Deep inside the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, Native women are rising up, more than 3,000 miles south of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Standing Rock protesters are heading to the US capital for four days of demonstrations against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline and to raise awareness of other issues affecting Native Americans.

According to a new study, published this Thursday in the journal Science, many of the forests, gardens, and landscapes of the Amazon in South America were shaped by human hand, as ancient indigenous populations that lived in the zone affected considerably what the nature looks like.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis insisted Wednesday that indigenous groups must give prior consent to any economic activity affecting their ancestral lands, a view that conflicts with the Trump administration, which is pushing to build a $3.8 billion oil pipeline over opposition from American Indians.

Sevilla has been assassinated by armed gunmen in his home in Montaña de la Flor, north of the capital. Santos Sevilla was the leader of the indigenous Tolupan people, who are fighting to protect their ancestral lands from industrial mining and logging projects.