For many thousands who have tuned into his work, Hereditary Chief Phil Lane has been a beacon in a time of powerful transition. His work over the decades to unify the human family through his Four Worlds International Institute has taken him all over the world, and now he is consolidating that work in a […]

We recently sat down (at a distance) for an interview with Paola Stefani, producer of the movie Huicholes: The Last Peyote Guardians. Together with the director of the film, Hernán Vilchez, and with the collaboration of the protagonist, Wixárika Mara’akame or spiritual leader José “Katira” Ramírez, and with the approval of the authorities of two […]

Sovereignty means different things to different people, but perhaps its essence is best displayed in times of challenge. And so it was for the powerful four-day Sovereign Sisters gathering held on the third weekend in August. Despite two of the group’s founders, Cheryl Angel and LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, being sidelined by illness and injury, […]

This is what is happening, because the Earth is defending herself. The Earth herself is being cleansed.

KEYSTONE, South Dakota – U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign-stop here at Mt. Rushmore National Memorial on the eve of the national Independence Day holiday provoked a rally of some 400 Native Americans and allies, who seized the opportunity to remind him he was trespassing on sacred Black Hills Indian treaty land stolen in violation of the Constitution.

The free 100+ entry Voices of Amerikua Indigenous Film Library was born when #StayAtHome mandates began rolling out across the globe, and Mexican media producer and activist Iván Sawyer García began getting inquiries from friends and readers: Do you have any recommendations for indigenous films we can watch while we are sheltering in place? As a matter of fact he did — as founder of the bilingual collaborative documentary and multimedia lab Voices of Amerikua, indigenous films and media projects are his life.

Earth Day 2020 marked a milestone for The Esperanza Project. We took our first baby steps into the world of broadcasting with our very first online program: Esperanza is the Antidote, a lineup of Esperanza Project collaborators from the USA to Argentina.

Every intellectual had a “draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson We have reached a new epoch in our planet’s history. Few can look at the increasingly authoritarian tendencies across the globe, the mass stress-fueled migrations, the degradation of the environment, the increasingly chaotic climate, and the fragility of […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Creature from the Black Lagoon loomed over the offices of the Interior Department last week as non-profit consumer advocate Public Citizen joined the chorus of voices condemning the proposed rollback of the bedrock National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.   “Trump’s Interior Secretary is an Oil Lobbyist,” declared the giant video […]

Hamstrung by the bureaucracy in their hometown of Boulder, Colo., permaculture designer Zia Parker and biodynamic agriculture teacher Roshni McEldowney headed south to Vilcabamba, Ecuador, where a culture respecting the Rights of Mother Earth is flourishing.

This plain-spoken country woman became the face of a movement to stop a megadam from destroying her village.

“Why are we hauling giant container shiploads of Christmas decorations from Vietnam to England? Don’t the English know how to make decorations?”

Inspiration thrives in times of darkness. That’s what a decade of coverage of social movements in the Americas reveals. At the dawn of 2019, thousands of Latin American asylum seekers huddle in tent cities along our southern borders, having risked their lives for the hope of a better future for their families. Thousands of children […]

At the dawn of 2019, thousands of Latin American asylum seekers huddle in tent cities along our southern borders, having risked their lives for the hope of a better future for their families. Thousands of children languish in concentration camps and detention centers scattered around the country, their parents unable to claim them. Americans wonder […]

“What will become of us when we go to Wirikuta and can no longer find the tutuu (peyote flower)?” – question from a participant in “Let’s Talk About Hikuri,” a series of dialogs organized by Pedro Nájera and Lisbeth Bonilla. (photo at left: Antonio Moreno Talamantes, from Naturista.mx, some rights reserved – CC BY-NC) This […]

MESA DEL TIRADOR, Wixárika territories, Mexico— At midnight on May 10, 2018, members of the Wixárika (Huichol) community of Wuaut+a (San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán), in the Western Sierra Madre of Mexico, took the dramatic step of blocking all entrances to their community, given the lack of response from the Mexican State for their demand to peacefully […]

By Tracy L. Barnett for The Washington Post Looking down from the hilltop through the palm fronds, the sight took my breath away: at least seven hues of blue, stretching out before me to a green-fringed horizon. This was the Lagoon of Seven Colors, and it was everything I’d been told, and then some. Set […]

This year The Esperanza Project will celebrate nine years of life – nine years of bringing inspiration and hope to the work of environmental and indigenous rights journalism. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and poised to take our work to the next level. Please read on to see our highlights, our exciting plans for […]

By Tracy L. Barnett For ArchDaily.com Editor’s note: After the earthquakes of Sept. 7 and Sept. 19 in southern and central Mexico, a nascent natural building movement – known as “bioconstruction” or “bioarchitecture” here in the Spanish-speaking South – has stepped forward, seizing the opportunity to rebuild with an architecture that promotes long-term resilience and […]

“Coyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil has devoted his life to nurturing the bonds that connect humans with the place we inhabit and its other inhabitants, from the beaver to the bee to the wind and the water. His ethic has been influenced by and has in turn influenced movements toward intentional communities, ecovillages and bioregionalism. He […]