The great challenge for the indigenous peoples in the Andean countries: Their natural resources rights

Abstract

I do not try to foresee the future in an abstract way but I analyze in certain detail some current processes which I guess will be more relevant in the incoming decades, My style is more narrative than conceptual. Within this, my two main topics, quite intertwined, are: the intimate relationship of indigenous peoples with some strategic natural resources in their territories and –for this purpose– the relevance of previous, bona fide, free and well informed consultations, as a right already acknowledged in recent internacional documents. This paper is something like a bridge and also a springboard towards the future from my previous book on indigenous movements and power in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru (Albó 2008/2009). At the end I suggest in a telegraphic way other four topics very relevant in the near future.