Editor’s note: This year’s biannual Biodiversity COP was in Cali, Colombia, a country with the dubious distinction of topping the list of the number of environmental activists killed by a country in both 2022 (60) and 2023 (79) and will probably have that dubious honor this year with a continuingly rising number of (115) as of November 7th.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — While music played in Bogotá’s streets and a sense of victory filled the air after a long protest, Ana Graciela received a new appointment on her calendar: the funeral of Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo.
Nicknamed Lobo (meaning “wolf” in Spanish), the esteemed Indigenous guardian and educational coordinator was killed Aug. 29, while his fellow guardians, the Kiwe Thegnas (or Indigenous Guard of Cauca) were protesting for better security in Cauca, Colombia. The region has increasingly become dangerous with incursions by illegal armed groups.
“The situation is tough. Women and children are being killed [almost] every day,” said Ana Graciela Tombé, coordinator of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca.
The Bogotá protest gathered more than 4,000 people, in what is known as a minga in the Andean tradition, against escalating violence in the region. After eight days, on Aug. 28, the Indigenous communities succeeded in getting President Gustavo Petro to sign a new decree, the Economic and Environmental Territorial Authority, which grants Indigenous territories greater autonomy to take judicial action against violence within their lands.
But the sentiment is bittersweet for the Indigenous Nasa and Misak activists in Ana’s homeland of Cauca, particularly in Pueblo Nuevo, a nationally recognized Indigenous territory (resguardo). They’ve lost a dear leader and role model, impassioned with protecting their ancestral territory, forests and youth from illegal armed groups.
Labeled the deadliest country for environmental defenders in 2023, Carlos, 30, was the 115th social leader killed in Colombia this year, according to the Development and Peace Institute, Indepaz.
Although the police investigation into his death is still underway, members of his community say they believe Carlos was the latest victim of armed groups and drug traffickers the Nasa people have struggled with for more than 40 years. Mongabay spoke with these members of the community, including Carlos’ family and friends, to gather more information on his life and killing that received little attention in the media.
One of Carlos’ close friends leans on the coffin. Image by Tony Kirby.Musicians play Carlos’ favorite music. Image by Tony Kirby.
Pueblo Nuevo is located in the central mountain range of the Andes in the Cauca department, which today has become a hub for drug trafficking and illicit plant cultivation. This is due to its proximity to drug trafficking routes to ship drugs to international markets, the absence of state presence and the remoteness of the mountains.
The loss of Carlos is both physical and spiritual, a close friend of Carlos, Naer Guegia Sekcue, told Monagaby. He left behind a void in the lives of his family which they are trying to fill with love, Naer said, and the community and guardians feel like they lost a part of their rebellion against armed groups.
The ‘Wolf’
Carlos was a member of the Indigenous Guard since his childhood. The children’s section of the Guard is called semillas, meaning “seeds,” for how they’ll fruit into the next generation of leaders protecting their territory.
He met his wife, Lina Daknis, through mutual friends at university. Lina, though not of Indigenous heritage, said she fell in love with his rebellious spirit, devotion and commitment to Indigenous rights. When Lina became pregnant, the couple decided to raise their daughter in the Indigenous reserve, Pueblo Nuevo.
For many in this Indigenous community, their lands and forests are far more than mere sustenance; they hold deep traditional and spiritual significance. Among the Nasa people, one significant ritual involves burying the umbilical cord under stones of a sacred fire (tulpa), symbolically tying them to their ancestral territories. According to the sources Mongabay spoke to, they consider that the lands and forests do not belong to them but are a loan from their children they are entrusted to protect.
Carlos was fully dedicated to this Indigenous Guard, Lina said.
Many days, he would get up in the middle of the night to patrol the territory. While facing well-equipped armed groups, the Indigenous Guard remained unarmed. They carry a ceremonial wooden baton, adorned with green and white strings as symbols of Indigenous identity. Carlos was particularly outspoken against illegal armed groups and coca cultivation. Faced with their invasions and deforestation on their territory, the Guard also took on the role of environmental defenders.
Coca cultivation, as done by armed groups to produce cocaine, not only impacts lives, but also the environment. The traditionally sacred crop is now tied to violence and degradation in the region.
According to Colombia’s Ministry of Justice, 48% of cultivation is concentrated in special management areas, including national parks, collective territories and forest reserves. Between 2022 and 2023, coca cultivation caused the deforestation of 11,829 hectares (29,200 acres) of forested land, according to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. This deforestation increased by 10% in 2023 and threatens biodiversity, placing more than 50 species at risk of extinction, the Ministry of Justice stated at the COP16 U.N. biodiversity conference.
In one instance, Carlos and the Guard destroyed coca plants, took photos and uploaded videos to social media. Shortly after, his family began receiving threats from anonymous people on social media, warning Carlos to be careful. Lina now said she believes these threats came from dissident groups profiting from coca cultivation.
Pueblo Nuevo is located in the central mountain range of the Andes in the Cauca department, which today has become a hub for drug trafficking and illicit plant cultivation. Image by Tony Kirby.
In Cauca, several dissident groups are active, including Estado Central Mayor and the Dagoberto Ramos Front. These factions emerged following the 2016 peace agreement and consist of former FARC guerrillas who either rejected or abandoned the reintegration process. Law enforcement say their presence poses a persistent threat. Most recently, in May, a police station in Caldono was attacked, with local authorities suspecting the involvement of the Dagoberto Ramos Front.
Despite the danger, Carlos never stopped his work.
“I told him to leave the Guard, to go to another country, that they would kill him,” said his mother, Diana Tumbo. “But he didn’t leave us nor the Guard.”
Carlos’ mother calls for the unity of the people in the fight against violence. Image by Tony Kirby.
The seeds of tomorrow
The road to the Carlos’ home is surrounded by peaceful landscapes: small villages, chicken restaurants and hand-built huts. But the graffiti on walls — “FARC EP” (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, People’s Army) and “ELN Presente” (National Liberation Army, Present) — are stark reminders of the violence. Despite the peace agreement signed between the FARC and the Colombian government in 2016, violence has resurged in Cauca.
