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Women Human Rights And Earth Defenders

/Women Human Rights And Earth Defenders

 

18 03, 2024

From Conflict Zones to Climate Frontlines: Zainab Salbi’s Journey of Resilience and Environmental Advocacy

2024-09-16T10:17:57-04:00Tags: |

Transcending the shadow of her family's proximity to Saddam Hussein's regime, Zainab Salbi's trajectory evolves from aiding women in conflict to spearheading climate activism. After overcoming a life-threatening illness, Salbi redirected her energy towards protecting the environment, seeing it as a debt of gratitude to the Earth for her survival. Growing up amidst Iraq's tumult, she witnessed the overlooked role of women in conflict. Founding Women for Women International at just 23, Salbi uplifted countless survivors globally. Now, through Daughters for Earth, she champions women's pivotal role in tackling climate crises, redirecting funds to women-led initiatives worldwide. Rejecting the term "empowerment," Salbi emphasizes the necessity of amplifying women's inherent strength in safeguarding our planet—a testament to her unwavering dedication to transformative action and inclusion.

24 10, 2023

Why Native Women’s Voices Are Crucial to Saving Brazil’s Forests

2024-09-13T15:39:35-04:00Tags: |

Cristiane Julião, an unwavering force from the Pankararu Indigenous group and co-founder of the National Articulation of Ancestral Warriors Women (ANMIGA), boldly confronts the entrenched sexism impeding environmental preservation in Brazil. Recognizing women’s critical role in defending both Indigenous rights and the land itself, Julião galvanized Indigenous women nationwide to form ANMIGA in 2015. At the groundbreaking Indigenous Women’s March in 2019, Julião stood alongside over 2,500 women from 130 Indigenous groups, denouncing rights violations and demanding recognition of their pivotal role in safeguarding cultural heritage and natural resources. As a beacon of advocacy, Julião amplifies Indigenous women's voices on the global stage, confronting institutionalized sexism within agencies like FUNAI, striving to dismantle the antiquated hierarchy that marginalizes women's contributions to land stewardship and sustainable practices. With a profound grasp of the environmental perils faced by Indigenous communities, Julião and her counterparts lead the charge for climate justice, rallying at prestigious forums like COP26. Despite shouldering the primary responsibility for land care and bearing the brunt of the adverse effects of activities like mining and logging on the environment and on the health of the community, women's endeavors are frequently thwarted by insufficient public policy. Julião's advocacy demands the inclusion of Indigenous women in policy-making to ensure practical solutions that safeguard the environment and Indigenous livelihoods. She fervently contends, the liberation of Indigenous women isn't merely crucial for environmental preservation, it's an imperative for the very survival of Indigenous cultures and territories in the face of relentless threats.

27 08, 2023

‘I’m Not The Guilty One’: The Water Protector Facing Jail Time for Trying to Stop a Pipeline

2024-09-16T11:17:16-04:00Tags: |

Mylene Vialard, a 54-year-old climate activist, faces up to five years in prison as she goes on trial for protesting against the expansion of Line 3, a tar sands oil pipeline cutting through Indigenous lands in northern Minnesota. Despite the pipeline's alarming environmental risks and its track record of spills, Vialard's peaceful demonstration led to felony charges of trespassing on critical infrastructure and obstruction of justice. Her refusal to accept a plea deal reflects her determination to challenge the injustice she sees. However, her arrest is not isolated, with over 1,000 arrests made in similar protests, supported by payments of at least $8.6 million from the pipeline company, Enbridge to Minnesota Law Enforcement and other security agencies. This mass criminalization, part of a wider trend of suppressing legitimate environmental protests, signifies a concerning erosion of civil liberties and underscores the urgent need for climate activism. Against this backdrop, Vialard's trial emerges as a pivotal moment in the broader struggle for environmental justice, shedding light on the complex interplay between state power, corporate influence, and grassroots resistance.

16 06, 2023

Vietnam Imprisons Leading Climate Activist on False Charges

2024-09-16T11:04:28-04:00Tags: |

Land defenders worldwide, often women, face unjust persecution by governments preferring to exploit the land they safeguard. In Vietnam, Hoang Thi Minh, a prominent climate activist, faces imprisonment on fabricated tax evasion charges, emblematic of a broader crackdown on environmental advocacy. Despite international outcry, Hoang remains in custody, held incommunicado after her colleagues' arrests. This arrest underscores Vietnam's disregard for human rights and civil society involvement in its energy transition, despite being one of the most climate-vulnerable nations. The UN expressed deep concern over arbitrary arrests of activists like Hoang, recognized internationally for her work in climate justice. Hoang's dedication to environmental preservation led to her selection as a 2018 Obama Foundation Scholar and acknowledgment as one of the 50 most influential Vietnamese women. Her story highlights the ongoing struggle for environmental protection and human rights.

15 06, 2023

How Environmental Conflicts Hurt — and Motivate — Women Activists

2024-09-16T10:50:06-04:00Tags: |

Sandra Liliana Pena, a Colombian human rights defender from the Nasa and Paez Indigenous groups, rose to prominence as the governor of a reserve in the Cauca community. She vehemently protested against illegal crops encroaching on Nasa land. In April 2021, Pena was brutally assassinated, adding to the alarming tally of violence against women environmental defenders (WEDs). Research unveils a grim reality: in a study among 523 documented cases, 81 WEDs were assassinated, often by state actors, criminal groups, or vested interests. These women defy societal norms, challenging patriarchal expectations, and face violence due to their activism. Yet, their plight extends beyond murder to displacement, repression, and criminalization. Despite underreporting, these cases demand urgent attention. Families struggle for justice, underscoring the need for better protection, contingent upon meaningful participation from vulnerable groups. While Indigenous and low-income women, disproportionately affected by environmental conflicts, confront paramilitaries, traffickers, and corporations, they are sidelined in negotiations despite bearing the brunt of ecocide. Colombia's high femicide rate exacerbates this crisis, with Indigenous and Black women particularly vulnerable. Engaging human rights defenders, especially Indigenous women and children, is paramount. World leaders must commit to implementing safeguards to ensure their safety and uphold environmental justice.

24 04, 2023

The Senior Women Fighting For a Livable Planet

2024-02-20T10:23:42-05:00Tags: |

A group in Switzerland called, Klimaseniorinnen, which translates to the 'Senior Women for Climate Protection' association has taken the battle against climate change to the European Court of Human Rights. Led by retired women, they demand a judicial review of climate policies, asserting that inadequate action violates fundamental human rights. Their legal challenge underscores the Swiss Government's failure to safeguard the population from dire consequences, revealing the disproportionate impact of climate crises on vulnerable groups, especially women and the elderly. This marks the first time such a complaint about the violation of human rights due to climate negligence is being heard at the highest court level. Notably, a ruling in their favor could set a precedent across all 46 Council of Europe member states, empowering citizens to hold their governments accountable for climate inaction. Championed by over 2,000 members with an average age of 73, Klimaseniorinnen's fight has garnered support from environmental organizations like Greenpeace Switzerland and Client Earth. For these women, having their case heard at this level is a remarkable milestone, considering their upbringing occurred at a time when women in Switzerland lacked voting rights. They are determined to make the most of the available legal avenues in their pursuit of climate justice. Photo Credits: Kathrin Grissemann

4 03, 2023

Northern Express Fascinating People Of 2023

2023-07-30T12:46:21-04:00Tags: |

This article highlights twenty of the most fascinating individuals from Northern Michigan, two of which are Indigenous women. The first of these women, Jannan Cornstalk -- who is the founder of the Water is Life Festival of Mackinaw City, a member of the Indigenous Women’s Treaty Alliance, and a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians -- devotes herself to water rights activism. In 2018, she brought back the aforementioned festival, which engages local communities and centers the celebration of and connections with water. Cornstalk seeks to inspire the community to protect the Great Lakes and other waters through daily choices and lifestyle decisions. The second highlighted Indigenous woman is Joanne Cook, a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB). Cook is presently the GTB’s chief appellate and has also served on Tribal Council and as a tribal court judge. Today, much of her work involves working with victims of crime and on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) project. She has also served on various local nonprofit boards. 

