol and tripling that of diesel.

The origins of the subsequent conflict can be traced back to these early days in office. From the outset, the president and his government adopted a position increasingly at odds with Vice-President Edman Lara, a former police officer who enjoyed broad popular support. Even before taking office, Lara accused the president on social media of reneging on their political agreements and forming a government without his participation. As the dispute escalated, the government issued a decree stripping the vice-president of his constitutional powers and depriving him of almost all public funding. While Paz portrayed Lara as unfit for office, a significant section of his own electorate interpreted the move as a betrayal of their class interests, particularly among the Andean popular sectors represented by peasants, small traders, self-employed workers, transport workers and labourers. These groups have traditionally been distrustful of the middle and upper classes of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, whom they largely perceive as belonging to the political right.

An Accumulation of Demands

The composition of the protest movement changed over time. In April, the president enacted Law No. 1720 without any prior consultation. The legislation sought to reclassify small-scale agricultural holdings as medium-sized properties through an administrative procedure, while introducing a moratorium on verifying whether medium-sized estates fulfilled their economic and social function. The government and agribusiness interests attempted to present the law as one that would benefit smallholder farmers, although it was evident that it was primarily intended to favour the large landowners of Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. Indeed, the region’s leading businessman and senator took the lead in publicly promoting and defending the legislation.

Against this backdrop, the first protest was led by peasant organisations from the Northern Amazon who launched a march demanding the repeal of Law No. 1720. Along the way, they were joined by Indigenous organisations from the department of Beni, which distanced themselves from the agreements reached between the government and the Confederation of Indigenous Nations and Peoples of the Bolivian East, Chaco and Amazon (CIDOB), as the authorities sought to downplay the significance of the peasant march. The mobilisation also prompted mining cooperatives and teachers’ unions to put forward their own demands. Up to that point, the government had portrayed the protests as a collection of sector-specific disputes, attributing them to the legacy of the “20 years of MAS” and to alleged attempts at destabilisation by political leaders displaced from power and aligned with former president Evo Morales.

The Bolivian Workers’ Centre presented its list of demands in El Alto on May 1, ushering the conflict into a new phase. The dispute took on a more structural character and social polarisation deepened, spilling onto the streets, into the media and across social networks.

The Bolivian Workers’ Centre presented its list of demands in El Alto on May 1, ushering the conflict into a new phase. The dispute took on a more structural character and social polarisation deepened.

Following the partial repeal of Law No. 1720 and the enactment of Supreme Decree No. 5613, which authorised the allocation of state-owned forest land to Amazonian peasant and Indigenous communities, the government declared that the protests were no longer driven by legitimate social demands but had become political in nature. This shift was underscored by growing calls for the president’s resignation—a demand from which Indigenous organisations distanced themselves following the partial repeal of Law No. 1720. At the same time, the government adopted a ministerial resolution allowing mining cooperatives to regularise contracts in protected areas and Indigenous territories without prior consultation. In doing so, the move further entrenched violations of the Indigenous rights enshrined in the Constitution, with the aim of neutralising one of the strongest sectors of the protest movement.

For its part, the Bolivian Workers’ Centre (COB) presented its list of demands in El Alto on May 1, ushering the conflict into a new phase. The dispute took on a more structural character and social polarisation deepened, spilling onto the streets, into the media and across social networks. At this stage, new actors came to the fore: coca growers from Chapare, who launched a march towards La Paz, and peasant organisations from the historic Túpac Katari federation, bringing together the so-called Ponchos Rojos, one of the country’s most militant social movements. Road blockades spread across almost the entire Andean region, while communal peasant communities joined the protests en masse within their own territories. By then, the movement had coalesced around a single overriding demand: the resignation of Rodrigo Paz over the sale of poor-quality fuels, the shortage of US dollars and rising inflation.

A Conflict That Seemed Never-Ending

Another dimension of the conflict was the impact, forged after his electoral victory, that Rodrigo Paz’s alliance with the economic elites of Bolivia’s eastern lowlands had on the Andean popular sectors. Combined with a series of neoliberal measures that rolled back the social gains enshrined in the Constitution, this alliance came to be seen by many as a betrayal of the very voters who had brought Paz to power. This perception was further reinforced by the removal of Indigenous symbols from the state’s official imagery, as well as by a shift in the language and practices through which the government engaged with the protesting sectors. With no interlocutors capable of understanding their grievances, the conflict reached an impasse and dragged on.

