Francis is the first pope to come to the Amazon region, and he insisted that his first event and major speech of his visit to Peru should be to this place.

The Uluru Statement proposed a constitutionally embedded, national Indigenous body (“the voice”) that would advise parliament on matters relating to Indigenous peoples.

In 2010, Canada endorsed the declaration as “aspirational” without beginning a process for its practical implementation.

Approximately 5,000 indigenous Tzotzil Mayans have been scattered in small refugee camps in the area surrounding the town of Chalchihuitán, in Mexico’s southernmost state of Chiapas. They say they were chased out of their homes by unknown gunmen after the escalation of an old land dispute.

An estimated 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed into residential schools. The residential schools were funded by the government of Canada and run by various church groups, including the Catholic Church. 

The Ktunaxa First Nation says their way of life is threatened by commercial development in Qat’muk, a mountain region in British Columbia inhabited by the Grizzly Bear Spirit.