Carlos saw the armed groups as a destructive force to youth by recruiting minors.
According to the annual report of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, armed groups forcibly recruited at least 71 Indigenous children in 2023. Oveimar Tenorio, leader of the Indigenous Guard, said the armed groups no longer have the political ideology that once defined the FARC. Instead, their attacks on the Indigenous Guard are driven by profit and control of drug routes.
“We are an obstacle for them,” he told Mongabay.
The graffiti reads “FARC – EP,” which stands for “Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army.” An man sits on a bench in a square in Jamundí, Colombia. For decades, violence has been a part of daily life for Colombians. Image by Tony Kirby.
Carlos became an educational coordinator, supporting teachers with Indigenous knowledge programs and organized workshops for the schools in the Sath Tama Kiwe Indigenous Territory. He believed in educating youth not just with academic knowledge, but with a sense of pride in their Indigenous heritage and the need to protect their land, Naer said.
Carlos encouraged the young people not to feel ashamed of being Indigenous, but instead to learn from their own culture. He always carried a book by Manuel Quintín Lame, a historical Indigenous Nasa leader from Cauca who defended Indigenous autonomy in the early 20th century.
But Carlos’ approach was one of tenderness; he was always listening to his students and fighting for a better future for the youth. “He was convinced that real change started from the bottom up, through children and the youth,” Naer said.
People show support for Carlos, demanding justice for him. Image by Tony Kirby.
Murder of the ‘Wolf’
His friends and family said Carlos’ actions made him a target.
On Aug. 29, 2024, Carlos went down to the village of Pescador, Caldono, to pick up his daughter from swimming lessons. It was a peaceful moment: mother, father and daughter having a family meal at a small restaurant. Afterward, Carlos went to refuel his motorbike at the gas station.
Suddenly, a stranger approached his wife in the restaurant, she said, asking, ‘Are you the woman who is with the man with the long hair? Something has happened, but I can’t say what.’
Carlos Andrés Ascué Tumbo of the Andes Mountains was shot in the head.
The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca quickly blamed “criminal structures” linked to dissident FARC groups, particularly the Jaime Martínez and Dagoberto Ramos factions. However, the police investigation is ongoing, and the Fiscalía General de la Nación (Office of the Attorney General), which is overseeing the case, has not shared details with the public or Mongabay.
Mongabay approached Fiscalía General de la Nación and local authorities for comment but did not receive one by the time of publication.
Sept. 1, in a small village perched on a hillside, marked the date of Carlos’ funeral. Fellow members of the Indigenous Guard, wearing blue vests and carrying their batons, lined the dusty roads. They formed a solemn procession from Carlos’ house down to the cemetery with about 1,000 people walking around them through Pueblo Nuevo.
“We want to show our strength,” said Karen Julian, a university student in Cauca who didn’t know Carlos personally but felt compelled to attend his funeral. Along with others, she boarded a brightly painted chiva bus to Carlos’ home village, where he was laid to rest.
Members of the Indigenous Guard, carrying batons, line the streets of Pueblo Nuevo, accompanying Carlos on his final journey to his grave. Image by Tony Kirby.
Children holding flowers led the way of the procession, followed by a cross and then the coffin. A woman rang the church bell and people chanted the slogan to resist armed groups: “Until when? Until forever!”
At the covered sports field at the center of the village, the funeral transformed into a political rally. “I will not allow another young person to die!” Carlos’ mother shouted to the audience. “I demand justice.” She spoke of her worries for her granddaughter, Carlos’ daughter, who stills had many plans with her father. She called on the community to stand united against the violence that has taken so many lives.
As Carlos’ coffin was lowered into the ground, the crowd began to swell, pressing in tightly with his 6-year-old daughter at the front row of the mass. All were watching as the coffin reached its final destination.
“Carlos’ death was not in vain,” Naer said. “The youth understand that they must follow his path. The younger generations will continue preserving the Indigenous traditions while defending our territories and rights.”
The last look: Carlos’ daughter watches her father before he is buried, while his parents cry beside the coffin. Image by Tony Kirby.
Banner image: Carlos’ fellow guardians carry his coffin; they fought shoulder to shoulder to protect the Indigenous territories against illegal armed groups. Image by Tony Kirby.
Editor’s note: For capitalism, “renewable” energy is a transition to green(greed) colonialism. Splinter colonization is still the policy of the day, divide and conquer the masses and corrupting local elites with bribery.
Capitalists benefit from business-friendly legal doctrines and a uniform regulatory system. They do not have to contend with patchwork prohibitions and restrictions enforced by sovereign communities that require FPIC and put their sovereignty into practice by persuasion or physical force, refusing obedience and cooperation. No justice, no peace, so the guerrillas will keep investors away.
“Municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.” – Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Win).
People of the global north must look upstream to the damage they cause to communities whose resources are being extracted by outsourcing diminished health and welfare externalities associated with alternative forms of energy.
The Philippine government has approved 99 hydropower projects in the mountainous Cordillera region, part of a broader plan to rely on renewable energy sources for 35% of the country’s power by 2030.
The planned projects are dividing rural communities between those who believe the dams will bring in jobs and money and those who fear damage to water sources and cultural sites.
The Cordillera region, home to many Indigenous groups, has a deep history of activism against dams.
It’s also heavily militarized as one of the last bastions of an armed communist insurgency — a circumstance state security forces are apparently exploiting to coerce communities into compliance.
KALINGA, Philippines — On the mountainsides flanking the mighty Chico River in the northern Philippines’ Kalinga province, residents of once tight-knit villages have drifted apart in recent years. Hearty greetings between neighbors tending to farmlands have been replaced with avoidant looks or glowering stares.
“We don’t talk much like before,” says Gohn Dangoy, a 59-year-old farmer of the Naneng tribe in Kalinga’s Tabuk city. “If we do, we argue. Families and friends alike are at odds.” He says the “deep division” started because of the proposed dam on the Chico River.
West of Tabuk, locals in the municipality of Balbalan live in fear of the military operations that began around the same time the hydropower projects rolled into town.
