This thesis aims to study the situation of indigenous peoples in Latin America in political representation, deforestation, and self-determination conflicts. In Chapter I, I test the empowerment hypothesis for the case of the Mapuche in Chile by analyzing how the election of a Mapuche mayor affects the registration of Mapuche voters in future elections. I implement a dynamic panel estimation that controls district effects for five elections. The results show that Mapuche mayors are significantly associated with increased Mapuche participation during the first year of the mayoral period. Chapter II uses a spatial discontinuity design to study how effectively protected areas and indigenous communities are in stopping deforestation in Bolivia. I found that national protected areas are the most effective in stopping deforestation, while indigenous communities and sub-national protected areas are more exposed to deforestation. Also, protected areas and Indigenous communities are more exposed to deforestation when located near cities or sources of economic activity like mines or cattle ranching settlements. Chapter III analyzes how Mapuche protests affect the intergovernmental transfer made by the government to local authorities in Chile. The results show that protests positively and significantly affect per capita transfers. These results are robust to economic shocks and the inclusion of other types of protests. Besides, having a Mapuche mayor substantially increases the number of per-capita transfers, implying that the mayor might leverage their position to get more resources.