Hey everyone and welcome to Episode Five of The Indigenous Rights Report. I’m your host, John Ahniwanika Schertow.
For over two decades I’ve been telling stories that the media ignores–stories of Indigenous resistance, resilience, and renewal that keeps moving forward.
Now I’m bringing these crucial stories to your ears—so you can stay even more connected to the movement that is reshaping our world from the ground up. Some stories speak of victory. Others, of urgent alarm. All of them remind us what it means to protect land, life, and law no matter the consequences.
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you can also find more than 3000 articles at our website, icmagazine.org
Now Let’s get into it.
Let’s start things off with a look at what’s going on across Canada. We begin in Kahnawà:ke, where a new community-driven campaign is shining a long-overdue spotlight on the Seigneury (sain-uree) of Sault-St-Louis — one of the oldest unresolved land claims in Canada. For centuries, the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people have seen their territory chipped away by settlers and governments who refused to honor the original agreements. Now, this awareness campaign is aiming to ignite local dialogue, rebuild public understanding, and put pressure on both Quebec and Canada to finally return what was taken. It’s a great example of how ‘Land Back’ is more than a slogan — it’s a living legal and moral demand.
Next, we head west to the Heiltsuk (Hay-elts-uck) Nation in coastal British Columbia, where something truly transformative just happened. The Heiltsuk have ratified their first written constitution — a powerful declaration that fuses ancient legal traditions with modern governance. This constitution doesn’t beg for Canadian recognition; rather, it asserts Heiltsuk law as the highest law of the land. It strengthens the roles of hereditary chiefs, an elected council, and a women’s council — all working together to protect language, territory, and cultural continuity. this is what resurgence looks like! After generations of potlatch bans, forced sterilizations, and residential schools, the Heiltsuk nation is rewriting the rules on their own terms.
And now a story that shows what meaningful consent can look like. In BC, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation and Taseko Mines reached a precedent-setting agreement over the controversial New Prosperity mine project. For decades, the Tŝilhqot’in fought this project in court — and won historic recognition of their Aboriginal title. Now, instead of endless lawsuits, they have secured an agreement that no mining can happen without their explicit consent. They will hold a 22.5% interest in the project area, and crucially, they will decide if any development happens at all. It’s a powerful step toward replacing the colonial model of ‘consult and extract’.
Now for a powerful example of what it can look like when a state is forced to face its past — at least partly. After decades of silence, Canada’s Federal Court has approved a class action settlement for survivors of its notorious Indian Hospitals. Between the 1930s and 1980s, thousands of Indigenous people were forcibly segregated in these hospitals, often facing abuse, medical experimentation, and the trauma of isolation from family and community. Now, survivors can access individual compensation, plus a healing fund and commemoration initiatives. It’s a step — just a step — toward acknowledging the deep scars of medical colonialism. And it reminds us that apology without repair is hollow.
And now for a story of mounting resistance. Across Colombia, Indigenous communities—especially the Nasa and U’wa peoples—have intensified their resistance against Canadian oil companies like Gran Tierra Energy, GeoPark, and Frontera Energy. These companies control oil blocks overlapping more than 100 Indigenous reserves. Despite rulings by Colombia’s Constitutional Court affirming Indigenous consultation rights, extractive activities continue without consent.
This wisdespread struggle illustrates how legal recognition alone—without enforcement or meaningful participation—falls short. It also underscores the urgent need for mechanisms like FPIC, as well as strong environmental justice protocols, and secure land tenure systems.
And what happens when governments bulldoze over basic indigenous rights? Ecuador is showing us. A new bill moving through the National Assembly would allow private and foreign companies to run so-called “protected” areas — which means Indigenous communities could see ancestral territories sold off to the highest bidder without their free, prior, and informed consent. Indigenous leaders are calling this bill unconstitutional — and they’re absolutely right. Protected lands stewarded by Indigenous peoples have always been more biodiverse than any national park run from a corporate boardroom. Privatization is just a new mask for the same old dispossession.
Next, we turn to South Africa, where the work of restoring dignity goes beyond words or money. There, Khoi and San communities have just begun to rebury the stolen remains that sat for decades in museum basements as scientific trophies. This repatriation, one of the largest in the country’s history, is more than symbolic. It’s a spiritual restoration. It’s a chance for descendants to say prayers that their ancestors were denied. And it’s a powerful lesson that no truth commission, no museum plaque, no apology can substitute physically returning what was taken.
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Now, let’s get back to the show…
Now let’s look at Taiwan, where a new pilot program has been launched that will enable five indigneous nations test a new tribal council system. Established under Article 2 s1 of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, the initiative will allow the selected group of nations enter into contracts, manage public affairs, and receive funding independently—powers long mediated by central or municipal authorities.
