IOI Group: Stop Undermining Indigenous Rights

Last Monday, IOI Group received an unexpected visit from a group of activists who delivered a large photo of the community of Long Teran Kanan, a community whose traditional lands have been converted to plantations by IOI Group. Along with this powerful photo, the group also delivered the following statement from Rainforest Action Network to [...]

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Reclaiming Stolen Lands: Indigenous Community Stands up to Global Palm Oil Giant

After fighting for the return of their ancestral lands for more than a decade, the people of Long Teran Kenan in Malaysian Borneo took a stand earlier this month and reclaimed part of their homeland with a decisive and peaceful act of collective resistance. Their territory had been taken from them and converted into oil [...]

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Giving to RAN: Kitty Jones

Kyana Jones, also known as Kitty Jones, started a small cleaning business to raise funds for nonprofits, and chose RAN as one of the beneficiaries. After hearing about Kitty’s selfless efforts to raise support and awareness about protecting the environment and wildlife, I asked her if she would share her story with the RAN community [...]

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RBC Takes Step Away From Tar Sands

It took nearly two years, but today Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) finally adopted environmental and social standards on its financing in the tar sands. Great! So what does that mean? Clearly, it means a significant about-face on tar sands for one of the world’s biggest banks. Before today, RBC trailed its peers on basic [...]

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U.S. Announces Support for UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights

With President Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States will “lend its support” to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the U.S. has at last joined the global consensus on this critical human rights issue. In a decision that reverses the position taken by the Bush administration in 2007, when the [...]

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U.S. Should Join World In Supporting Indigenous Rights

Canada has now formally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), leaving the United States as the only country to remain opposed to the most comprehensive international statement on Indigenous rights to date. After its adoption in 2007 by the UN General Assembly, UNDRIP was heralded around the world by [...]

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The Latest Small Grants Supporting Frontline Communities

The below dozen grants distributed over the last few months through RAN’s Protect-an-Acre program and through our role as an advisor to Global Greengrant Fund supported frontline community efforts to defend their land and rights in forest regions in Africa, South & Central America, Southeast Asia and Appalachia. Protect-an-Acre KONTAK Rakyat Borneo $4,000 to carry [...]

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The truth about Cargill’s palm oil plantations in Borneo

The truth is out! After months of investigations, RAN just released a report entitled CARGILL’S PROBLEMS WITH PALM OIL: A BURNING THREAT TO BORNEO. Slideshow of report images Our report reveals that Cargill is clearing and burning rainforests, displacing Indigenous and traditional communities and exacerbating climate change. While Cargill claims that it is committed to [...]

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Ghana’s Forest Reserves under Threat

Written by John F. Akwetey (RAN Ghana) In line with the government’s election campaign promise of a better Ghana Agenda, licences are given to multinational companies to mine in our forest reserves without proper consideration of its consequences after submitting a signed “Statement of Policies on Natural Resource and Environment,’’ to the European Commission. These [...]

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Malaysian Communities Still Under Threat

In April 2008, I participated in an international fact-finding team that traveled throughout the Malaysian state of Sarawak to document reports that Indigenous communities were being systematically deprived of their land and other basic human rights through collusion between the state government and oil palm companies. Sadly, this practice has not stopped despite more than [...]

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