They remember the first of the bombings happening in March 2023, as they were sound asleep on the night following their annual Manchachatong festival. Eufemia Bog-as, 30, recalls jumping from her bed at around 2 a.m. “It was like an earthquake. I heard a big boom six times. I went outside and the sky was covered with smoke,” she tells Mongabay. The government and military said they were targeting armed rebels, who were supposedly stirring up opposition against the dams.
“They told us, it’s because we’re against development,” Bog-as says.
Kalinga is one of six provinces in the northern and mountainous Cordillera region, populated by the Indigenous Igorot people. For more than 50 years, the government has been in conflict with armed communist guerrillas in the countryside. During that time, the military has often set up posts in rural villages to stifle dissent and support for the rebels.
Now, the government is eyeing the resource-rich region for a bevy of renewable energy initiatives.
A pivot to renewable energy by the Philippine government has led to a wave of hyrdoprojects projects across the Cordillera region. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.
Since 2015, the Department of Energy has greenlit 99 hydropower projects in the region, with total combined generating capacity of more than 4,000 megawatts. Of these, 52 are listed by their proponents as being in the development stage, 32 in pre-development, and 15 already operating commercially.
At every stage of development, the hydropower projects are breeding conflict and fracturing communities between those who favor them for ushering in modernity, and those who resent the potential damage to farms, burial grounds and water sources. Moreover, experts believe that the staggering amount of projects threatens to drastically reshape the region’s hydrogeography and economy for the worse. Throughout the Cordillera mountains, Igorot communities opposing the dams are frequently reporting militarization and even aerial bombings close to pasturelands and villages.
Both national and local governments have firmly backed the spate of projects.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has styled himself as something of a climate champion. In his 2023 state-of-the-nation address, he hyped his administration for “aggressively promoting renewables so that it provides a 35% share in the power mix by 2030.”
In the same speech this year, Marcos spoke of having approved projects with a combined more than 3 trillion pesos ($54 billion) in investments for four priority sectors, including renewable energy. He called it a “crucial step” in addressing climate change.
To that end, the Cordillera region is similarly crucial for the government’s renewables pivot. The region hosts the headwaters of 13 major river systems and can harness around 30% of the country’s hydropower potential, six times more than what the Philippines makes use of at present.
And in 2022, the Cordillera regional council announced plans to fast-track renewable energy projects. For local communities and activists, this raises the question of whether these changes jeopardize the natural landscape and livelihoods in one of the country’s most resource-rich and culturally diverse regions.
Dam disagreements
In the 1970s, Kalinga’s Indigenous communities, led by Macli-ing Dulag, now a national icon, famously resisted construction of a huge dam on the Chico River. Dulag was killed by state forces in 1980, but the project was shelved and the struggle blossomed into a discourse on safeguarding ancestral domains.
Since then, just a single 1-MW micro dam has been built in Kalinga, and its operations were suspended in 2021 after farmers complained of decreased water flow for irrigation. Now, however, the province is the proposed site of 19 hydropower projects across its rivers, with the famous Chico among them.
Australian-owned JBD Water Power Inc. (JWPI) heads four of these planned projects, two each on the Saltan and Cal-oan rivers. The Saltan River projects are still in the consultation stage, while the villages along the Cal-oan River have registered opposing views to the projects there.
In March 2023 and August 2024, Mabaca village filed petitions with the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), registering its disapproval of the 45-MW Mabaca 2 Dam on Cal-oan.
The latest petition intends to stall the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) process required for the project to commence. It asserts the river as part of the community’s ancestral domain, thus giving it “legitimate claims to the watershed.”
Only initial talks have taken place. However, local leaders say the NCIP is forceful about the project, planning 12 further consultations with reluctant villagers.
Village captain Barcelon Badin says he’s seen the project blueprints and fears the dam will compromise their already scarce food sources since it “will clearly drown our rice fields.”
But downstream in Buaya, the next village over, locals are ready to sign a memorandum of agreement, a major step toward securing FPIC, with JWPI for the 40-MW Buaya hydropower project.
Hydropower projects have met with differening receptions in Cordillera villages such as Balbalan, Mabaca and Buaya. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.
Jermito Jacinto, an elder of the Buaya’s Butud tribe, is now a JWPI consultant. He says the project offers jobs, cheaper electricity, scholarships for children, and several million pesos in annual revenue for local authorities.
“Cal-oan River is full of honey and sugar but we don’t know how to use it,” Jacinto tells Mongabay.
He chides the villages that continue to hold out, calling their aversion to development a “hangover” from rebel rhetoric. Buaya and Mabaca villages are squabbling over these projects, as the former seeks revenue while the latter says any disruption to any part of the river risks the fields of all.
Having examined other dams in the region, former Balbalan mayor Eric Gonayon disputes any promise of growth associated with the dams.
“They will not develop the roads, only use them to relocate us from our heritage for the benefit of foreigners and businesses,” he tells Mongabay.
He scoffs at the potential revenue the projects could generate, saying “It’s not even worth 1% of the resources they’ll extract from us. It’s like they’re giving us candy but taking the whole shop!”
The Cal-oan River, also known as Mabaca River, where Australian-owned JBD Water Power Inc. (JWPI) has two planned hydropower projects. Image by Michael Beltran.
The Department of Energy mandates that companies allot village officials 0.01 pesos per kilowatt-hour, roughly 0.09% of average electricity sales.
Farther east in the provincial capital, Tabuk, the Karayan Hydropower Corporation, with ties to Singaporean investors, has secured memorandums of agreement with the three affected tribes this year for the 52-MW Karayan Dam on the Chico River.
Various tribal representatives allege the FPIC process was fraught with irregularities including bribery, withholding information, and excluding anyone against the dam from consultations.
Members of the Naneng tribe, who live in an area recognized by the province as a heritage village, say the dam will raise waters, drowning their coffee and rice fields and their ancestral burial sites.
“The ones who said yes were either bribed or unaffected!” says Dangoy, the farmer in Tabuk, who has rejected any financial assistance from the company in exchange for their consent. “What happens to our ‘rest in peace’ if we lose our tombs? We won’t replace that with a chance to be employees at the dam. The company won’t give jobs to all us farmers.”
