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These gripping photos show what life is like for 21 indigenous communities around the world

Jack SommerAug 21, 2015, 19:11 IST

REUTERS/Thomas Peter

According to Cultural Survival, an organization that fights for the rights of indigenous communities worldwide, there are approximately 370 million indigenous people belonging to 5,000 different groups across 90 countries.

These communities often have their own language and deep-seeded cultural traditions.

It's when the land they live off is threatened - or worse, destroyed - by mining, oil, dam building, and agro-industrial development that they collide with mainstream society.

This collection of photos from Reuters gives a glimpse of how these people from around the world live.

(Captions by Jack Sommer and Reuters)