3 08, 2022

Around The World, Women Are Putting Their Lives On The Line To Defend The Climate

2023-04-16T14:53:49-04:00Tags: |

Rachel Cox discusses the dangers that women earth defenders face when they speak up against extractive industries. Since 2015, at least 108 women have been murdered for standing up against environmental destruction in their communities, and countless others have been subject to smear campaigns, harassment, threats, and sexual assault. This gendered violence is an ongoing issue, especially in communities that are near sites of large-scale extractive activity. Cox argues that governments must hold corporations accountable for their actions, and human rights must be prioritized above capital. Photo credit: Global Witness / Thom Pierce

31 05, 2022

A look at violence and conflict over Indigenous lands in nine Latin American countries

2023-11-30T14:33:37-05:00Tags: |

This article interviews twelve Indigenous leaders from nine Latin American countries to discuss the violence and conflict experienced in the region due to land disputes. One leader interviewed, Ruth Alipaz (leader of the San José de Uchupiamonas community of Bolivia), has been pushing against the Chepete-El Bala hydro project. The proposed project would create two reservoirs which would flood around 66,000 hectares of territory, and displace 5,000 or more people, the majority being Indigenous. Ruth shares how she has received threats for her vocal opposition to the project, emphasizing this common shared experience between female Indigenous leaders. About 363 Indigenous activists in Latin America were murdered between 2012 and 2020. Marina Comandulli, who is a campaign officer for Global Witness, shares how Indigenous People make up one third of the global number of murdered environmental activists despite comprising only 4% of the global population. In the face of violence and discrimination from male peers, Indigenous women continue to lead the forefront of land protection, creating organizations like Amazonian Women, a group made up of over one hundred Ecuadorian women who work on land protection and cultural preservation.  Photo Credit: Flor Ruíz

6 05, 2022

“Indigenous People Are Fighting To Protect A Natural Equilibrium”: Q&A With Patricia Gualinga

2023-04-16T16:49:32-04:00Tags: |

Patricia Gualinga, a Kichwa leader in Ecuador and member of Amazonian Women (Mujeres Amazónicas), shares her experiences of fighting back against extractive forces that threaten the Amazon rainforest and its surrounding Indigenous communities. Alongside oil drilling, logging, and hydroelectric projects, both formal and illegal mining have become an increasing threat over recent years. Under the guise of “for the good of the country,” the Ecuadorian government continues to prioritize the economy in lieu of the rights of Indigenous peoples. Gualinga clarifies that there is no such thing as a “middle ground” or opportunity for compromise with the extractive industries that Ecuador has become so dependent upon. She points to the history of social neglect and continued marginalization of Indigenous groups that have severed the relationship between peoples and the state. Although there has been an international acknowledgment of the fact that Indigenous people are the best protectors and defenders of the natural world, racist rhetoric persists in framing them as “helpless” or without resolve for solutions that are not inherently economically based. Gualinga challenges these colonial bureaucratic frameworks and the emergence of the carbon credit system by illuminating the global scale of the catastrophe that awaits all people. To be an Indigenous leader, especially an Indigenous woman leader, bears many threats in the name of speaking the truth. However, Gualinga and so many alongside her persist as this work is vital and central to protecting territory as all-encompassing of the ancestry and future of Indigenous peoples. Photo Credit: Jonathan Rosas  

22 04, 2022

Helena Gualinga Is Preserving The Land And Teachings Of The Ecuadorian Amazon

2023-03-05T23:33:01-05:00Tags: |

Helena Gualinga, Native Ecuadorian environmental justice activist and land defender, considers herself a “spokesperson” for the Amazon and uses her voice to speak out against extraction, deforestation, and other forms of colonial and capitalist destruction of the land and waters she calls home. Gualinga has grown up amongst a community of land defenders and Amazon protectors, and she has learned from and rallied alongside her Sarayaku elders in the fight for environmental justice and human rights. Recently, she has been a speaker at the United Nations Climate Change Conferences, and in 2021 she co-led a youth climate march of more than 100,000 people. Gualinga and her sister were the first Indigenous women on the cover of Revista Hogar, a popular lifestyle magazine in Ecuador and used this honor as an opportunity to highlight the many Amazonian women who put their lives on the line to protect their territories, lands, and bodies from violence. Gualinga continues to raise awareness and resist colonialism through her activism, talks, and social media activity.

14 01, 2022

Selina Leem, 18 year old from Marshall Islands, speaks at final COP21 plenary

2022-05-14T15:58:09-04:00Tags: |

Selina Leem, an 18-year-old woman from the Marshall Islands, gives a captivating speech about the impacts of climate change on her native coastal lands during the closing ceremony of the COP21 climate change talks in Paris in 2015. This young leader shares the symbolism of the coconut leaf in the tradition of her ancestors and how she hopes to be able to pass this down to her children and grandchildren in the future. Leem calls for this to be a global turning point where leaders take responsibility for climate change and strive to create a sustainable world. Video credit: 350.org

14 01, 2022

Kinkri Devi: An Inimitable Voice In Environmental Activism

2023-04-16T14:47:12-04:00Tags: |

Shawrina Salam highlights the courageous resistance of late Dalit Indian activist and environmentalist Kinkri Devi, who dedicated her life to fighting the extractive industries that devastated the land, water, and forests in her hometown. After witnessing the immense destruction that limestone quarrying inflicted on the local landscape, Devi began a campaign to raise awareness to the issue. In 1987, she filed a public interest lawsuit against 48 mining owners and won, successfully restricting the mining operations that had caused so much harm to the environment. By 1995, she was well-renowned across the globe, and she was invited to attend the International Women’s Conference in Beijing. She received the Jhansi Ki Rani Lakshmi Bai Stree Shakti Puraskar in 1999 and continued raising awareness as an environmental activist until her death in 2007. Photo credit: Flickr  

14 12, 2021

10 Female Photojournalists With Their Lenses On Social Justice

2023-02-02T16:25:25-05:00Tags: |

Ten global female photojournalists are introduced for their courageous storytelling and social justice advocacy. Featured women include Lynsey Addario documenting global conflicts, Camille Lepage who covered Central Africa prior to being killed while on duty, Heather Agyepong engaging her subjects as participants in Ghana, and Ruth Prieto Arenas documenting the experiences of immigrant women. Homai Vyarawalla is honored as India’s first female photojournalist in the 1930s. In addition, Glenna Gordon is featured for building communities of trust with her work in Africa, and Arati Kumar-Rao for her environmental photography in South Asia. Final featured photojournalists include Lisa Krantz documenting women’s experiences of sexual assault in the military, Stephanie Sinclair portraying issues of child marriage and girls’ rights, and Malin Fezehai capturing stories of displacement from around the world. The influential work of these women documenting experiences on the margins of society is often met with intense risk. Photo credit: Arati Kumar-Rao

