Cultural Survival (founded 1972) is a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, which is dedicated to defending the human rights of indigenous peoples.

Cultural Survival was founded by anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis and his wife, Pia,[1] in response to the opening up of the Amazonian and South American hinterlands during the 1960s, and the drastic effects this had on Indigenous inhabitants.

[2] The Program on Nonviolent Sanctions in Conflict (PNS), a research division of Harvard's Center for International Affairs, was created by Gene Sharp in 1983.

Sharp also founded the independent non-profit Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) a few months later, which became the funding body for the Program.

PONSACS focussed on "nonviolent alternatives for the preservation of all peoples and their cultures", flourishing for ten years before eventually closing in 2005.