Throughout the crisis, the government consistently opted for dialogue while refusing to yield to demands for the president’s resignation, treating the unrest as a series of sector-specific disputes. For several weeks, however, the president’s resignation remained the only condition under which the nearly 100 roadblocks that were beginning to choke access to La Paz, the country’s seat of government, would be lifted. Xenophobic and discriminatory rhetoric directed at the protesters came to dominate social media and much of the mainstream media, which had largely aligned itself with the government. The protesters, for their part, responded with an anger born less of aggression than of frustration and a profound sense of powerlessness.

As in other conflicts led by popular organisations across the Andean region, polarisation exposed and intensified Bolivia’s longstanding fault lines, particularly those rooted in ethnic and regional divisions.

As in other conflicts led by popular organisations across the Andean region, polarisation exposed and intensified Bolivia’s longstanding fault lines, particularly those rooted in ethnic and regional divisions.

In this way, the government adopted a strategy of attrition, refraining from declaring a state of emergency in order to avoid drawing other sectors into the conflict and triggering an even greater crisis. While the absence of armed repression—of the kind witnessed under Jeanine Añez and Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, when crackdowns left a trail of deaths, injuries and arrests—kept the protests within manageable institutional limits, the prolonged conflict inflicted considerable political damage on the president, as growing sectors of society called for the army to be deployed.

As in other conflicts led by popular organisations across the Andean region, polarisation exposed and intensified Bolivia’s longstanding fault lines, particularly those rooted in ethnic and regional divisions.  Given its role as the main supplier of many of the goods consumed in western Bolivia, the roadblocks in Santa Cruz were widely perceived as a measure directed against the department itself. Meanwhile, Indigenous intellectuals—especially Aymara and Quechua voices based in the country’s cities—argued that the conflict had brought to the surface the racism and discrimination still faced by the Indigenous population of the Andes, which was once again being marginalised in public policy. More broadly, there was a widespread perception that the social gains enshrined in the Constitution were under threat.

Evo Morales’ Role

Among the government’s main efforts to discredit the protests was its claim that Evo Morales was behind an attempted insurrection and that he was financing the road blockades through drug trafficking, with the aim of securing his eligibility to stand in the elections that would supposedly follow the president’s resignation. In reality, apart from the mobilisation of coca growers from Chapare, the former president played a much greater role in media coverage than in the protests themselves, not least because he remained at odds with several of the sectors taking part in the mobilisation. Although his supporters shared the movement’s central demand, the broad coalition brought together by the Bolivian Workers’ Centre (COB) and peasant organisations far exceeded the mobilisation of the coca-growing sector, which marched from its historic stronghold in Chapare to the seat of government.

The most tense moments came in May, when several marches entered La Paz and the city was brought to a complete standstill by the road blockades. Protesters increasingly targeted businesses that refused to close and even ordinary citizens who opposed both the radical nature of the protest measures and the calls for the president’s resignation only six months into Rodrigo Paz’s presidency. Across the country, the blockades paralysed the economy and directly and indirectly claimed 22 lives. Ambulances were prevented from passing through blockade points, denying critically ill patients access to medical care, while shortages of essential supplies left hospitals unable to treat those in urgent need.

Urban sectors also criticised the president for his ineffective handling of the crisis, which exposed the government’s limited understanding of the groups behind the protests, particularly those mobilised around land and territorial rights. In this context, the government’s public response was led by senator and landowner Branko Marinkovic, a member of the Free Alliance party headed up by former far-right presidential candidate Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga. His prominent role became another factor fuelling the protests, as many demonstrators saw him as a white landowner of foreign descent from Bolivia’s eastern lowlands promoting a reform that clearly harmed smallholder farmers while relying on arguments that many found unconvincing.

The Truce and the Uncertainty Ahead

The conflict came to an end with the signing of an agreement on 26 June. Although it does not amount to a political programme for the popular movement, it could mark a turning point in the relationship between the state and a broad range of social actors with regard to their historic achievements: national sovereignty; respect for Indigenous Peoples; consultation and participation in decisions that may affect them; and the commitment not to authorise mining activities in protected areas and Indigenous territories. One of the agreement’s central commitments was Rodrigo Paz’s pledge not to relinquish control over the country’s natural resources—gas and lithium—or to privatise its strategic state-owned enterprises. The agreement also provided for compensation for damage caused to vehicles by poor-quality fuel, measures to protect household purchasing power, and commitments to restore wages and pensions.

Nearly a month after the agreement was signed, it is clear that many of its demands remain unresolved. Politically, President Rodrigo Paz neither resigned nor was forced to do so. Instead, he declared a state of emergency, although this was not the mechanism that brought the road blockades to an end. Fragmentation in Congress also persists, while the popular organisations have neither regrouped nor emerged stronger. Having secured agreements on a number of specific demands, they returned to their respective regions. Economically, there is still no clear development strategy. The government continues to combine ambitious rhetoric with an unavoidable reliance on international borrowing to fill the budgetary gaps left by the collapse of gas revenues.