1 12, 2021

Lax Kw’alaams Woman Crashes Trudeau LNG Press Conference

2021-12-13T21:13:22-05:00Tags: |

Prime Minister Trudeau’s administration held a press conference in which Premier Christy Clark announced the approval of the Pacific Northwest Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project. Premier Clark was praising the project for promoting clean energy and being of low cost when Christine Smith-Martin, of the Lax Kw’alaams, interrupted the conference to ask a very pressing question: “what about our salmon?” Smith-Martin then elaborated, saying that the environmental impact of the project was not being addressed by conference speakers, nor had indigenous communities been consulted in a meaningful way prior to the decision. Minister Catherine Mckenna, in turn, said that the impact on salmon has been assessed and there should not be significant effects. Smith-Martin was not convinced, and she insisted this project must be opposed. Salmon is vital to indigenous communities, and it must be treated as such. Video credit: Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition

5 11, 2021

Female Equality Is Key to A Sustainable Future

2022-05-14T16:44:54-04:00Tags: |

Since women across Asia and Africa are often responsible for supplying their households with water, food and fuel, the path towards a sustainable world requires, in part, full gender equality. But the effects of climate change, in conjunction with natural disasters, make women’s lives that much harder. For instance, when Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, a result was the increased sexual exploitation of women and girls. After Hurricane Katrina struck the United States, violence against women increased by a factor of four in Mississippi and remained high years later. Women are however continuing to pursue the ideal of a sustainable world. In Kenya, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai initiated a massive tree-planting effort that became known as the Greenbelt Movement. More than 5,000 village women in Andra Pradesh, working with the Deccan Development Society, transitioned to organic farming, greatly reducing the carbon impact of agriculture. It is clear that empowering women is key to tackling climate change. Photo credit: Adam Jones

13 09, 2021

Stop Ignoring Mothering As Work

2023-02-02T16:26:11-05:00Tags: |

Writer Kimberly Seals Allers believes a major part of feminism is celebrating women as a whole, with mothering as a central and unique role that should be highly valued in society. Allers explores the alarming gender inequities ingrained in social and financial systems in the United States based on the undervaluation of maternal work alongside secular work which impacts women at all levels. She advocates for women to be honored and supported across society for their specific contributions as mothers, nurturers, educators, and other roles that extend far beyond the patriarchal confines of the ability to compete with men in professional roles. Photo credit: 10’000 Hours/Getting Images

6 07, 2021

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Will Be The Leading Democrat On Climate Change

2021-07-06T18:27:01-04:00Tags: |

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, recently defeating 10-year incumbent, Joe Crowley, in the Democratic Party’s primary elections, has put forth an ambitious proposal to address climate change. The objective of her plan is to transition the United States economy into one that runs on 100% renewable energy by 2035. As a means to that end, Ocasio-Cortez is advocating for a “Green New Deal,” echoing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal program. As part of this program, the U.S. government would be required to invest heavily in the development, deployment and distribution of green energy. Particularly, since Puerto Rico is still struggling to regain reliable electricity after a deadly hurricane in 2017, the new policy could be tested there, says Ocasio-Cortez. Photo credit: Xavier Garcia/Bloomberg via Getty Images

6 07, 2021

When Women Lead: Women’s Environmental Voting Records

2021-07-06T17:48:06-04:00Tags: |

Since 1972 to present day, women in Congress have more often supported environmental protection legislation as compared to their male counterparts. This includes legislation to provide clean air and clean water as well as legislation promoting conservation for future generations. Conversely, women in Congress have also voted more often against legislation that would undo those protections. This trend holds for both political parties, Democratic and Republican, and it also holds for both chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Thus, the track record of women in Congress is a promising one. Still, women are significantly underrepresented in the legislature and so rectifying this situation is necessary. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

13 04, 2021

CASA Y GAGGA – Agua, Derechos E Igualdad

2021-04-13T17:49:14-04:00Tags: |

Though South America has many water sources, many communities in the region go without sufficient clean drinking water. Lack of water puts a serious strain on women’s lives as well as their ability to farm. This is particularly true of Bolivian women living in the Chaco area, a region that is dry for many months of the year. During the dry period, communities rely on the muddy water that remains in the bed of the Rio Grande. Purifying the water with a local plant helps but it yields a product that is far from potable. The CASA Socioenvironmental Fund is an organization that runs many projects across South America with the objective of empowering local women so they can better serve their community and further environmental justice. The projects include water storage tanks for specific regions, developing farmers associations, and supporting indigenous female leaders. Video Credit: Fundo Casa Socioambiental. Caption: Video is in Spanish, but English subtitles are available.

13 04, 2021

No Woman No Water: Empowering Women To Be Water And Sanitation Decision-Makers

2021-04-13T17:45:00-04:00Tags: |

Women are responsible for carrying water home, storing it, and managing household supplies but are still ignored when it comes to important water management decisions. Incorporating women’s voices into water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues empowers the women themselves while simultaneously leading to better results. For instance, including women in the movement to curtail open defecation in rural Bangladesh led to success because the specific needs and desires of the women were then met. Specifically, because of this input, the toilets that were to be placed in rural communities were designed with gender specific needs in mind as well as placed in locations amenable to local women. Photo Credit: Dilip Banerjee

13 04, 2021

Women Environmental Defenders Condemn Systemic Abuses Before The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

2021-04-13T17:33:31-04:00Tags: |

This Earth Rights International (ERI) media release summarises the submission of a delegation of women environmental defenders from the Americas who testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The delegation condemned widespread and unjust criminalisation and repression against defenders of rights of land, territories, and environmental protection. The testimonies presented in this thematic hearing, which denounced instances of exceptional cases of attacks against environmental defenders, was led by Columbian human rights lawyer Julian Bravo Valencia, ERI’s Amazon Program Coordinator. Several women testified, including two women from Acción Ecológica, Esperanza Martinez Yanez and Ivonne Ramos, whose experiences highlight the sexism disproportionately affecting women defenders in the Americas. At a time when the interests of corporations and their impunity in committing rights violations is rife, the hearing aimed to produce a report which presents extreme examples of human rights abuses in Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil and the United States. Photo Credit: Earth Rights International

13 04, 2021

Women Speak Out Against Criminalization Of Land Defenders, Water Protectors

2021-04-13T17:28:07-04:00Tags: |

This article highlights the issue of unjust criminalisation and disproportionate state violence against indigenous women water and land protectors. While indigenous people constitute about 4% of Canada’s population, they represent 27% of the incarcerated population in 2018. According to the Canada’s Correctional Investigator Indigenous, women constituted 37% of all women behind bars and 50% of all maximum security inmates in 2017. Mi’kmaw lawyer and academic Pam Palmater evokes the targeting and criminalisation of Indigenous women by Canadian state authorities as historically rooted in a colonising strategy, since they bear children who will carry on the culture and language of their nations. Pamela says that indigenous women’s perseverance and leadership should not be lost in the conversation and concludes that ‘even though Indigenous women have always been targeted, both in the law directly and indirectly, they continue to stand up for the land and for their children despite knowing what’s coming’. Photo Credit: Amber Bernard/APTN

10 03, 2021

Women Run The Climate World. Just Ask Elizabeth Yeampierre.

2023-04-16T14:36:23-04:00Tags: |

In this interview, Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of Uprose — an organization that promotes a just transition and community development in Brooklyn, New York— discusses women’s leadership in the climate justice movement. Yeampierre describes patriarchal models of leadership as outdated and unproductive in the climate justice space. She explains that within the movement, generations of women have come together to create a new model for collective leadership in which all voices matter and all participants are leaderful. Yeampierre considers climate justice a way of keeping with the traditions of her ancestors who stewarded the land and protected the earth before her. She is dedicated to creating more just and sustainable systems that will protect the earth and frontline communities through the power of a diverse, intergenerational climate justice movement. Photo credit: Photograph by Pete Voelker

20 11, 2020

Portraying Women Leadership in Water Cooperation

2020-11-20T17:59:52-05:00Tags: |

Women For Water has compiled the audio- visuals of eight women who are conserving the water all over the world. These women Nomvula Mokonyane, Svitlana Slesarenok, Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, Rose Makunzo Mwangi, Ethne Davey, Dr. Deepthi Wickramasinghe, Patricia Wouters and Salamatu Garba. They have been bringing the best practices of women empowerment in water and sanitation projects and effective water governance at all levels.

