The New Dd Newsletter
It's been a year of heart-wrenching loss & inspiring victories. For the past 12 months we've been focused on our work with indigenous communities in the Amazon and piloting Mapeo, a mapping & monitoring tool that helps our partners protect what they love. We've been quiet on the communications front, but now we're ready to share our stories!
This is the first edition of a monthly newsletter where we'll share news, stories from the frontlines, and case studies of our partners. You can expect news about tech, human and environmental rights, and most of all about people who are leading the path to a more just world.
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Indigenous Rights Under Threat In The Amazon
The fires that raged across the Amazon earlier this year rightly captured public attention. As Emily wrote in August, the fires are just the most visible sign of an Amazon under attack by governments, agri-business, extractive industries and colonization. The rate of loss in the Amazon is staggering. In 2019, an area of rainforest the size of Delaware was cleared from Brazil alone. Indigenous leaders, like Paulo Paulino Guajajara, are targeted and murdered for resisting these threats. And yet, not all hope is lost.
This year, after four years of supporting a mapping initiative with the Waorani people, alongside partners Alianza Ceibo & Amazon Frontlines, we were thrilled to see them win a major & decisive victory. They sued the government for trying to sell oil concessions on their land, and they won! In a decision now affirmed by the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, the Waorani protected 1/2 million acres of primary rainforest in their ancestral homeland from oil exploitation.
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Why we need your support
The Waorani victory is a reminder of how critical it is to center & follow the leadership of frontline communities working to defend the planet. Following the Waorani legal case, our Kofan partners' success in defeating gold mining in their territory, and piloting our tool Mapeo in other communities in Peru & Colombia, more and more indigenous communities around the world are asking Digital Democracy to support their work. From the Guajajara and Karipuna in Brazil to indigenous communities in Southeast Asia & Sub-Saharan Africa, we're getting requests for support & features, and being told "Mapeo is a tool the world needs."
The communities who want to use Mapeo are putting their lives on the line to defend their forests, rivers and mountains from resource extraction. We've made a commitment to get them the tools that they need to win. But we can't do it alone. As we enter 2020 with a vision to meet the call of new partners, we're asking you, our community of supporters, to donate to our work. This year, our largest source of institutional support folded as a foundation. As we work to meet that deficit, we are asking for donations, volunteer contributions, and fundraising support.
Can you contribute to our code, help us translate Mapeo into new languages or host a fundraiser for us? Will you donate today? Every donation will go to ensure we can support our local partners request in the new year. We are grateful for your support.
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Additional News from Dd & Partners
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