The GATC's mission is to be a single voice to fight for the collective rights of our peoples and communities, for the legal recognition of our territories, for protecting Mother Earth and all human beings, and to combat the causes of climate change. In parallel, we increase the capacities of our member organizations to better protect our territories and ensure the full exercise of our cultures and livelihoods.
Indigenous Peoples
People whose ancestors inhabited a place or a country when persons from another culture or ethnic background arrived on the scene and dominated them through conquest, settlement, or other means and who today live more in conformity with their own social, economic, and cultural customs and traditions than those of the country of which they now form a part.
Source: Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, UNHCHR, 1991.