20 11, 2020

Jilian Hishaw Wants To Help Black Farmers Stay On Their Land

2020-11-20T17:54:00-05:00Tags: |

Jilian Hishaw’s organisation, Family Agriculture and Resource Management Services (FARMS) is advocating for black farmer rights not only for today, but also for future generations. With only 2% of the country’s farm population consisting of black farmers, the services this organisation provides aids vulnerable farmers who often face discrimination by the USDA and who lose land at a rate of 30,000 acres per year. These services are available for all farmers from historically disadvantaged group in South Eastern states in the United States and their legal and technical assistance, including grant application help, fundraisers, agricultural law and foreclosure help, aid in retaining ownership of their land. Furthermore, the FARMS to Food Bank program aims to support farmers in selling surplus produce and meat at a reduced price to the food banks in their communities, thus also contributing to food insecurity solutions in these areas. Photo credit: Jilian Hishaw

23 10, 2020

Bija Devi : Navdanya’s Seed Keeper of 16 Years At The Biodiversity Conservation Farm

2020-10-23T22:52:30-04:00Tags: |

In an effort to push back against large agriculture corporations and establish seed sovereignty among local communities, renowned scientist Dr. Vandana Shiva and farmer Bija Devi collect seeds and run education programs at the Navdanya Biodiversity Farm in Uttarakhand, India. Bija has collected over 1500 varieties of seeds and details her seed collecting methods and practices throughout the video. Dr. Shiva argues that as the keepers of life, women need to be collecting seeds and leading the fight for food sovereignty. In critiquing capitalist corporations she explains there are only two options for the future: a woman-led “living” future or a corporation-led “toxic” future. Photo Credit: Seed Freedom

24 08, 2020

Women Are More At Risk Due To The Pandemic And Climate Crisis. These Feminists Are Working To Change That.

2020-09-24T19:33:05-04:00Tags: |

Women activists around the world are standing up. To challenge the ways in which the global pandemic and climate change exacerbate inequalities, five young women share their stories about the intersections of environmental and social justice. Journey with Betty Barkha (Fiji), Meera Ghani (Pakistan), Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim (Chad), Maggie H. Mapondera (Zimbabwe), and Majandra Rodriguez Acha (Peru) to learn about their work and the ways that they are engaging in their local communities.

13 08, 2020

The Women Battling Wildfires And Breaking Barriers In The American Wilderness

2020-09-09T19:33:02-04:00Tags: |

Hannah Gross is one of 10,000 female wild land firefighters in the United States. In this historically male-dominated field women often face implicit bias, sexism, and gatekeepers who didn’t make them welcome.  Various initiatives have been created to increase the number of women in fire, foster their leadership capabilities, and improve their operational confidence in the field. Thanks to some of these initiatives women are  present in every facet of the wildland fire world. Photo Credit: Alex Potter

10 07, 2020

Water Protectors Celebrate As Dakota Access Pipeline Ordered To Shut Down

2020-10-10T19:55:28-04:00Tags: |

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an elder of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and founder of Sacred Stone Camp and Tara Houska, Ojibwe lawyer and founder of the Giniw Collective are interviewed by reporter Amy Goodman after the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is ordered to shut down by August 5, 2020. LaDonna Brave Bull Allard has opened her home in North Dakota to supporters from the beginning of the resistance in order to protect sacred sites, water sources, and the health of her community members. She has joined forces with Indigenous leaders and water protectors from around the world, many of whom have faced similar harms from extractive industry. Tara Houska asserts that the shutdown of this massive pipeline sends a critical message to the fossil fuel industry that these dangerous projects will not be tolerated and that a regenerative green economy is non-negotiable. Photo credit: Democracy Now! (video screenshot)

4 07, 2020

Climate Justice In The Time Of COVID-19: 5 Lessons From Women And Girls Leading The Fight

2020-09-08T22:13:16-04:00Tags: |

During the World Skull Forum, an intergenerational and intercultural panel of women climate activists hosted a webinar on the lessons we can learn during the COVID-19 crisis in order to pave the way for a green recovery and a just transition. Notwithstanding its drastic negative impacts, the current pandemic has also proven the capability of the global community for changing behaviour quickly and profoundly in the face of a serious crisis. Therefore, the panelists urged for the climate crisis to be taken just as seriously, underlining the importance of science and traditional knowledge, human behaviour and collaboration. Photo Credit: Skoll Foundation & Rockefeller Foundation

3 05, 2020

Fierce Life: Maria do Socorro Silva

2023-01-25T11:40:52-05:00Tags: |

Maria do Socorro Silva is a descendant of enslaved Africans, and an Indigenous woman of the Amazon forest, in the region of Barcarena. Like her ancestors, Maria has resisted and rebelled against colonial, capitalist forces, who see the land and women’s bodies as property for the taking. Norst Hyrdo is a Norwegian company that extracts raw materials from Barcarena. High levels of aluminum, iron, copper, arsenic, mercury and lead have been found in the Murucupi River in Barcarena, contaminating the river that Indigenous communities depend on, leading to illness and death. Maria, herself fighting cancer caused by the contamination, also fights by sharing her story to young climate activists, explaining to them the connection between the health of Indigenous Peoples to the health of the environment. Like her ancestors, Maria resists and fights for the next generation. Photo credit: Liliana Merizalde/Atmos

24 04, 2020

Meet Isabel Wisum

2020-04-24T15:51:56-04:00Tags: |

Isabel Wisum became the first woman to be elected Vice President of Achuar Nation of Ecuador (NAE) in 2016, and the first woman to have a leadership position in that community. She has supported the maternal and neonatal health of other women in the Amazon rainforest, empowering generations of women as rainforest guardians. A trained community health promoter, her leadership inspires other women of NAE to participate in the local decision-making process, helping to build resilience for her culture, land and people. Photo Credits: Pachamama

21 04, 2020

Advice From Activists: How COVID-19 Is Changing Climate Activism For Young Women

2020-09-24T19:24:02-04:00Tags: |

Young women and girls from the frontlines of climate change are taking climate action into their own hands amidst a global pandemic. Eight-year-old Licypriya Devi Kangujam, from New Delhi, India, founded The Child Movement and stands for climate action and legislative environmental protection in India. Alexandria Villaseñor and Leah Namugerwa are leaders with Fridays for Future, where they participate in the global School Strike 4 Climate. While sheltering at home, Villaseñor encourages that we should be consuming less and promoting a sharing economy. These young women and girl activists suggest how we can all be part of the climate movement and understand its links to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo credit: Alexandria Villaseñor

13 03, 2020

In Fiji, Lesbian Feminist Activist Noelene Nabulivou Strives For World ‘Liberated And Free’

2020-10-23T22:35:24-04:00Tags: |

Diverse Voices and Action for Equality (DIVA) was co-founded by Noelene Nabulivou with the aim to create an all inclusive peer support group of LGBT+ individuals and marginalized women in Fiji. The group gives a voice to all individuals who are victims to the widespread patriarchal power structures and homophobic attitudes in Fiji. Their work mainly focuses on activism, advocacy, policy and feminist knowledge sharing that targets all communities, but prioritises informal settlements, and women from rural and remote areas.  DIVA For Equality strongly advocates across genders and intersectional fields by tackling the interlink of LGBT+ and women rights with economic, ecological and climate justice. Having worked alongside regional and international organizations, DIVA for Equality aims to be an all inclusive voice in the global climate debate. Notably, the group initiated the regional coalition of ‘Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change and Sustainable Development’, which now has more than 50 island nations involved. Photo Credit: Reuters 