Farmer Gohn Dangoy, of the Naneng tribe, says proposed dams have already caused deep divisions in his community. Image by Michael Beltran.
The NCIP has denied any wrongdoing, stating publicly that it consulted with all affected residents.
In Bagumbayan, one of the affected areas, village captain Andrew Cos-agom, says the dam’s critics won’t listen to reason. He swears by the project because it was twice surveyed by the city government and a third party and both gave assurances there would be minimal changes to the villages.
“It’s just a minority opposing the dam,” Cos-agom tells Mongabay.
However, Dominic Sugguiyao, the Kalinga provincial government’s environment and natural resources officer, refutes this. He says the surveys, which haven’t been made public, show that erosion and submersion are a distinct possibility. Sugguiyao says “misinformed politicians” are too blinded by the prospect of collecting taxes from these projects to see the negative impacts.
Because the Chico River is such a vital water and irrigation source, Sugguiyao says, the dam could inflict massive harm through siltation. “The fish and eels won’t be able to swim upstream!” he says.
Sugguiyao accuses the NCIP of brokering agreements with local communities on behalf of the companies and officials as though it were a one-sided middleman. “They just want to make money. Even without a consensus, they’ll make it seem like there is one,” he says.
When Mongabay raised these points with the NCIP’s regional office, it responded that “We would give no comments considering that issues are still being resolved.”
A man in Kalinga Province wears a shirt reading “No to Dam.” Image by Michael Beltran.
On the whole
Ariel Fronda, head of the Department of Energy’s hydropower division, says the surge in hydro projects is a good sign, a step away from fossil fuels and toward “energy self-reliance.”
The department has been tasked with speeding up project approvals with the help of a 2019 law, known as EVOSS (Energy Virtual One-Stop Shop), which guarantees that developers with a signed contract will be awarded approval in just 30 days. The law also enjoins the NCIP to standardize the release of FPIC approval in 105 days.
Additionally, the department updated its awarding and project guidelines in June, urging officials to troubleshoot complications for developers. Fronda tells Mongabay that he personally visited Kalinga earlier this year, speaking to officials about streamlining projects to meet their 2030 targets.
Fronda says not everything has gone according to plan, citing snags in obtaining community consent and political approval as the main obstacles — such as “when an elected official endorses a project, then, after elections, is replaced by someone who doesn’t.”
Fronda says the state must persist in explaining the benefits of hydropower. “We’ll save money with cheaper electricity!” he says.
Jose Antonio Montalban, an environmental and sanitation expert with the group Pro-People Engineers and Leaders (Propel), says pushing so many projects in such a small geographic area is “alarming.”
“It could have severe impacts on the Cordillera’s ecology and communities; altering basic features too quickly without understanding the area’s carrying capacity,” he says.
Abruptly altering rivers can choke water flows at several junctures, which Montalban says compromises supplies to communities that depend on them daily. “All these projects are intended to detain water,” he says.
Montalban adds that flash floods could become increasingly common during typhoon seasons, when dams have to abruptly release their load.
Lulu Gimenez, of the Cordillera People’s Alliance, raises concerns about the impact to food sources. “What about all the farms that depend on irrigation sources? They’ll either disappear or decrease their yield,” she says.
Rosario Guzman, research head at the Ibon Foundation, an economic think tank, calls into question the Department of Energy’s promise of cheaper electricity. The Philippine power sector is fully privatized, and because of this big businesses will reap the main benefits, Guzman says.
“Energy is a natural monopoly and demand for it is inelastic. By this nature, opening it up to other players in the guise of getting the best price that competition brings will only result in a monopoly price,” Guzman tells Mongabay.
Relying on renewables for more accessible energy will only work through “strong state intervention,” which will “redound to cheaper electricity and service and cheaper costs of production and commodities,” they add.
Locally, Sugguiyao laments how projects like the Karayan Dam will end the livelihoods of those who quarry sand and gravel. He says the industry is worth billions of pesos and its loss will “cost the locals millions.”
Residents of villages close to the Chico River meet to discuss plans to dam the river for hydroelectricity. Image by Michael Beltran.
Bombs follow
Since 2022, civil society groups have documented bombings and permanent military presence close to communities opposed to various renewable energy and mining projects.
Caselle Ton, of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA), brands the soldiers “investment defense forces,” adding that the heightened militarization is intended to “terrorize and coerce communities into accepting the projects.”
In March 2023, the military dropped bombs on Balbalan on two separate days, supposedly targeting armed guerrillas in the area. The CHRA documented bombs dropped on the provinces of Abra and Ilocos Sur on the same day in April this year. The latest bombs fell in June, in Balbalan once again.
In Abra, peasant and antimining leader Antonio Diwayan was killed in October 2023 by soldiers who claimed he was a guerrilla. The military also labeled a slew of prominent antimining and antihydropower activists as terrorists.
In October 2022, the military described Cordillera as the “last bastion” of a decades-long insurgency in the Philippines.
Kalinga Governor James Edduba likewise called on the entire region in August last year to support the efforts of the troops to weed out dissent. “Only peace and order will give us hope and development. If we have peace in our communities, the investors will surely come to Kalinga,” he said.
However, for Bog-as, the Balbalan resident and witness to the municipality’s bombings, the problem is the military makes no distinction between civilian dissent and insurgent activity.
“We hear it from the soldiers themselves, they blame us progressives who are keeping them here. Because we don’t want their dams or mines,” she says.
Johnny a farmer in Balbalan who asked to use a pseudonym for his safety, describes how the military’s once occasional presence turned permanent since the hydropower project was proposed.
Speaking in the Ilocano language, Johnny tells Mongabay: “The soldiers hold monthly and quarterly meetings. They force farmers’ associations to admit we’re supporting the guerrillas so that we can ‘clear our names.’ If we agree, it’s like we’re accepting their accusations. But we just want to fight for our community.”
