From Sunset Strip to the Sierra Madre to a Nobel Nomination

By Tracy L. Barnett, Esperanza Project

Susan Eger was more adventurous than your average UCLA anthropology student in 1975 – even for a psychedelic-savvy follower of Carlos Castañeda. But a chance meeting with a fellow adventurer would set her life course in ways she could never have imagined. Nearly half a century later, with three grown indigenous children, a Mexican nonprofit that’s become a living institution and a Nobel nomination to contend with, Susana Valadez, as she is now known, is on fire with the certainty of one who is living her destiny.

These Extraordinary Times: Indigenous Peoples and Coalition Building for Agroecology and Food Sovereignty

By Carol Kalafatic, Agroecology Now!

In this post I aim to elaborate my belief that, to build or spread food sovereignty, there is an increased need for diverse Peoples, communities and social movements to strengthen relationships and coalitions with one another. Our exchange of knowledges, strategies and practices will keep producing tangible results, and on the less tangible but equally important side, our solidarity will reinforce our resilience in the face of increasing unpredictability.

Zapalote Chico, The Corn that Fights Transgenics and the People Defending It

By Diana Manzo, Intercontinental Cry

Rosario del Carmen Carrasco, a young campesina, serves as president of the “Xhuba Binii” group. She has cultivated more than 20 hectares of zapalote chico. Rosario inherited her love of the countryside from her father, and although she graduated as an engineer, she has practiced agriculture her whole life.

From Encampment to Ecovillage at Standing Rock

By Tracy L. Barnett, Esperanza Project

When LaDonna Brave Bull Allard speaks these days, it’s a wake-up call to a lost nation. The founder of the first resistance camp at Standing Rock, which was Sacred Stone, she challenges us to step up to the work of transforming our culture of death.

A Statement on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

By Staff, IPCC Response, IPCCResponse

We—Indigenous Peoples and local communities—play a critical role in stewarding and safeguarding the world’s lands and forests. For the first time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today recognizes that strengthening our rights is a critical solution to the climate crisis.

Women of Standing Rock: LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

By Tracy L. Barnett, Esperanza Project

All of a sudden, we’ve given our power over to an entity that doesn’t deserve our power. We must take back that empowerment of self. We must take back our own health care. We must take back our own food. We must take back our families. We must take back our environment.

How the Women of Standing Rock Are Building Sovereign Economies

By Tracy L. Barnett, YES! magazine

Food security, traditional agriculture, and local self-reliance are key to regenerative societies of the future, say water protectors taking the movement’s lessons forward.

“It Begins with Respect”

By Jeff Conant, Miguel Sánchez Álvarez, Pedro Hernàndez Luna, Intercontinental Cry

As sumak causay was brought to the awareness of the non-indigenous by Andean social movements a few years ago, now in Chiapas a generation of Indigenous scholars is bringing to light – theorizing, they would say – the local understanding of buen vivir: a concept articulated in Tseltal and Tsotsil as el lek’il kuxlejal.

Mauna Kea, What it is, Why it is Happening, and Why we all Should be Paying Attention

By Nikki Sanchez, Intercontinental Cry

At the base of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain and the first point on earth where raindrops touch the earth, the largest land defense action in modern Hawaiian history is currently in taking place and the entire movement is being guided by love.

Tackling Drought in Kenya: Livestock Insurance Policy to Help Pastoralists Beat Climate Change

By Fiona Imball, Rapid Transition Alliance

Incorporating the views of communities that are often at the bottom of the pyramid, and whose voices are rarely heard in sustainability strategies is key to their success. One such inclusive technology in Kenya is the Index-Based Insurance (IBLI), an innovative tool against drought losses in Kenya that seeks to cushion pastoralist communities from the frequent spates of drought...