15 11, 2019

A Force Of Nature: Protecting Mongolia’s Elusive Snow Leopards

2020-11-20T17:44:50-05:00Tags: |

Bayarjargal Agvaantseren is a Mongolian activist and conservationist who has created the first snow leopard sanctuary in the world. Raised by a family of teachers, she grew up in northern Mongolia with her own educational path shifting toward conservation as she engaged with rural herders who wanted to protect their livestock from the leopards. Her tireless efforts led to her starting the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation with a focus on community-driven programs that protect both the herders’ livestock as well as the snow leopard population.  Agvaantseren has also held the Mongolian government accountable by successfully pressuring them to cancel 37 mining licenses of companies who have played a major role in threatening the habitat of the native snow leopard. The Tost Tosonbumba nature reserve in the south Gobi Desert encompasses 1.8 million acres that now protect the snow leopard population and is primarily managed by local communities. Photo credit: Positive.News

2 08, 2019

From The Archive: The Local’s First Interview With Greta Thunberg

2020-12-02T21:54:27-05:00Tags: |

In this article first published in the Local (Swedish) newspaper, Greta Thunberg describes herself as a climate radical. At 15 years old, she decided to make a stand for climate change by protesting outside Sweden’s Parliament every day so politicians would take climate issues seriously. The choice of location ensured the protest would attract attention from tourists and professionals passing by; such as being approached by Minister for Social Affairs Annika Strandhäll. Greta chose to raise awareness about climate change and counteract the lack of youth voting power by refusing to attend school, which is obligatory until the age of 16. Involved in environmental issues since she was 11, Greta started organising herself to do something about the worrying effects of climate change. By the 5th day of protest, she was joined by 35 people sitting outside parliament, including Fatemeh Khavari, spokesman for the young Afghans against Swedish deportations policy. Photo Credit: Catherine Edwards/The Local

16 05, 2019

These Five Black LGBTQ+ Activists Are Literally Saving The Planet

2020-11-07T17:58:13-05:00Tags: |

Explore what the environmental justice movement looks like led by those most impacted. Meet 5 Black LGBTQ+ community organizers and activists Asha Carter (she/her), Dominique Hazzard (she/her), Dean Jackson (they/them), Jeaninne Kayembe (she/her,they/them), and  Rachel Stevens (she/her,they/them). Follow their stories of activism to learn how creative and impactful movements within their communities have responded to healing environmental racism. Photo Credit: Asha Carter

8 05, 2019

Teen Girls Are The Best At Convincing Parents That Climate Change Is Real, Study Finds United States

2023-04-16T15:04:41-04:00Tags: |

In this article, Anne Gaviola details the findings of a 2019 study, which revealed teen girls most effectively express the urgency of the climate crisis to their parents, even when compared to adult experts and journalists parents see in the media. The North Carolina State University study focused on 238 American youths (ages 10-14) and their parents to measure parents’ level of concern about climate change to see who was most influenced by which informants. The study showed that the people who had initially been the least concerned about climate change — conservatives and fathers — were the most impacted by the conversations they had with their children about the issue. Young girls were shown to be the most effective and persuasive communicators in this age group. Gaviola notes that this is positive news for the young women and youth who are climate activists; their voices have the potential to make a large impact. Photo credit: Stephanie Zollshan (The Berkshire Eagle/Ap)

28 04, 2019

The Amazon is a Woman

2023-01-25T12:23:37-05:00Tags: |

In Brazil, Indigenous women are fighting against the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest in more ways than one. To protect the Amazon, women are on the frontlines of marches, publicly sharing their stories, leading public meetings, physically preventing access to the forest, relearning their language and culture, teaching children how to resist and act collectively, filing lawsuits against foreign companies exploiting the Amazon, and cultivating alliances with young European activists to jointly protect the Amazon. This does not go without risk. These women withstand threats to and attempts on their lives. These Amazonian women persist because the survival of the Earth and future generations depend upon it. Photo credit: Liliana Merizalde/Atmos

27 04, 2019

How The Tree-Hugging Movement Got Started In A Small Indian Village

2021-01-27T20:32:06-05:00Tags: |

  On March 26, 1973, a young girl spotted loggers heading towards Gopeshwar forest near the small village of Reni, in Uttarakhand. The village advisor, Gaura Devi, recruited 300 village women to hug trees in the forest and physically prevent their deforestation. As large corporations attempted to log near other rural villages, the local women hugged the trees, drawing inspiration from the events at Reni. The movement soon earned the title of the “Chipko andolan,” meaning the “stick-to movement.” Finding its roots in the 1730 Indian tree revolt, and using guiding principles from the Gandhian philosophy of self-sufficiency and self-sustenance, the woman-led Chipko Movement serves as a precursor for modern environmentalism. Photo Credit: Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times via Getty

13 04, 2019

A Queer, Female Entrepreneur Is Taking Back Turmeric For Indian Farmers

2020-10-23T23:02:04-04:00Tags: |

Sana Javeri Kadri, a queer immigrant woman of colour, is challenging colonial trade practices with her Oakland-based company, Diaspora Co. Her company aims to support sustainable agricultural practices within the turmeric industry, provide fair compensation to Indian farmers (above ten times the market price), and empower marginalized communities. Diaspora Co. sources their turmeric from Kasaraneni Prabhu, a fourth-generation turmeric farmer working in Southeast India who uses traditional pest control methods involving companion crops. Javeri Kadri also hires queer, especially those of colour, whenever possible aiming to be radically inclusive in order to counter the social injustices and inequities prevalent in the food industry. Photo credit: Elazar Sontag

4 04, 2019

How A Female Fast Food Worker Became An Activist

2020-11-20T17:32:47-05:00Tags: |

Shantel Walker is a manager within the fast food industry and an organizer for proper living wages in NYC. After working over two decades at Papa John’s Pizza where Walker was paid a minimum wage of $7.50, Walker started working with organizations such as the Fight for $15, and Fast Food Forward campaigns to champion the 3.7 million Americans working in Fast Food. Walkers advocacy also addresses the disparities in healthcare coverage, workplace and scheduling policies. Photo Credit: Alex Swerdloff

12 03, 2019

The Untold Story Of Women In The Zapatistas

2019-04-13T16:02:00-04:00Tags: |

Victoria Law is a journalist who spent 6 years with the Zapatista movement in Southern Mexico and published Compañeras: Zapatista Women’s Stories. She gives an overview of the Zapatistas, the influence women have in the movement and the impact the movement has had on their lives. The Zapatistas began organizing in the 80s and declared war on the state of Mexico in 1994, on the exact day the NATO the free trade agreement began.  Since then the movement is renowned for the peaceful protests, indigenous organization, and their autonomy. Women have played a key role in the Zapatista communities accomplishing a drastic reduction of violence against women, the prohibition of alcohol (connected to abuse), the freedom to participate and lead in politics, and autonomy over their lives. Victoria sheds light to many things that can be learned from the organization of the Zapatistas and the key role that women continue to play in their liberation and in the liberation of their people. Photo Credit: Mr. Thelkan

8 03, 2019

Women, Indigeneity And Earth Protection

2023-04-16T15:26:05-04:00Tags: |

Women are fighting to make their resistant efforts against extractive industries more visible to demonstrate an alternative way of living that is desperately needed. Lynda Sullivan highlights the stories of women who are leading resistant efforts in their local communities to protect Mother Earth against extractive industries. In sharing these women’s stories, Sullivan illustrates the connection between violence against women and Mother Earth, where there is a clear intersection between suppressing feminine power and objectifying the sacred and creative core of the feminine. Through her writing, Sullivan fights against these extractive industries through the power of storytelling.