Only time will tell who ultimately gained the upper hand in this conflict. The government is already beginning to quietly reintroduce several elements of its economic agenda: allowing the exchange rate to float in order to “correct” its value, proposing legislation to attract foreign direct investment, and easing taxes and state regulations. The proposal to reclassify small-scale agricultural holdings as medium-sized properties—the measure that originally triggered the conflict—has recently reappeared in the form of two new bills, albeit with several amendments and an explicit safeguard for the collective ownership of Indigenous territories. Whether this initiative originated with the agribusiness sector or the government itself remains unclear. If it was indeed the latter, the government would be playing with fire before the crisis unleashed by the road blockades has even fully subsided.

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Following a similar approach adopted by previous governments, the current administration has extended the constitutional state of emergency in the region. During his State of the Nation Address, President Kast stated: “Araucanía is one of Chile’s most beautiful and promising regions. Its people deserve to live in peace, work in tranquility and see their land flourish. In this region, as throughout Chile, we need increased tourism, a return on investment, and recovery of development. To achieve this, these measures will be accompanied by a coherent Indigenous policy, which we have been developing.”

In this context, it is hardly surprising that the ownership and exploitation of Indigenous lands have become the centrepiece of the government’s Indigenous policy. As Kast announced: “A reform of the Indigenous Law will grant greater freedoms and tools for development, removing restrictions on the use of Indigenous lands and allowing them to lease and mortgage on equal terms with the rest of Chilean citizens.” To this end, the consultation process for the new land system will be redesigned, while the land acquisition system will be restructured by introducing market-value appraisals and full traceability for each purchase.

Indigenous Lands and the Institutionalisation of Dispossession

The Indigenous Peoples Law (Law No. 19,253) was enacted in 1993 under the government of Patricio Aylwin, following Chile’s restoration of democracy. While the law has received criticism for its definition of Indigenous lands, any attempt to amend the legislation has been regarded as a potential threat, particularly in a context where Indigenous Peoples lack constitutional recognition and political representation within the Chilean nation-state. This law created the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (CONADI) and established regulations for the protection, advancement, and development of Indigenous Peoples. It defines Indigenous lands as those held under land grants (títulos de merced), commissioner’s titles (títulos de comisario) and the other forms of title listed in Article 12, as well as lands recognised on the basis of historical occupation.

Against this backdrop, the proposal to amend the law to allow Indigenous lands to be leased and mortgaged is framed in the language of individual freedom and equality before the market. However, the current law already permits individually owned Indigenous lands to be leased for up to five years and allows liens to be created with CONADI’s authorisation. It also prohibits the leasing of collectively-owned Indigenous lands and protects both individual and communal lands against alienation, seizure and acquisition by third parties. History offers a clear warning. When legal restrictions on Indigenous lands were lifted in Chile, particularly between 1943 and 1947, almost one-fifth of those lands were alienated. Later, under the military dictatorship, 99-year leases deprived Indigenous families and communities of the use of their lands.

The current government seeks not only to reduce territorial demands to a market issue, but does so without considering the Commission’s 21 recommendations on territorial reparations, institutional framework, participation and development.

The current government seeks to reduce territorial demands to a market issue, without considering recommendations on territorial reparations, institutional framework, participation, and development.

To implement this reform, the Executive Branch has announced that it will reformulate the consultation process on the new land system. According to the Executive Branch, Gabriel Boric’s administration “abandoned [this reform] without producing any results”, referring to the proposals put forward by the Commission for Peace and Understanding (CPPyE). Established by Supreme Decree No. 14, the Commission’s primary mandate was “to conduct an assessment of the Mapuche people’s land demands, the lands already granted by the Chilean State, and the remaining gaps in this area, with the aim of quantifying that demand.”

To fulfil this mandate, the CPPyE carried out a comprehensive assessment of Mapuche land demands, existing gaps in this area, and the limitations of the current mechanism. The assessment found that this mechanism had been used “almost in its entirety” by Mapuche communities in the four designated regions, accounting for 99.59% of all land purchases completed up to 2024, while more than 1,100 applications remain pending. Under these circumstances, the Commission recommended moving towards a new land system that harmonizes the Indigenous Peoples Law  with ILO Convention No. 169, incorporating mechanisms for territorial reparations, prioritisation criteria, institutional reforms, and tools to strengthen relations between the State and the Mapuche people.

