Indigenous Peoples protect the environment worldwide, employing centuries of traditional and cultural ideals that honor the Earth. Yet around the world, Indigenous Peoples face dire threats to their livelihoods and connections to land from extractivism, deforestation, development, and climate change, as well as violence for their efforts to defend their land, in many cases.
At Global Greengrants Fund, we recognize the pivotal role that Indigenous Peoples play in safeguarding the Earth’s ecosystems, and have therefore given grants to Indigenous Peoples for our entire 30 years of grantmaking. In 2023 alone, we awarded more than $6.69 million in Indigenous rights grants. Over the years, our grants have gone towards protecting the rights and leadership of Indigenous Peoples to defend their lands, preserving traditional Indigenous ways of relating to the environment, including agricultural techniques, and creating space for Indigenous Peoples around the world to connect and learn from each other.
The threats that Indigenous Peoples face are true for Indigenous Peoples around the world, but they are especially true for Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation. Many groups in voluntary isolation have chosen to limit or forego contact with the rest of the world in order to better preserve their relationships to the land and their traditional cultures, but this has also made them particularly vulnerable to the effects of extractivism and climate change.
For World Indigenous Peoples Day, which this year has a special focus on “Protecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact,” we spoke with Indigenous members of our grantmaking advisory network from around the world to learn more about the challenges that communities in voluntary isolation face in their particular contexts.
All quotes adapted from a Global Greengrants staff and advisory network call on August 6, 2024.
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Sabba Rani Majarjan, Newa, Indigenous Youth Activist, Nepal:
“Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation face a lot of challenges to their right to self-determination, especially in the name of development and natural resource extraction.”
Jennifer Baing, Dampidampi Clan, Environmental Sustainability and Traditional Foods Advocate, Papua New Guinea:
“We have unseen shackles in Papua New Guinea. It’s a land where rivers weave through dense jungles, connecting villages like veins in a living organism. Yet these arteries remain untainted by bridges, roads, or modern transport. The absence of government investment in infrastructure has inadvertently cast a net of isolation over Papua New Guinea’s Indigenous Peoples. The isolation is not voluntary. It is a consequence of systemic neglect. And it is a silent struggle, a survival amidst abandonment from their own governments.
“We’ve got a double-edged sword where there’s communities that are in the cities that are on Indigenous lands that are trying to revive and relearn and protect their knowledge and Indigenous lands, and we have people who are stranded out in the middle of the mountains, 5 days’ walk out, and they have to cling to their Indigenous knowledge to survive out there.”
Deepak Bara, Adivasi, Community Journalist and Filmmaker, India:
“Particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) in India face severe threats of mining, deforestation, and industrial projects. Despite legal protections, enforcement [of those protections] remains inadequate. Limited access to healthcare makes these communities vulnerable to diseases. Outsiders bring new pathogens, exacerbating health risks. External pressures, including forced relocation and assimilation, threaten their cultural practices and languages. Education systems often undermine their traditional knowledge.
“Maintaining voluntary isolation is a challenge that requires urgent attention. We must support these communities by enforcing legal protections of the geographical areas they belong to, advocating for their rights, and respecting their autonomy. I believe together we can ensure and preserve their unique identities so that they can thrive.”
Emini Timothee Aurelien Morientes, BAKA Clan Ye Kpotolo, Forest Indigenous Peoples, Cameroon:
“I am from Cameroon and most of us are connected to the energy of the forest, to nature, and this is very profound to us. But the fact of having chosen to remain in the natural surroundings and Mother Earth, that actually opens some advantages to the industries, to the government for them to give concessions to mining industries so that they can come and destroy our lands. We see this happening in the forest, so many spaces that are granted in the name of conservation, but this conservation is rather a military preservation. We are struggling so that we can maintain in the forest.
“They’re exploiting diamonds and natural resources and for them it’s a monetary value, but for us it’s a spiritual value that we’ll uphold. We are very disturbed by what they’re doing. They are not allowing us to live in peace in our communities, in our lands.
We chose to isolate ourselves, but now we see that the industries are just exploiting our lands, and our forests are just being torn down to take our wood. And that makes our spiritual life become so weak, so fragile.”
Nidia Rosemary Bustillos, Quechua, Gender Traditional Ancestral Medicine, Bolivia:
Original Spanish:
“En Bolivia tenemos 8 pueblos en aislamiento voluntario son los Araonas, Ayoreos, Chacobo, Ese Ejja, Moseten, Pacahuara, T´simane, Toromana y Yuki que se encuentra en las en la Amazonía y en el Gran Chaco. The problema para los pueblos de Yuki, pro ejemplo, es que son vulnerables a las enfermedades. La tuberculosis los ha destruido.
“El desafío fundamental que tienen es que se mantengan su territorio intacto. El mayor logro sería mantener la intangibilidad del territorio a nivel de perpetuidad Entre los grandes desafíos que existen están, el avasallamiento territorial, el ensanchamiento de la frontera agrícola, las grandes mega infraestructuras, la minería, las carreteras, la hidroeléctrica, y el narcotráfico. Al estar aislados no se pueden trasladar no se les puede trasladar porque tienen ellos una absoluta dependencia del territorio.”
English translation:
“In Bolivia, we have 8 Indigenous Peoples communities in voluntary isolation—they are the Araonas, Ayoreos, Chacobo, Ese Ejja, Moseten, Pacahuara, T´simane, Toromana and Yuki—that are found in the Amazon and in el Gran Chaco. A problem for the Yuki people, as an example, is that they are vulnerable to illnesses. They have pretty much been destroyed by tuberculosis.
“The fundamental challenge all these peoples have is to keep their territory intact. The greatest achievement would be to maintain the isolation of their territories in perpetuity. Because there are great challenges that exist—territorial encroachment, the expansion of the [commercial] agricultural frontier, mining, road construction, hydroelectrics, and drug trafficking. And because they are completely isolated, they cannot be relocated because they depend completely on the land.”
Maria Rosenda Camey, Maya, Traditional Healer, Guatemala:
“We need to decolonize ourselves in different ways so that we can flourish once again. And how are we going to decolonize ourselves? Carrying on healing processes. Healing processes from our ancestral traditions, from our peoples, from our cosmovision.”
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Protecting the rights, livelihoods, and territories of Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact is pivotal to our global fight for environmental and climate justice. We invite other environmental funders to join us in supporting these communities and their ways of life.