3 03, 2019

For Women In Solar Energy, Progress And A Ways To Go

2020-10-07T00:39:34-04:00Tags: |

When Kristen Nicole, founder of Women in Solar Energy, penned an open letter calling out the hyper-masculine and ‘booth babe’ culture that portrayed women as sex objects, it sparked a revolution within the industry to start examining their women-specific policies and initiatives. The solar conference culture perpetuates objectification with abhorrent displays such as women in cages dressed in leather cat outfits. However, numerous programs aimed at addressing gender diversity and increasing women’s participation in the field have grown in response. SEIA’s Women Empowerment Initiative as well as Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy campaigns have contributed to the shift in the awareness around the need for diversity. Whilst more female workers make up the solar industry today, and there are more women speakers at conferences, there are still shortcomings in that women continue to earn less than men and face barriers in climbing up the career ladder. Women of colour are also disproportionately affected, and Erica Mackie, co-founder and CEO of GRID Alternatives, calls for the solar industry to not just be energy-centred but also justice-focussed, and to recognise the intersection between race and gender inequities. GRID’s Women in Solar Program aids women from diverse backgrounds and their She Shines retreat is aimed as a training and team-building exercise for women in the industry. Photo credit: Stefano Paltera, US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon

28 02, 2019

Osprey Orielle Lake: Women Rising For The Earth

2020-04-24T16:36:50-04:00Tags: |

In this article, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) executive director Osprey Orielle Lake reflects on the broad and interwoven relationship between women and climate change. Citing activists such as Phyllis Young and Dr. Vandana Shiva, Lake connects the experience of each activist to global climate justice trends and movements. Lake also discusses the climate crisis as it is linked to systems of oppression and patterns of abuse against women and nature. While they are among the most vulnerable populations affected by climate chaos, women also offer the most hope for the future. Photo Credit: Emily Arasim/WECAN

5 02, 2019

Emily Satterwhite of Appalachians Against the Pipelines

2019-04-13T15:55:11-04:00Tags: |

Emily Satterwhite detained the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for 14 hours by chaining herself to a backhoe. She is an active part of Appalachians Against Pipelines, defending the mountains and forests in West Virginia. In this interview, she discusses the role of lobbyists, the influence of corporate interest, and the struggle to keep fracking pipelines outside of the state. She refutes many myths regarding pipelines, emphasizing that Dominion Energy and it’s investors are profiting, but there is no benefit for West Virginians.Photo Credit: Thunderdomepolitics.com

20 11, 2018

The White Man Stole The Weather

2020-11-20T17:21:30-05:00Tags: |

In this Mothers of Invention podcast, former Irish president Mary Robinson and New-York-based Irish-born comedian Maeve Higgins focus on money and climate change. This episode specifically addresses climate change as a human rights, justice and climate issue; and highlights the importance of divesting from the carbon economy to invest into renewable energy, the green economy and jobs of the future. Divestment, from fossil fuel, pipelines, oppressive systems etc. is powerful and effective as ‘it speaks to people’s pockets’. The podcast features female activists’ experiences and campaigns from South Africa and the US. Yvette Abrahams is a former apartheid activist and Commission for Gender Equality. May Boeve is an an American environmental activist, organiser and Executive Director of 350.org, a global grassroots climate movement. Tara Houska is a Couchiching First Nation citizen; a tribal rights US attorney, environmental and indigenous rights advocate, and the National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth. Photo Credit: Unknown

18 10, 2018

Why A Farmworker’s Daughter Interrupted Governor Brown At The Global Climate Action Summit

2019-04-13T16:39:10-04:00Tags: |

At the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco California, Niria Alicia stood up and sang out in protest to Governor Jerry Brown’s refusal to take action against oil and gas companies. In this piece, Niria describes why she joined eight other young people in singing the Women’s Warrior Song as an act of resistance at the summit. Niria sites her own identity as an Indigenous woman, and daughter of a farmworker to poignantly explain the consequences of fossil fuel divestment. Photo credit: Niria Alicia

15 10, 2018

The Power of Rural Women To Reduce Global Food Insecurity And Cut Emissions

2020-11-20T17:58:24-05:00Tags: |

Santona Rani, President of the Rajpur Women’s Federation, is working to increase climate and community resilience in her flood-prone area of Tajpur, Lalmonirhat in northern Bangladesh. Climate change is increasing the detrimental effects on crops and productivity. Her organisation is made up of twenty groups that work to assist 500 vulnerable and marginalized women. It works alongside ActionAid’s Promoting Opportunities for Women Empowerment and Rights (POWER) to boost independence through sustainable agriculture that fosters climate resilience. They also work to address the unjust gender roles that exist within the society; aiming to increase income and recognise the amount of work women do, provide training around leadership, women’s rights, financial aspects, sustainable farming and communication skills, as well as endeavour to prevent violence against women. Their work is community based, and involves interactive theatre shows, informative leaflets, and a seed bank and grain store that protects against the damages of flooding or natural disasters. Photo credit: ActionAid.

15 10, 2018

We, The Industrialized Ones, And The International Rights Of Nature

2018-12-19T17:26:25-05:00Tags: |

In 2008, Ecuador re-thought its democracy and included “Rights of Nature” in its constitution. Following in these footsteps, Shannon Biggs (United States), Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca Nation, United States), Pella Thiel (Sweden), Pablo Solón (Bolivia) and Henny Freitas (Brazil) have also started the process to incorporate the Rights of Nature into national legal frameworks. Mari Margil, associate director of the U.S. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, helped draft state-wide legislation, the first of its kind in the world. Pablo Solon, an environmental and social activist as well as former ambassador of the United Nations, acknowledges that nature helps humans be more humane. Similarly, Patricia Gualinga, former director of Sarayaku Kichwa Native People’s head of international relations, views nature as an actor in democracy rather as an outside subject. Photo Credit: Hugo Pavon/Universidad Andina

12 10, 2018

Colombian Women Are Putting Their Lives On The Line For The Earth

2020-09-02T23:29:09-04:00Tags: |

The murder of Earth Defenders is on the rise, especially throughout Latin America, according to Global Watch. Nevertheless, Colombian women like Jackeline Romero Epiayu, Briceida Lemos Rivera, Isabel Zuleta, and Nini Johana Cárdenas Rueda continuously fight for the land and their livelihoods. Through community organization and outreach, these women are bravely resisting the expansion of mining industries and  infrastructure projects that have devastating impacts on the environment and local communities. But with such force comes danger as these four women are facing harassment from Colombian authorities, anonymous threats to their lives and loved ones, and have even escaped attempted kidnappings and murders. Photo Credit: Ynske Boersman

12 10, 2018

Across Mozambique and Tanzania, Women Show Us How To Improve Communities And Protect Our Planet

2018-10-12T17:11:52-04:00Tags: |

Women across Mozambique and Tanzania are organizing their communities to improve  local livelihood through sustainability and the protection of natural resources. This inspirational blog by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) explores  the stories of various community leaders building long lasting projects. Like the story of Alima Chereira, who formed an agricultural association that teaches women climate-resilient farming practices. Or entrepreneur Fatima Apacur,  who helped her community form a savings association that uses the ancient practice of group savings and pooling wealth to help community members invest in the future. Photo Credit: WWF/ James Morgan

8 10, 2018

Yes, She Can! A Tale Of Two Women Transforming Their Local Energy Landscapes

2020-11-20T17:52:19-05:00Tags: |

Diana Mbogo and Margaretha Subekti are two female entrepreneurs expanding energy access and transforming daily life for their local communities in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and West Manggarai, Indonesia, respectively. In Dar es Salaam, where power outages are a persistent issue, Mbogo provides technical assistance and sells small-scale energy solutions to residents interested in renewable energy through her company Millennium Engineers. She is driven by the fact that energy is the backbone of development. In West Manggarai, Subekti empowers rural women and encourage sustainability through multiple people-centered businesses that she has founded. As a beneficiary and now leader of Kopernik’s Wonder Women program, she manages and supports over thirty women implementing recycling/upcycling projects and selling clean energy products in the community to foster economic independence. Additionally, Subekti’s Rumah Pintar offers community and guidance to neighborhood women and children and her local coffee shop maintains a strong business model of supporting local farmers.

