The annual Qoyllurit’i pilgrimage of Peru’s Q’eros and other indigenous groups and the traditional knowledge of the jaguar shamans of Yuruparí in Colombia are among the cultural heritage “elements” added to UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage lists.

Earlier this month, leaders of Peru’s indigenous Q’eros people effectively blocked geneticists from collecting DNA samples from their community as part of National Geographic’s ongoing Genographic Project, which has been gathering DNA from people around the world.

Citing environmental concerns, a Brazilian judge has halted construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam on the Xingu River in the Amazon rain forest. If constructed, it would destroy a vast area of forest and displacing tens of thousands, including tribal people.

Four hundred years ago, the Q’eros of Peru retreated to the eastern slope of the Andes to escape Spanish conquest. They still live in isolation, herding alpaca, harvesting potatoes, and speaking to their Apus (mountain spirits). Global warming is decimating the Andean ecosystem and challenging the Q’eros’ formidable survival skills. Sacred Mt. Ausangate’s glaciers are [...]

Widespread illegal harvesting of mahogany — bound for the United States and other world markets — continues inside a Peruvian reserve for uncontacted indigenous tribes, according to a report released this month by the nonprofit Upper Amazon Conservancy. The UAC’s year-long investigation documented logging settlements and felled trees throughout the 1.2-million-acre Muruanahua Territorial Reserve for [...]

A major new assessment of the current state of biodiversity warns that unless urgent action is taken, the natural systems that support humankind are at risk of collapse.

In a demonstration to show solidarity with the Brazilian indigenous peoples who will be gravely affected by the recently approved Belo Monte dam project, actress Sigourney Weaver will join members of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to peacefully protest in front of the Brazilian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York [...]

All over the world, indigenous people protect places of spiritual significance and hotspots of biodiversity. James Cameron’s symbolic story of the Na’vi, in his film “Avatar” parallels the struggle that indigenous people around the globe face to defend sacred places Western culture seeks to dominate.

International outcry is mounting against the Brazilian government’s plan to move forward on the massive Belo Monte dam on the Amazon’s Xingu River. Take action and attend a Bay Area event March 19.

A day before his official Jan. 22 inauguration, Bolivian President Evo Morales held a symbolic swearing-in ceremony at the Kalasasaya Temple in Tiwanaku, the seat of an Andean empire that flourished for more than 400 years.

In January, the U.N. released its first-ever report on the “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples,” which presents a global view of the current situation of indigenous peoples, examining poverty and well-being, culture, education, health, human rights, environment and emerging issues.

A controversial and long-delayed hydroelectric dam project on Brazil’s Xingu River received the green light on Feb. 1 when the Brazilian Environment Ministry issued an environmental license for the dam’s construction.

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are claiming victory after the nation’s Congress on June 18 repealed a pair of decrees that had sparked months of region-wide protests in defense of indigenous land rights. The government’s about-face — including President Alan García’s admission on national television that he had committed “a series of errors” — [...]

In the worst political violence in Peru in more than a decade, dozens of indigenous people in the remote Amazon region of Bagua were killed on June 5 when police attempted to shut down a peaceful road blockade. Since April 9, tens of thousands of indigenous people throughout the Peruvian Amazon have blockaded roads, railways, [...]

Over the past month, we’ve published three new sacred site reports—featuring locations in Japan, Colombia and Afghanistan—which we invite you read

Our three-week film shoot in Peru is drawing to a close as we head back to Cusco after two great days at Machu Picchu. Everyone on the crew — associate producer Ashley Tindall, cinematographer Vicente Franco, sound recordist Willy Elizarde, and fixer Vernonica Perez — is getting a little tired as we’ve had several 4 [...]

After filming at Q’oyllur riti for two days, we pack up quickly and chase up the rugged mountain trails after the Q’eros with all our equipment, horses and aching lowlander lungs. We arrive in Qochamoqo long after the Q’eros have arrived home, some in Qochamoqo and some back to the other Q’eros villages, like Hatun [...]

In the early morning, the Q’eros enter Anccasi on their way to the annual festival of Q’oyllur riti at Mount Ausangate, the main apu for these indigenous people of southern Peru. They come through town in small groups and families, first heralded by the whimsical dancers and drum-and-pipe band that staggers hungry and slightly inebriated [...]

We are now in Anccasi, a tiny Quechua village of wattle-and-daub huts and a handful of cinder block buildings around a dirt square at somewhere around 3700m, a full day’s drive from Cusco. It is cold. Period. Fortunately for us some money for the community materialized about a year ago and allowed Alejandro Chispe (the [...]

Toby and I arrived in Lima, Peru on May 13 for a few days of logistical set-up for this shoot and then flew on to Cusco to meet up with our director of photography Vicente Franco, sound recordist Willy Ilizarbe and our fixer Veronica Perez Orbezo. We spent a couple of days in Cusco which [...]

Today, Brazil formally set aside 125,000 acres of richly biodiverse rainforest as Yanawawa native territory, protecting the sacred land from deforestation and further resource development. The land is sacred to the community, not least because several burial sites are located in that swathe of pristine forest. Aveda Corporation, an American cosmetics and health products company, [...]