Johnny says there are undoubtedly some rebels in the region, but the military paints civilians with the same brush. He also tells of how roving soldiers have disrupted their work in the fields.
“We don’t have any freedom to visit our fields. Children and adults alike would run away at the sight of a soldier!” he says.
The Philippine government’s continued press for renewables is causing friction among the villages of one of its most resource-rich regions. If all goes according to the state’s fast-tracking, Cordillera might never be the same.
Banner Chico River in Kalinga Province by Michael Beltran.
Indigenous communities on Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast continue to suffer threats, kidnappings, torture and unlawful arrests while defending communal territory from illegal settlements and mining.
Residents say they’re worried about losing ancestral land as well as traditional farming, hunting and fishing practices as the forest is cleared and mines pollute local streams and rivers.
This year, there have been 643 cases of violence against Indigenous peoples, including death threats, the burning of homes, unlawful arrests, kidnappings, torture and displacement, according to Indigenous rights groups that spoke at an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights panel this month.
Increasing violence in northern Nicaragua this year has displaced rural families and led to calls for more drastic action from the international community, which activists say hasn’t done enough to hold the Ortega government accountable for human rights abuses.
For years, Indigenous communities on Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast have suffered threats, kidnappings, torture and unlawful arrests while defending communal territory from illegal settlements and mining. This year appears to be as bad as ever, and residents say they are desperate for help.
“Urgent measures must be taken to protect these communities,” said Gloria Monique de Mees, the OAS rapporteur on the rights of Afro-descendants and against racial discrimination. “Failure to address the crisis will only embolden the Nicaraguan government to continue its repressive campaign.”
Much of the violence is concentrated within the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN), a jurisdiction communally governed and titled by Indigenous communities since the late 1980s. It’s home to Miskitus, Mayangnas, Ulwa, Ramas, Creole and Garífunas peoples, and contains mountain, rainforest and coastal ecosystems.
The area has attracted non-Indigenous Nicaraguans, known locally as colonos, looking to set up farms, logging operations and artisanal mines. Massive gold and copper deposits have also created opportunities for multinational mining corporations, with backing from the government.
Indigenous communities say they’re worried about losing ancestral land as well as traditional farming, hunting and fishing practices as the forest is cleared and mines pollute local streams and rivers.
An IACHR panel in March on unlawful arrests in Nicaragua. Photo by CIDH via Flickr. CC BY 2.0
Conflicts between Indigenous communities and the colonos, who are often armed, have led to tragedy in multiple instances this year, according to witnesses who spoke at a panel hosted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) this month.
“This situation was created particularly by the dispossession of our territories as part of a process of colonization that implies, in the words of the communities, an ethnocide, in which settlers deprive us of our food and exploit our natural resources, usurping Indigenous territories through acts of armed violence and strategies to destroy out traditional ways of life,” Tininiska Rivera, a community member now living in exile, said during the panel.
In the first six months of this year, there have been over 643 cases of violence against Indigenous peoples, including death threats, the burning of homes, unlawful arrests, kidnappings, torture and displacement, according to several Indigenous rights groups present at the panel.
Many of the communities where the violence occurred have protection measures in place from the IACHR, which involves asking for special intervention by the Nicaraguan government. Human rights advocates say officials haven’t complied.
In one instance this year, five people were killed and two were seriously injured in the Wilú community in the Mayangna Sauní As territory. During the same incident, other families saw their homes and crops burned down, resulting in their displacement. At least 75 Indigenous people have been killed in the area since 2013, according to the panel.
At least 58 of this year’s cases in protected communities involved sexual, psychological, or physical violence against women, the groups said.
There have also been 37 cases in which forest rangers have been targeted by the government while carrying out patrols, according to Camila Ormar, an attorney for the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). Eleven Mayangna people have been formally convicted while another 14 have outstanding arrest warrants.
Colonos have used high-caliber weapons and deprived their captors of food, according to the communities. They allegedly have connections to the government as well as various groups made up of former combatants from the revolution.
“One of the stopping points is not to engage with the dictatorship as if everything were normal, but rather to recognize the scale of the abuses that are ongoing, the imprisonment of not just the religious but the young people, the sexual violence against women and children, the dispossession of whole communities,” said OAS Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Arif Bulkan.
In 2022, the US issuedsanctions against state-owned mining company Empresa Nicaragüense de Minas (ENIMIENAS), saying that it was “using gold revenue to continue to oppress the people of Nicaragua.” But the country’s mining concessions have continued to expand, often in Indigenous communities that struggle to find adequate legal representation or don’t understand their rights.
Between October 2023 and April 2024, the government granted three Chinese companies 13 mining concessions in the country, eight of them in the RACCN, according to a Confidential investigation published earlier this year. All of them were approved within eight months, suggesting that proper environmental impact studies and consultation with the communities were never carried out.
The concessions last 25 years and gives the three companies — Zhong Fu Development, Thomas Metal and Nicaragua XinXin Linze Minera Group — exclusive rights to extract minerals in the area, according to the investigation.
The companies couldn’t be reached for comment for this article. The Ministry of Energy and Mines didn’t respond to Mongabay’s requests.
Speakers at the IACHR panel said it’s important to continue to document the human rights abuses taking place on the northern Caribbean coast and to bring it to attention of the rest of the world. They also said that many protection measures are still working but also need to be improved.
For his part, Bulkan said that the international community has been “timid” in its response to the situation in Nicaragua. “[There has been] a shameless response from what we would think of as champions of human rights in the region,” he said. Adding, “One clear line of work has to be continuing with advocacy with the international community.”
Max Radwin is a staff writer covering Latin America for Mongabay. For updates on his work, follow him on Twitter via @MaxRadwin.
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Editor’s note: We can no longer continue to deny the evidence. We are living through the end stage of the Pyrocene. We have hit rock bottom and are seeking solutions from anywhere else but to slow down. Unfortunately, the necessary change will not come from us, rather something external will bring us down. But we should give it a push whenever possible. Dying and being reborn is a natural process, we must contract when faced with hard times.