This initiative marks a groundbreaking shift in recognizing Indigenous self-governance at a legal and institutional level, offering a tangible path toward sovereignty and cultural agency across Taiwan.
A new report from AP News reveals that California — yes, the ‘progressive, climate-leading California’ — imports more oil from the Amazon rainforest than any other place in the United States. Kichwa and Waorani leaders travelled all the way to the Bay Area to kayak near Chevron’s Richmond refinery, connecting the dots: every barrel burned in California fuels deforestation, contamination, and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples in Ecuador. It’s a stark reminder that our local climate policies mean nothing if they simply shift destruction to someone else’s homelands.
Now let’s move to the American Southwest, where the sacred landscape of Chaco Canyon is once again under threat. Tribal leaders, including Navajo and Pueblo voices, rallied last week to defend the historic region from President Trump’s revived “drill, baby, drill” energy policies. These policies threaten to lift vital protections for over 330,000 acres around the Chaco Culture National Historical Park — a place that holds ancestral ruins, burial sites, and living spiritual significance. Chaco is not just ancient history; it’s a testament to Indigenous presence, knowledge, and stewardship. To open it to more fracking and oil leases is to desecrate that legacy all over again.
Meanwhile in Florida, there’s a new flashpoint: the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz.” State officials fast-tracked construction of a massive migrant detention center deep in the Everglades — one of the planet’s most fragile wetlands, and an area of profound cultural and spiritual meaning for the Miccosukee and Seminole peoples. Environmental groups and tribal advocates say this prison threatens endangered wildlife, erodes Indigenous land rights, and signals how the carceral state will stop at nothing — even building cages in a swamp — to expand its reach. It’s the same old colonial violence, just wrapped in razor wire and swamp fog.
Now we head to Nepal, where the Supreme Court has issued a groundbreaking order that directs all levels of government—local, provincial, and federal—to fully implement ILO Convention No. 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP. While both frameworks have existed on paper for years, they were never properly enforced in Nepal’s domestic legal system. That’s now changed.
The Court’s ruling mandates that all national laws, public policies, and development projects be aligned with the principles of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent—FPIC. This means Indigenous Peoples must be consulted, and must consent, before any government or company can move forward with plans that affect their lands, cultures, or ways of life. The decision also requires the protection of Indigenous languages, traditional knowledge, and governance systems. In short, it recognizes Indigenous Peoples not just as communities, but as rights-bearing nations within the state.
Now, to Australia, where the nation’s first truth-telling commission has released its preliminary findings. And the word they chose is the word generations of survivors have used: genocide. The Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria found that the systematic dispossession, child removals, massacres, and ongoing cultural destruction against First Nations people do meet the legal definition of genocide. It’s a bombshell for a country that still struggles to even say the word “sorry” — and a reminder that truth-telling is not the end, but a beginning. Accountability, reparations, and genuine land back conversations must follow.
Meanwhile, in Brazil’s Amazon, the Ka’apor people won a crucial court victory that should give every climate investor pause. A federal judge has blocked a U.S.-based carbon credit company from developing a project on Ka’apor ancestral lands. The community was never consulted. Once again, the so-called green solution was just another colonial extraction in disguise. The Ka’apor’s legal fight proves that Indigenous peoples are not passive victims of the carbon market — they are refusing to be carbon offsets for someone else’s pollution.
And finally, let’s talk about the big picture. A new Guardian piece lays it bare: Indigenous peoples are increasingly on the frontlines of the so-called “green” transition. From lithium mines in the Atacama to wind farms in the Canadian Arctic, the world’s hunger for ‘clean energy’ metals is pushing Indigenous communities off their lands — again. It’s a stark reminder that, as long as the extractive mindset remains, the color of energy won’t change the reality for Indigenous Peoples. The only real green solution is to respect those who hold the deepest knowledge of how to live in balance with the land.
That’s it for this episode of The Indigenous Rights Report. Thank you for listening—and for staying informed about the struggles and victories shaping Indigenous lives around the world.
If you want to dig deeper, visit icmagazine.org, where you’ll find thousands of articles covering Indigenous resistance, renewal, and rights. And if you’d like to support this work, you can do so at patreon.com/icmagazine.
Until next time, take care—and keep listening.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
That is exactly why IC Magazine exists..
For more than 20 years, IC has reported on Indigenous struggles worldwide — consistently, independently, and without compromise.
We don’t follow news cycles; we trace patterns. We don’t sensationalize; we provide context.
And when the world looks away, we stay focused.
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John Ahni Schertow
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