Rachael Petersen

Rachael Petersen is a 2012-2013 Thomas J. Watson Fellow investigating indigenous peoples’ use of technology as a tool to further their rights in five different regions: the Canadian Arctic, the Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon, Borneo Malaysia and the Australian Outback. Follow her research and travels at www.globalnativenetworks.com

Email Rachael Petersen

Latest posts by Rachael Petersen

Brazilian Tribe Opens Indigenous Education Center

  30 June 2013

An education center created by the Paiter-Surui tribe in the Brazilian Amazon that will offer professional courses to the area's indigenous has finally opened. They hope a cluster of buildings will grow to serve as the site of the future Paiter-Surui Indigenous University of Brazil, the first of its kind in the country.

EU Seal Ban Maims Indigenous Way of Life in the Arctic

  30 April 2013

A European Union court in Luxembourg has upheld its ban on the commercial trade of seal products despite a challenge from Canada's Inuit and several Canadian lawmakers that it cripples the indigenous people's ability to make a living.

Mexico: Federal Court Halts Controversial Wind Park

  27 December 2012

The largely indigenous opposition to wind farms in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec of Oaxaca, Mexico won a tremendous victory when a District Seven Federal Court judge granted an injunction temporarily halting the construction of a controversial wind park in San Dioniosio del Mar in the southern state of Oaxaca. While the indigenous Ikojts (Huave) peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec celebrated and called for government and industry to comply with the decision, their grassroots struggle continues.

Ecuador Launches Oil Auction Amid Indigenous Protests

  7 December 2012

On Wednesday November 28, 2012, Ecuador began an international licensing round for 13 oil blocks - nearly ten million acres - of untouched south-central Amazonian territory as indigenous leaders took to the streets in Quito to protest petroleum concessions on their lands.