“The best type of degrowth is practiced as a pre-emptive measure at a time of health and abundance, not when it is too late, to ensure that maximum resource is conserved for the difficult times ahead.” – George Tsakraklides
Ancestral Future’, a book by Ailton Krenak, the first Indigenous person elected to join the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters), was published in English on July 30, 2024.
An Indigenous leader, environmentalist, philosopher, poet and writer, Krenak advocates for a paradigm shift away from modern Western notions of progress, development and unrestrained economic growth that are the root cause of global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss.
He says he believes we can change course and that several possible sustainable futures exist if humanity reconnects with ancient wisdom, recognizes Earth as a living organism and lives in harmony with nature.
In this interview, Krenak discusses his newly translated book and what he thinks our possible futures look like.
For decades, scientists have been warning that the world is heading toward catastrophic scenarios due to climate change. But Ailton Krenak refuses to think about an apocalypse. On the contrary, he argues that there are several possible futures — but they will only be achievable when we realize that “being is more important than having.”
For the Brazilian Indigenous leader, environmentalist, philosopher, poet and writer, Western society is facing an urgent need for a paradigm shift that challenges the ideas of progress and development themselves.
“I’m not a pessimist, but I’m sure that the only way to move forward in this world is to reconnect with ancient wisdom. We have long been divorced from this living organism that is the Earth,” Krenak said in an interview with Mongabay.
Born in Itabirinha, in the state of Minas Gerais, the 71-year-old Indigenous leader has been a prominent figure and an advocate for Indigenous rights for decades. In the late ‘80s, he became famous for his appearance at Brazil’s National Constituent Assembly, where he functioned as a representative of Indigenous peoples in constitutional debates.
While giving his speech at the Congress in 1987, he stood on a platform, in front of those who threatened the land rights and culture of Indigenous peoples, and painted his face in black jenipapo paste (from the genipap fruit, Genipa americana). It was a form of protest against the setbacks and violent attacks on his rights and those of his Krenak relatives by the Brazilian dictatorship. The following year, a new Constitution was put into law, establishing fundamental rights for Brazil’s Indigenous peoples for the first time in history.
From then on, Krenak’s efforts to raise awareness around the world about the need to rescue ancestral values intensified. His profound ideas have been disseminated through lectures, educational courses and articles. He has been awarded with honorary doctorates from three esteemed Brazilian universities, published more than 15 books — some of them have been translated into more than 13 languages. And, in 2024, he became the first Indigenous person elected to join the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy of Letters).
Well known for thinking outside the box and being provocative, Krenak has a deeply skeptical view of capitalist progress and agues it devalues the natural world. He says he believes humanity is facing an urgent need to reconnect with the biocentric approach that dethrones humanity from its pedestal and roots us back to our origin. This is the main argument of his most recent book, Ancestral Future. Published in Portuguese in 2022, it is a compilation of five essays in which Krenak deals with the preservation of rivers as a way of conserving the future. The English translation of the book is now available and was published on July 30.
To mark the new release of his translated book, Mongabay spoke with the Indigenous academic by phone for more than an hour about spirituality, modern Western society, ancestral values and his ideas for possible futures.
Mongabay: In your books and lectures, you advocate for an eco-centric perspective that recognizes intrinsic value in all life forms and seeks to de-emphasize human prominence. This is similar to how many Indigenous peoples live, but it is very distant from modern Western mentality, which centers humans and treats nature primarily as a resource. Why do you believe this radical paradigm shift in the Western world is so urgent and necessary?
Ailton Krenak: We are all experiencing a rupture in our sense of belonging to life. We are now perceiving everything as a threat: rains, floods, temperatures. But we don’t realize that what we are experiencing is the fever of the planet. This is the Earth responding to human actions that have long placed us at the center. It is what scientists define as the ‘Anthropocene,’ a theory suggesting that human activities have profoundly altered the functioning of the planet and that could mark a new geological era.
This scares us because we’re not accustomed to not having control over the planet. We struggle to accept that the Earth is a living, intelligent organism that cannot be subjected to anthropocentric logic. Yet, this reality asserts itself, and that’s why we live in constant tension. What we are experiencing today is a phenomenon of the 21st century, arising because we treated the 20th century as if it were a period where we could be on an industrial binge on the planet.
(Left) Ancestral Future by Ailton Krenak in English (available in English on July 30, 2024). (Right) Futuro Ancestral by Ailton Krenak in Portuguese (published in 2022).
Mongabay: Do you mean by ‘living irresponsibly’?
Ailton Krenak: Yes. The 20th century was very prosperous. The world experienced what the United Nations and other major organizations called global development, which resulted in the term ‘globalization.’ We spent the 20th century euphoric with this idea of a global village. But no one paid attention that if harm came to this village, everyone would be affected. The idea of a single global economy resulted in finance capitalism, which we experience today, which is an unsustainable way of living.
It’s frightening to observe that today, wealth isn’t where valuable things are. It’s not where rivers, mountains or forests are. It’s in large cities, in major industries. We’ve become accustomed to a false sense of well-being.
This Western worldview is very different, for example, from that of the Indigenous peoples of the Andes mountains in South America. They have been living for centuries under the concept of buen vivir or ‘good living,’ questioning the prevalent economic development narratives and recognizing humans as part of the natural world. Good Living is a translation of the Quechan phrase sumaq kawsay. Sumaq means plenitude and kawsay means living. This is what I call a cosmovision, a lifestyle that considers only what the land has to offer us in the place we live in. For many peoples, this perspective has been sufficient for thousands of years. The idea of wealth is perceived differently — not from the experience of having things, but from belonging to a place. I see life on Earth as a cosmic dance. But this is only possible in communities that have this ancestral wisdom, that have managed to persevere with the Earth.
Mongabay: And why have modern Western societies moved so far away from this way of life?
Ailton Krenak: Western society has long been divorced from this living organism that is the Earth. This divorce from interconnection with Mother Earth has left us orphans. While humanity is moving away from its place, a bunch of big corporations are taking over and subjugating the planet: destroying forests, mountains and turning everything into merchandise.