Because these measures would directly affect Mapuche communities and organisations, they were deemed likely to have a direct impact on Indigenous Peoples, triggering the State’s obligation to carry out a consultation process. However, the process was widely rejected by Mapuche communities and was ultimately discontinued. The current government seeks not only to reduce the issue of territorial demands to a market problem, but also to do so while disregarding the Commission’s 21 recommendations on territorial reparations, institutional arrangements, participation and development.

Indigenous Marine and Coastal Areas under Pressure

However, the policies of José Antonio Kast’s government go beyond the proposed reform to the Indigenous Peoples Law. Rather, its emphasis on land and property should be understood as part of a broader strategy aimed at limiting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and their communities’ decision-making authority over natural resources. From a neoliberal perspective, these resources should be exploited by private capital, while land ownership is linked to a security agenda. Alongside the proposed reform of the Indigenous Peoples Law, the Executive Branch has also promoted amendments to the so-called Lafkenche Law.

Law No. 20.249 (2008), known as the Lafkenche Law, created Indigenous Marine and Coastal Areas (Espacios Costeros Marinos de Pueblos Originarios, ECMPOs) to safeguard customary uses of coastal areas and entrust their management to the Indigenous communities that have ancestrally inhabited them. Although ECMPOs do not confer ownership of these territories, they must operate under a management plan designed to enable the coexistence of the different users of the coastal zone, including industrial and artisanal fisheries, tourism, and navigation. This plan must receive final approval from the Regional Commission for the Use of the Coastal Zone (CRUBC). In practice, however, Indigenous communities have faced opposition from fishing companies—particularly salmon farming companies—as well as from the State authorities responsible for approving these plans. In this regard, a narrative has emerged questioning the capacity of Indigenous communities to manage these areas, portraying their applications as excessive, accusing them of holding up investment and claiming that they seek exclusive control over the coastline.

Indigenous organisations have defended the law as a means of preserving historical memory, ensuring food sovereignty and protecting future generations.

What is at stake is how Chile chooses to relate to the sea, its territories, and its communities.

In 2024 alone, 80 percent of the applications submitted by Indigenous communities or Indigenous community associations were rejected by the Regional Coastal Zone Management Commission (CRUBC), where the state bodies represented on the Commission have been the main opponents of the creation of new Indigenous Marine and Coastal Areas (ECMPOs). As a result, these rejections have been based primarily on political grounds rather than technical considerations, since the CRUBC intervenes before communities submit their management plans. In fact, the available evidence refutes the claim that ECMPOs have brought the salmon farming industry to a standstill, as the sector has continued to expand both its production and its exports.

Indigenous organisations, such as the Network of Indigenous Women for the Defence of the Sea, have challenged this reversal of responsibility and defended the law as an instrument that preserves historical memory, ensures food sovereignty and protects future generations. They argue that it disproves the myth that community management cannot coexist with productive activities. Rather, they argue that what is at stake is how Chile chooses to relate to the sea, its territories, and its communities.

Indigenous Policy and the Market: Two Sides of the Same Coin

After just four months in office, the commodification of Indigenous lands and of the resources valued by private companies has emerged as the central focus of Indigenous policymaking. In the case of lands, collective protection must be justified against the principle of freedom of contract. In the case of marine and coastal areas, customary use must justify its extent in the face of investment. In both cases, the burden of proof falls on Indigenous Peoples to demonstrate that these are not “idle resources”. Therefore, these are not two separate policies, but two sides of the same coin.

In Chile, the market is presented as synonymous with development, while collective rights are portrayed as constraints that must be corrected. As a result, land ceases to be understood as the material basis for the historical and cultural continuity of Indigenous Peoples. At the same time, the maritorio—the Indigenous conception of the interconnected marine and coastal territory—ceases to be recognised as a space of memory, food sovereignty, and intergenerational stewardship. The issue is not whether mechanisms should be developed to improve the living conditions of Indigenous families and communities. Rather, the critical point is that these needs cannot be used to weaken collective rights or to prevent communities from making decisions about their territories under the guise of development.

Therefore, the first months of this new government not only open a legislative debate on the Indigenous Law and the Lafkenche Law, but also raise a deeper question about respect for Indigenous policy in Chile and the implementation of rights guaranteed to Indigenous Peoples under international law. If the starting point is security, investment and legal certainty for private actors, Indigenous rights are relegated to the sidelines through the lens of a colonial state. Consequently, what is at stake is not only land ownership or the coastline, but the possibility of imagining a different relationship between the State, the market and Indigenous Peoples—one in which their rights are not treated as a bargaining chip. For now, however, everything suggests that this horizon remains a distant prospect.

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