For a general understanding, indigenous peoples can be described as the descendants of the earliest inhabitants of a territory, who are now subjected by another, dominant culture. They aspire to determine their own lives and futures on their ancestral territories, based on their own cultural traditions, beliefs and customs as they develop.

An estimated 370 million indigenous people live in some 90 different countries on every continent. They represent more than 4,000 of the nearly 7,000 languages, which are still spoken in the world today. Although indigenous peoples constitute less than 6 percent of the world’s population, they are 15 per cent of the world's poor. Their territories cover about 20 percent of the earth surface and largely overlap with the world’s richest areas in terms of biological diversity. Their special connection to their land and their knowledge on their natural environment plays an important role in the protection of this biological diversity and important ecosystems.

Well-known indigenous peoples are the Aborigines in Australia (which is not a homogeneous group but a variety of indigenous peoples with almost 200 different languages), the Maya in Guatemala, Mexico and Belize, the Inuit in the Arctic region and the Tuareg in Northern Africa.

Indigenous peoples have continued to experience loss of access to lands, territories and natural resources. The result has been that indigenous cultures today are threatened with extinction in many parts of the world. However, indigenous peoples are not always a minority population. In Bolivia and Guatemala more than half of the population is indigenous. But even then, indigenous peoples are often discriminated or excluded by another, dominant group in society.

Please find out more:

• about indigenous peoples
• the definition of indigenous peoples
• the major problems indigenous peoples face
• their struggle for recognition of their rights
• discover indigenous peoples' organizations (IPOs) or other organizations supporting indigenous peoples in The Netherlands and in other parts of the world.