In the West, what we experience is the constant stimulus to have, to buy, but not to be. If we look at human history, we see that it is impossible for everyone to have everything. When a few have a lot, thousands of others are materially poor. This is very easy to understand but very difficult to accept. Propaganda does that to us. More than a hundred years ago, when Henry Ford discovered that he could awaken everyone’s desire to own a car, he made the first billboard of a car with a slogan that said something like, ‘You will have one.’ That was the most disgraceful promise anyone has ever made to humanity. Fordism created the illusion that we can mass-produce the world. We have become a huge crowd of people wanting the same things.
I honestly don’t know if we will be able to reeducate ourselves for a world where what matters is life and the quality of life. It is not the clothes you wear or how much money you can show off. We are hostages of a broad and socially experienced condition that is an illusion. This results in tragedies, and they are everywhere. A river that you destroy never comes back. A mountain that you cut down to make laminate turns into a plain.
A group of women from a Quechan community spinning and dyeing fibers. Krenak talks about how the Indigenous peoples of the Andes mountains, including the Quechan, have been living for centuries under the concept of buen vivir or ‘good living,’ questioning the prevalent economic development narratives and recognizing humans as part of the natural world. Image by Shawn Harquail via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Mongabay: What are the premises of this ‘ancestral way of life’ that need to be rescued to create possible futures?
Ailton Krenak: These cosmovisions are not theories, they cannot be presented in a literary work or in a document because they represent a way of being in the world. A collective way of living. If we were to answer in one sentence, it would be: We must learn to live with only what is necessary. In the children’s story The Jungle Book, all the creatures in the forest talk. At one point, the bear says to the boy that lives in the forest, ‘Only what is necessary, only what is necessary.’ It is beautiful because children understand what is necessary, but adults often do not. When we become adults, we go beyond the limits of what is necessary; we think we can force the Earth to give us what we want, not what it can sustainably provide. The phrase ‘only what is necessary’ is the first thing we will have to relearn. We have drawers to store everything we do not need. Maybe the first step is to imagine a world without drawers.
Mongabay: In 2024, you were elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters and became the first Indigenous person to occupy a chair at the century-old institution. Do you consider this to be a sign that Indigenous culture and thoughts are beginning to be valued?
Ailton Krenak: I believe so. Indigenous literature is not only gaining relevance in Brazil but is also being translated in various countries. I believe this is likely because the Western repertoire has been exhausted. I see this movement as a desire to find some way out, a desire to think about the future. It’s as if we have hit rock bottom and are seeking solutions elsewhere.
For a long time, Brazilian educational institutions were subservient to European knowledge and literature. The majority still seek to transplant dominant thinking here. Brazil has not managed to shake off its ‘mongrel complex’ [an inferiority complex Brazilians feel in relation to the rest of the world] and continues to wait for a white boss to come and teach people how to live, even within the forest. Everyone, except for the deniers, knows that our modern relationship with nature is leading us to very difficult experiences in the coming years due to rising global temperatures.
If we are already highly vulnerable with current climate conditions, imagine when we reach temperatures unbearable for human life? We are undergoing changes that were not planned. We are experiencing a disruption within ourselves that was not programmed. If we wish to envision a future possibility, we need to put a limit on our relentless pursuit of development, of technology at any cost. This drive has been encouraged since childhood. You no longer see children building their own toys. In most schools, childhood is being shaped for a dystopian future, where toys are even influenced by the military industry. You see children playing with guns made out of plastic, pretending to kill each other. How can we cultivate a future like this? I understand that the world is realizing this is unsustainable and searching elsewhere for future possibilities.
Uros people harvesting some “totora” (Schoenoplectus californicus ssp. tatora) on Lake Titicaca, Peru. Image by Christophe Meneboeuf via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5).
Mongabay: Is it obsolete to think about economic development and growth in today’s world? Or can a cosmovision complement the idea of economic development?
Ailton Krenak: The planet’s economic development is what is destroying life on Earth. We do not need economic development anymore. The wealth of the world is at least 8-10 times bigger than what we actually need. There are about 110 armed conflicts happening worldwide because the military industry needs to produce weapons. War is what boosts the economy the most in the world. It’s not life, it’s war. We invest trillions in war, not in protecting biodiversity. The discourse of progress and development is foolish because if you ask where humans will get water and food for everyone, they will tell you it’s from the land, as there’s no other place to get it from. Yet, they persist in ignoring adequate policies for land access.
Before talking about more development, it would be necessary to consider greater engagement with environmental issues, territorial issues, land management and the privatization, destruction and degradation of river basins. Otherwise, it is unsustainable. This paradigm shift is needed. I thought humanity would begin to reconsider the idea of development and globalization after the tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic because, as a global event, it paralyzed everyone. I thought we would emerge as better human beings from this horror. But I am impressed by how we have worsened.
Mongabay: How do we change this paradigm? The signs are all there that we are heading for trouble, yet it seems that nothing much is happening.
Ailton Krenak: We should be skeptical of any expert, philosopher or global leader who claims to have a solution, because it’s a lie. It took us a long time to build the scenario we find ourselves in, and we won’t be able to undo it with a magic wand. If we had learned anything from the pandemic, which was a global experience, we would have changed our behavior. For example, greenhouse gas emissions would have decreased. But nothing has changed.
That’s why I fear that what will provoke this change that we need will be something external, it will not come from us. It could be another virus, an extreme weather event. Something that collapses our ability to move, our ability to live as we do now. Perhaps then we will undergo a cognitive rupture that stops us from being this consumerist metastasis and leads us to experience another way of living. I believe we have reached our limit and will be thrust into a different situation, a different reality. This could be very tragic though.
Mongabay: This seems like a rather pessimistic view …
Ailton Krenak: Yeah, it seems like we’ve gathered here to talk about the apocalypse. I don’t want to nurture that feeling within myself, nor do I want to cultivate it in others as if it were a declaration of surrender, but we can’t continue to deny the evidence. If we have climate events altering the weather, why should we continue to overspend on things nobody needs? When I published the bookIdeas to Delay the End of the World, I announced my distrust of the idea that development and progress would be the path to the future. I explained that a biocentric vision — an ethical perspective that holds every life as sacred — would be a path to the future.
