The president of Bolivia styles himself as a champion of his indigenous peoples. In reality, he has turned his back on them and aligned himself with the colonial elites.
Aboriginal stories say Fitzroy Island on the Great Barrier Reef was connected to the mainland. It was, at least 10,000 years ago.
Felix Dziekan/Flickr
In the beginning, as far back as we remember, our home islands were not islands at all as they are today. They were part of a peninsula that jutted out from the mainland and we roamed freely throughout…
Indigenous Australians see spirituality as central to their wellbeing.
Rusty Stewart/Flickr
The United Nations Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently conducted an assessment of the wellbeing of people around the world. The results indicate that Canberra is a world…
Deborah Mailman and Elizabeth Wymarra play the Housewives of Naorromine in Black Comedy.
ABC
ABC’s new Indigenous sketch show Black Comedy, which premiered last night, is touted as a “show by blackfellas … for everyone”. As a blackfella, I’m not sure I agree that it is for “everyone” but that’s…
The media should focus more on positive models of change and commitment in Aboriginal communities.
Rusty Stewart
Think of Aboriginal health and you’ll probably recall messages of large gaps in life expectancy, increasing rates of chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease and asthma. Or that the last ten years…
Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area in NSW – rich in ancient history.
Steve Bourne
Evidence of the first people to settle in Australia can be found in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, in western New South Wales, informally referred to as Australia’s Rift Valley. Hundreds of archaeological…
Not a new idea, as this map from 1885 shows, but no less controversial.
Meyers Konversationslexikons
The Nicaraguan government has granted a concession to a mysterious Chinese company owned by Jing Wang, a little-known Hong-Kong based businessman, to build an inter-oceanic canal. This would provide an…
The closed-door policy wins the TPP few friends.
Public Citizen
Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
The secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a free trade agreement being hammered out between twelve countries, has received another broadside from Wikileaks. The third leak in three months, this…
Sustainable palm oil production should have local consent: often, it doesn’t.
Rainforest Action Network
Businesses, government and civil society met this month in Medan, Indonesia, for the 11th annual Roundtable meeting on sustainable palm oil. While orangutan conservation organisations dominated conversations…
As the 44th parliament opens, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said an Indigenous PM will be possible one day soon.
AAP Image/Daniel Munoz
Tony Abbott says he hopes Australia will have an Indigenous prime minister “one day, not too far off”. Addressing the Welcome to Country ceremony at Parliament House, Abbott said that Noel Pearson, “a…
The High Court has found that Indigenous disadvantage needs to be taken into account during sentencing.
AAP Image/Marianna Massey
How long should a criminal’s past history and background remain relevant in a court of law? That was the question before the High Court earlier this week in the case of William Bugmy. Bugmy, a 29 year-old…
West Papuan refugee Amos Wainggai is on board the Freedom Flotilla, headed for Papuan shores from Australia. What will it mean for our relations with Indonesia?
AAP/Cleo Mary Fraser
Given the extreme sensitivity with which the issue of West Papua is viewed in Indonesia, the “Freedom Flotilla” heading from Australia to the Indonesian-controlled territory is sure to create tension…
Children who had experienced stressful events had poorer physical health and more parental concern about behavioural issues than those who had not, the article said.
AAP Image/Marianna Day Massey
High stress among Indigenous children in urban areas is linked to poorer physical health and more parental concern about behavioural issues, a new study has found. Of 344 participating children, 51% had…
Galiwin'ku, Elcho Island, the Yolngu people’s customary land. The lead singer of Yothu Yindi, a Yolngu band, died yesterday, aged 56.
Flickr/boobook48
The lead singer of the band Yothu Yindi died yesterday of kidney disease, aged 56. Only a few decades after radio, popular music and electric guitars spread through Arnhem Land in the 1960s, Yothu Yindi…
For all its faults, NAPLAN is helping Indigenous education.
AAP Image/Melanie Foster
Federal education minister Peter Garrett confirmed late last week that education ministers from around the country had agreed to lift national efforts to improve Indigenous education results. Results from…
Figures regarding the original population of Australia may be way off.
WanderingtheWorld (www.LostManProject.com)
Like many people, I grew up believing Australia was colonised by a small band of people, who had most likely landed on its shores by accident; but research I published this week suggests a far larger founding…
The endangered dugong is being hunted unsustainably using a cruel harpoon technique.
Nicola Sfondrini
Many Australians are rightly appalled by the slaughter conducted by the Japanese whaling fleet under the guise of “scientific research”. This is not only because whaling is cruel but also because whales…
Indigenous Queenslanders should be able to choose their own path.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Funding cuts announced to Queensland Aboriginal communities last month will of course affect the budgets of Aboriginal Shire Councils. But their impact will be felt much more further afield than just within…
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Chair and Member from North America of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) and Professor in Political Science, Public Policy and Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia