Manuhap Pandiangan easily climbed a 10-inch-diameter straight tree through two small pieces of two-foot long hard wood tightly fastened around the tree with a nylon rope. Then he uttered some prayers, and—around the tree up to about over 20 feet (5.88 meters) high—pierced the tree’s bark with a sharp knife, leaving several wounds on the tree’s bark.

Once trained about research methods and information systems, indigenous communities can have full control over data and information about their lands and resources. And these vital data and information can help protect them from systematic land grab.

At a time when Western paradigms are acknowledged to be in crisis, some 60 local and foreign scholars, indigenous leaders, researchers and educators, activists, policymakers, and practitioners met here for a revived interest in indigenous models of learning and education.

Indigenous peoples’ leaders and representatives from various parts worldwide have sought to strengthen and improve their partnership with a UN financial institution, which specializes in supporting agricultural programs that seek to help address hunger and poverty.

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines, 13 February (Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service) – Sister Alice Sobreviñas and Moren Macay, a young information technology graduate, share something in common. Both have fallen in love with Eugene.

For years the indigenous Ivatan folk of Batanes islands in northern Philippines have learned to cope with strong typhoons, which have since become part of their lives every rainy season.

Owing to his close affinity with the spirit world, his ancestors, his ancestral domain and Mother Nature, Datu Doming Tumaytay is adept in identifying medicinal and other important plants he has been familiar with since childhood. The tribal chief from Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte in southern Philippines can identify certain herbs and trees, which, he says, can be tapped to treat certain ailments.

An unusually devastating Philippine cyclone has sent an urgent message to those lobbying for a strong global policy to address the impacts of climate change. 

Even as they have to push for “full and effective participation” at the Green Climate Fund Board meetings and during climate negotiations, indigenous peoples’ representatives are optimistic that the Fund, once available, can help respond to their climate change-related needs, concerns and issues.

FOR DECADES, over 300 indigenous upland folk in remote Ngibat village in Kalinga province in northern Philippines had been groping literally in the dark. The villagers had never experienced cooking dinner at an electric bulb-lit kitchen and school children had never enjoyed doing their homework under an electric light after the sun would set. Not until 1992.

To grow corn, their main staple, many indigenous communities in the upland regions of Mexico need to clear a portion of their forests. But they leave cleared areas fallow after a few years so these could regenerate into secondary forests.

Still, they realized that there must be a better way than the usual practice of clearing a portion of the forests and burning this in order to grow corn and other upland crops....

These continuing acts of violence against indigenous peoples in the country are truly despicable and reprehensible. We, in Tebtebba, express our sympathies to the family of Genesis Ambason, the Secretary General of Tagdumahan, who was tortured and killed on September 13, 2012 (around 8pm) at Km. 39, Brgy. Binikalan, San Luis, Agusan del Sur in southern Philippines. We condemn strongly this act and the perpetrators, allegedly, the members of the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit) of the 26th Infantry Battalion headed by Artemio Sublidan.

Bangkok, THAILAND, 14 September (Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service) – An Australian-Filipino mining company during a September 2011 public consultation mobilized its “experts.” Their goal: to persuade local officials and indigenous and local communities about the “safety, merits and sustainability” of the company’s US$5.8-billion project in southern Philippines.

Una compañía minera australiana-filipina, durante una consulta pública en septiembre 2011 movilizó a sus “expertos”, con el objetivo de persuadir a las autoridades locales y las comunidades indígenas sobre los “méritos y de seguridad, sostenibilidad “del proyecto de minería de $ 5,8 mil millones de dólares que la compañía deseaba invertir en el sur de Filipinas.

Baguio City, Philippines, 25 August (Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service) – Indigenous woman leader Norairri Thoungmuengthong of the Karen community in Thailand has found a way of helping her village mates reclaim and eventually manage their lands and forests. By joining local politics, that is.

“With more indigenous women in local politics, they can help craft policies that ensure and guarantee their rights, which include rights to security of tenure of their lands and forests,” said the chairperson of the Indigenous Women’s Network of Thailand.

Chiang Mai, Thailand, 22 August (Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service) – Going to school and learning to read and write used to be an impossible dream for many of the indigenous Dayak peoples of Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Feeling helpless and long subordinated in the process of developing the nation, the Dayak used to be regarded as “dumb and stupid” owing to their lack of formal education.               

Baguio City, Philippines, 14 August (Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service) —A story was told about a team of urban-bred academic researchers who would like to know about how the indigenous Aeta folk of the Philippines were coping after Mt. Pinatubo, a long dormant volcano, erupted in 1991. After an hour uphill climb, the researchers, along with an Aeta tribal elder as guide, chanced upon some wild guava trees with ripe fruits.

Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service (Bangkok Climate Talks Update 3) - Weak “rights” language on current REDD+ text;  Commitments of Annex 1 Countries to the Kyoto Protocol and UNFCCC Should be Fulfilled.

Tebtebba Indigenous Information Service (Bangkok Climate Talks Update 2) - Consolidating text:  A process that MUST respect, recognize and promote indigenous peoples’ rights.