But for that, we need to renounce the materialistic apparatus that surrounds us. Today, life has become solely focused on consumption, on economic growth at any cost. When I denounce this kind of end of the world, I’m not renouncing hope. But I also don’t want to promote a ‘placebo hope,’ one where you pat someone on the shoulder and say everything will be fine. It won’t be fine. We’re going to get worse for a while. But after that, we can improve, as long as we learn to renounce.
Mongabay: You say we will get worse for a while. Yet, you insist on the idea of possible futures. Do you really believe this is possible?
Ailton Krenak: Our planet is so wonderful. We cannot lose sight of the fact that life is everywhere. No one is a separate cocoon in the cosmos living this experience alone. You experience this with all the organisms that are in the planet’s biosphere. It is as if we were diluted in everything. We need to relearn how to walk softly on the Earth. When we learn to walk like this, we will experience wonder and nothing else will be needed. We must accept Nature’s invitation to dance with life. If we could have an organic mindset, which connects us with bees, ants, the grass that grows, the trees that shake in the wind, that shed their leaves and bring forth new shoots, we would understand that everything is constantly sprouting, growing, dying, being born.
Homo sapiens is the only animal that wants to be eternalized, wants to mummify itself, wants this monoculture way of eating the world. The Earth, Gaia, Pachamama, this living organism is intelligent, and we will have to negotiate with it our possible way out of this hole we have dug. Perhaps the answer lies in the capacity for affection, for embracing all other nonhuman beings.
Mongabay: When you close your eyes, what future do you see?
Ailton Krenak: When I’m on my land, cleaning the yard, I meditate. I detach from the harshness of daily life, close my eyes, and imagine a landscape where waters emerge from the mountains and form small streams. I become such a tiny organism that I dissolve into water. In this place, the concept of future isn’t something you problematize. You experience being the future. This is the ancestral future.
Editor’s note: Most Indigenous economics or land-based communities appreciate nature in its complex lifegiving and intelligent values it provides – for free – to all forms of creatures on earth. Yet we live in a century where shareholders and voracious businessmen and women on Wall Street want to put not only a monetary value but tradable assets on nature.
In this podcast episode by Mongabay Newscast, you’ll learn why this fails to recognize the intrinsic value of biodiversity and how the principles of Indigenous economics would lead to balance and harmony towards biological and physical reality.
Last year, the New York Stock Exchange proposed a new nature-based asset class that put a price tag on the global nature of 5,000 trillion U.S. dollars.
Though the proposal was withdrawn in January to the relief of many, Indigenous economist Rebecca Adamson argues that an attempt to financialize nature like this — which doesn’t account for the full intrinsic value of ecosystems, and further incentivizes the destruction of nature for profit — will likely be revived in the future.
On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Adamson speaks with co-host Rachel Donald about Indigenous economic principles based on sustainable usage and respect for nature, rather than relentless exploitation of it for profit.
“The simplest thing would be to fit your economy into a living, breathing, natural physics law framework. And if you look at Indigenous economies, they really talk about balance and harmony, and those aren’t quaint customs. Those are design principles,” she says.
Putting a dollar amount on a single species, let alone entire ecosystems, is a controversial idea, but creating a tradable asset class based on that monetary value is even more problematic, experts say.
In 2023, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish a list of Natural Asset Companies (NACs) that would hold the rights to ecosystem services, which they valued at $5,000 trillion, essentially creating a new nature-based asset class. The SEC withdrew the application earlier this year following intense opposition from 25 Republican attorneys general.
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Indigenous economist Rebecca Adamson argues this financialization of nature comes with perverse incentives and fails to recognize the intrinsic value contained in biodiversity and all the benefits it provides for humans. Instead, she suggests basing economies on principles contained in Indigenous economics.
While the natural asset class’s withdrawal was for “all the wrong reasons,” says Adamson, it was nonetheless a “relief.” She tells podcast co-host Rachel Donald why she thinks the financialization of nature is the wrong approach to protecting and sustainably using nature in the global economy, and why Indigenous economic principles offer a better path forward.
“If you look at the way an Indigenous economy is designed, it’s designed to meet the most needs for the most people” via sophisticated redistribution of wealth principles, says Adamson, who is a director emerita of Calvert Impact Capital and founder of both First Nations Development Institute and First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous-led organization making grants to Indigenous communities in more than 60 countries. “Throughout the society, there’s customs and cultures and rituals about sharing [and] redistribution of wealth. And we’ve mapped this,” she says.
Subscribe to or follow the Mongabay Newscast wherever you listen to podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, and you can also listen to all episodes here on the Mongabay website, or download our free app for Apple and Android devices to gain instant access to our latest episodes and all of our previous ones.
Rachel Donald is a climate corruption reporter and the creator of Planet: Critical, the podcast, and newsletter for a world in crisis. Her latest thoughts can be found at 𝕏 via @CrisisReports and at Bluesky via @racheldonald.bsky.social.
Mike DiGirolamo is a host & associate producer for Mongabay based in Sydney. He co-hosts and edits the Mongabay Newscast. Find him on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Instagram.
Members of the Indigenous Guard, carrying batons, line the streets of Pueblo Nuevo, accompanying Carlos on his final journey to his grave. Image by Tony Kirby.
A pivot to renewable energy by the Philippine government has led to a wave of hyrdoprojects projects across the Cordillera region. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.
Hydropower projects have met with differening receptions in Cordillera villages such as Balbalan, Mabaca and Buaya. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.
The Cal-oan River, also known as Mabaca River, where Australian-owned JBD Water Power Inc. (JWPI) has two planned hydropower projects. Image by Michael Beltran.
Farmer Gohn Dangoy, of the Naneng tribe, says proposed dams have already caused deep divisions in his community. Image by Michael Beltran.
A man in Kalinga Province wears a shirt reading “No to Dam.” Image by Michael Beltran.
Residents of villages close to the Chico River meet to discuss plans to dam the river for hydroelectricity. Image by Michael Beltran.