3 10, 2018

Hamari Roti, Hamari Aazadi Our Bread, Our Freedom: Diverse Women Of The World Resolve To Defend Biological And Cultural Diversity, Through Non-violence, Love And Friendship

2020-11-07T17:26:57-05:00Tags: |

Women in India have re-initiated a movement called ‘Our Bread, Our Freedom’ (Hamari Roti, Hamari Azaadi), in efforts to counter the corporate food system driven by new East India Companies which has led to an epidemic of farmer suicides and varying health issues.  Diverse Women for Diversity aim to reveal the pseudo food safety regulations and fake knowledge surrounding nutritionally empty and toxic food. The movement builds alternatives to the monoculture of chemical farming and through bread, reclaim not only their freedom but also their historical and cultural knowledge in producing diverse foods. In Doon Valley on the 2nd of October 2018 women gathered from 25 regions in India to cook breads typical to their state, including roti from Uttarakhand, Sathuu from Bihar and rice flour chila from Chhatisgarh. They pledge to rejuvenate their local cultures, cleanse from within as well as keep clean their external environment, spread food and nutrition literacy, and build sustainable food economies grounded in social justice, non-violence, and love. Photo Credit: Unknown

23 09, 2018

Indigenous Women Rise Against Climate Half-Measures

2020-10-23T22:20:10-04:00Tags: |

Indigenous women organizers lead Solidarity to Solutions Week (Sol2Sol) during the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, CA. Kandi Mossett with the Indigenous Environmental Network grew up in the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota whose community experienced high cancer rates from close proximity to coal plants and uranium mining. Isabella Zizi with Idle No More SF Bay was raised in Richmond, California near the Chevron refinery with accidents disproportionately impacting Indigenous and communities of color. The week of action criticizes politicians who cling to false solutions to the climate crisis that support the fossil fuel industry and market-based solutions while leaving out frontline communities. Mossett and Zizi describe alternative community-based events during Sol2Sol including a People’s Climate March led by the Ohlone people native to the Bay Area, prayer ceremonies on sacred sites, visits to nearby sustainable farms, and educational workshops. Photo credit: Daniela Kantorova/Flickr

14 09, 2018

At The GCAS In San Francisco, The Youth Have A Voice—But Only One

2023-04-16T14:39:36-04:00Tags: |

In this interview, Jamie Margolin, founder of Zero Hour, discusses her activism and the invitation she received to speak at the 2018 Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco. At only 16 years old, Margolin is the summit’s youngest speaker and the only voice invited to represent the concerns and activism of Gen Z. She intends to use her platform to call attention to the pressing, yet often ignored and overlooked, concerns of youth and frontline communities of color about the connections between climate crisis and capitalism. Photo Credit: Zero Hour

24 07, 2018

Mary Robinson Launches New Feminist Fight Against Climate Change

2020-11-20T17:18:39-05:00Tags: |

This Guardian article highlights former Irish president Mary Robinson’s effort to create a global movement called Mothers of Invention that promotes a ‘feminist solution for climate change, which is a manmade problem’.  Former UN commissioner for human rights and member of the Elders group, Mary understands how global warming adversely affects women and has focused on climate justice for over 15 years with the Mary Robinson Foundation Climate Justice. The Mothers of Invention initiative presents positive stories of both local and global grassroots climate activists, through a podcast series featuring women scientists, politicians, farmers and indigenous community leaders from Europe, the Americas, Africa and beyond. Reaching women around the world, the podcast is co-presented by Irish-born and New-York based comedian Maeve Higgins. Together, they broach such topics as colonialism, racism, poverty, migration and social justice, all bound up to feminism, through a light-hearted and optimistic approach intended to be fun. Photo Credit: Ruth Medjber

21 07, 2018

‘A Hitman Could Come And Kill Me’: The Fight For Indigenous Land Rights In Mexico

2020-10-10T20:29:50-04:00Tags: |

Isela Gonzalez, director of Alianza Sierra Madre, uses civic activism to fight for political change as a way to confront the vested economic interests of not only big corporations, but also narco-gangs and corrupt politicians, that violate indigenous land rights. In a country that is painted in violence, with assassinations as an answer to those who have a different vision than governmental or corporate agendas, standing up for environmental and social causes come with serious risks. Often facing threats to her life, which has resulted in armed guards, panic buttons and crisis training, Gonzalez is staunch in her battle to defend the Tarahumara’s rights. The three tribes who live among the pine-oak forests of the Sierra Madre have a worldview that sees themselves as part of the land and it was this, as well as their way of life, that inspired her to refocus the direction of Alianza Sierra Madre on indigenous rights as the frontline for environmental protection. Photo credit: Thom Pierce for The Guardian.

10 07, 2018

This Indigenous Tribe In Colombia Is Run Solely By Women

2018-11-25T12:20:04-05:00Tags: |

Neris Uriana, the first female chieftain of Wayuu tribe in La Guajira, was elected in 2015. She had tremendous support from her husband Jorge Uriana who thinks the future is female. Jorge was the previous community leader and decided women should participate in decision making and worked to dismantle machismo culture. After becoming chieftain, Neris has introduced sustainable agriculture methods to her tribe and collaborated with other communities to improve irrigation, crop cycles, and land use. Neris has successfully created many women leaders in her tribe, such as Pushaina, who is growing the crops with minimum water supply. Photo Credit: Lucy Sherriff/PRI

8 06, 2018

Pipeline Protester Removed From Perch On Excavator

2019-01-21T19:26:30-05:00Tags: |

Emily Satterwhite, an Appalachian Studies Professor at Virginia Tech, blocked the Mountain Valley Pipeline crossing through Brush Mountains for 14 hours. She used a sleeping dragon to lock herself 20 feet off the ground to the excavator but was later lowered down by law enforcement. With this technique, her arms were inserted at each end of an elbow-shaped piece of pipe, and her hands chained together inside the pipe, making it difficult for her to be removed from the equipment. She chose to protest the pipeline because it threatens the nearby environment. Photo Credit: Heather Rousseu/The Roanake Times

7 06, 2018

The Resilience Of Thai Women Land And Environment Defenders

2019-03-04T01:17:35-05:00Tags: |

Members of the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT) -- a grassroots community of landless farmers -- are being confronted with harassment from military officials in the form of unlawful arrests, human rights abuses, and even murder in an attempt to displace the residing populations from the land for commercial use. Despite authoritarian rule, gender-based discrimination, and impending issues of safety, Thai women land and environment defenders are risking their lives in order to ensure the protection of human rights for not only themselves but for their small-scale farming communities as well. In May of 2018, women from the SPFT gathered in Bangkok demanding support from the United Nations offices and government agencies. By challenging unjust land rights and management policies and commanding reparations for human rights abuses, these women have pushed authorities to agree upon land titles for the community and to cease the wrongful prosecutions against villagers. Photo credit: Use Default

5 06, 2018

Agricultural Diversification: Empowering Women In Cambodia With ‘Wild Gardens’

2020-10-06T23:24:51-04:00Tags: |

A group of US and Cambodian Scholars from Pennsylvania State University have created the multidisciplinary project, “Women in Agriculture Network (WAgN): Cambodia” to teach Cambodian women farmers how to change their farming techniques for more beneficial outcomes. The project places particular value on native Cambodian plants that thrive throughout the year, even during wet- and dry-season food gaps.  WAgN also analyses Cambodian women’s roles in agriculture, and the notion that the “feminization” of agriculture does not coincide with an improved quality of life for Cambodian women.  Researchers at WAgN believe that their project has the potential to augment the societal status of Combodian women and improve their quality of life. Photo Credit: Penn State

5 06, 2018

Women, Land And Peace: Celebrating Women Land Defenders For World Environment Day!

