At a news conference late last month, the group gave Clinton a C- on his environmental report card. The group called on Clinton to strengthen the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection Acts, to implement the biodiversity treaty and stop logging and grazing in the National Wildlife Refuge system. However, many indigenous populations remain as vulnerable as ever. Their demise is generally the result of economic development and resource exploitation by governments and multinational corporations. Last year, an estimated 70 Yanamami people were reportedly killed by mining interests in one massacre.
Cultural destruction is another threat faced by the indigenous.
Governments often relocate indigenous populations forcing them to assimilate by learning new languages and removing them from areas in which they were once self-sufficient. We have failed to recognize that in their own context their values have as much validity as our own. We have also failed to recognize that until we came to southern Africa they had a way of life that worked. We did not. Now neither they nor we have a way of life that truly works.