Interview: Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Wednesday, June 13, 2007  

Cultural Survival Quarterly interviews four Native leaders about the stalled Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that is before the United Nations.

Les Malezer, a native Australian of the Gabi Gabi community, is the general manager for the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action. Naomi Kipuri is an anthropologist and the director of the Arid Lands Institute in Africa.

Ramona Peters is a Mashpee Wampanoag from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Stella Tamang was chair of the International Women's Caucus at the third session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Peters says her tribe, which was recently recognized, has been devastated by the loss of its land. "Eight-two percent of our adult men are diagnosed as being depressed. We grew up in a fishing, hunting, and planting society that has been transformed into a lost group of people," she says.

"Now we have health issues that we did not have 25 years ago. Not being in control of the land, or not being able to protect it or have access to the natural foods and medicines that grow on it, gives us a really shaky future," she adds.

Get the Story:
Our Land, Our Identity, Our Freedom: A Roundtable Discussion (Cultural Survival Quarterly 6/13)