2023-04-16T14:58:36-04:00Tags: |

The Nobel Women’s Initiative premiered Women, Land and Peace short films to bring awareness to World Environment Day by highlighting the work of women land defenders in Honduras and Guatemala. The first film documents Nobel peace laureates Tawakkol Karman and Shirin Ebadi’s time spent with human rights and environmental activists in Honduras. Indigenous women’s resistance is central to this film, as is the injustice and danger they face in their mission to protect their land and territories. In the second film, Karman, Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, and Jody Williams speak with women land defenders in Guatemala. These women lead a peaceful and organized resistance to defend land and life from the destructive forces of extractivism in their communities. Despite the threat of violence, imprisonment, and assassination they face, these women continue their fight for Mother Earth.

3 06, 2018

Margaret Atwood: ‘If The Ocean Dies, So Do We’

2020-10-10T19:10:36-04:00Tags: |

In this BBC News report, we are introduced to the Under the Eye conference, held in London in March 2018. Guest speakers addressed environmental issues from a female perspective and included policy makers, scientists and artists, such as author Margaret Atwood, former Morocco's minister Hakima El Haité, and Green MP Caroline Lucas. They highlighted the close link between ocean pollution, climate change, poverty and women, and confirmed the disproportionate impact and adverse effects of natural disasters on women globally. Notwithstanding, they deplored the lack of female voices in high level decision making discussions on environmental and climate policy, despite women organising and resisting in the front line of natural disasters. Former UN diplomat Christiana Figures described the Paris agreement 2015 as a women-led collaborative venture and advocated that more women should be included in climate policy making negotiations, for they are the drivers and part of the solution. Photo Credit: Invisible Dust

31 05, 2018

Margaret Atwood: Women Will Bear Brunt Of Dystopian Climate Future

2021-01-15T17:09:10-05:00Tags: |

In this article, booker-prize winning author Margaret Atwood warns that climate change is ‘everything change’, and will bring a dystopian future, much like in her ‘speculative fictions’. Margaret associates climate change with social unrest, civil wars, brutal repression and totalitarianism – a worsening in women’s hardship and struggles. Under Her Eye was a two-day festival, titled after a chapter from Margaret’s The Handmaid's Tale. Alice Sharp, director of arts and science organisation Invisible Dust, was the festival’s curator that brought together prominent figures from the arts, politics and science to focus on women, their futures under climate change and environmental damage, and proposals to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Christiana Figures, former UN climate chief coordinating the Paris climate agreement 2015 is hopeful that women environmental activism and leadership is increasing. Caroline Lucas, UK Green Party, adds that the arts have an important role to play in the future. Photo Credit: Liam Sharp

30 05, 2018

Executed, Disappeared, Tortured: The Risks Of Defending Human Rights

2021-02-16T20:36:14-05:00Tags: |

In this 20-minute Guardian podcast, journalist Lucy Lamble talks to Fund for Global Human Rights program officer Ana Paula Hernández about her work supporting campaigners fighting to protect native lands. The conversation covers the brutal murder of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, an ‘incredible leader in the social and human rights movement’. Fund for Global Human Rights supported Berta since 2013 when she had been criminalised and threatened to stop her organising work for the defence of nature. Despite her international recognition and the protection afforded by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Berta was shot for opposing the dam construction on the Gualcarque River. Since, her daughter Berta Isabel Bertha Isabel Zúniga Cáceres and co-founder of COPINH have claimed small victories with the withdrawal of European funders suspending development on the dam project. Ana Paula also mentions digital security and technology as allies in the protection of human rights defenders. Photo Credit: The Fund for Global Human Rights

23 05, 2018

Data At The Intersections: Advancing Environmental And Climate Justice Using A Human Rights Lens

2021-02-16T20:47:00-05:00Tags: |

Trends in human rights funding have shifted in the recent years. Currently, seven percent of all humans rights funding from foundations is earmarked for Environmental Justices and Resource Rights (EJ&RR). This indicates a 145 percent increase in EJ&RR funding between the years 2011 and 2015. However, funding peaked in 2014 and has since been declining, due to a few major foundations discontinuing their work. Another change has been the shift towards awarding smaller grants to smaller groups, in contrast to the historical practice of awarding large funds to established organizations. Thirdly, funding for human rights defenders increased 133% between 2011 and 2015 though the amount provided remains small. On the other hand, funding for Indigenous Peoples decreased to $15 million from $40 million during this time. Funding Indigenous Peoples is a crucial part of climate justice and particularly needed in our current state. Photo Credit: Human Rights Funders Network.  

21 05, 2018

Female Farmworkers Leading The #MeToo Fight For Workers Everywhere

2020-10-10T19:20:50-04:00Tags: |

Daughters of field workers are participating in a five day “Freedom Fast”, and joining the Time’s Up Wendy’s March in Manhattan. Their demonstration calls upon Wendy’s to sign onto the Fair Food Program which addresses many of the structural issues enabling sexual harassment in the workplace. The demonstration is taking place alongside the Time’s Up and #MeToo movement which has drawn global attention to the treatment of all women in the workforce. Women working in agriculture are strong voice in this movement as they report especially high rates of sexual assault in the workplace. So far the women’s efforts to suede Wendy’s have been unsuccessful. Photo Credit: Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)

18 05, 2018

Sarah Myhre: Scientists/Feminist/Activist, All In One

2020-11-20T18:05:59-05:00Tags: |

Authored by Karin Kirk, this piece presents feminist, non-profit activist and academic researcher Sarah Myrhe, who argues for an entire new leadership to bring radical change to address climate change. She advocates addressing climate change through a humanist perspective, asserting that women are creative leaders in empathising with marginalised and discriminated peoples adversely affected by climate change. In the face of misogynist opposition within science, academia and the public sphere despite her scientific successes, Sarah became a founding board member for 500 Women Scientists; and co-founded, with Guiliana Isaksen, the non-profit Rowan Institute. The Institute’s mission is to integrate science and social justice into public leadership through compassion, information and equity as core principles; and develop ‘a future of strong and resilient leaders, grounded in human rights, integrity, and planetary stewardship’. Sarah was voted Most Influential People of 2017. Photo Credit: Unknown

18 05, 2018

The Erin Brockoviches Of Ecuador

2020-10-05T16:40:01-04:00Tags: |

In the Ecuadorian Amazon, women from different indigenous frontline-communities are leading the protests against further oil and mining concessions. As they see the wellbeing of the people and an intact environment as inextricably linked, they frame their struggle against resource exploitation as a human rights issue. In the areas affected by former oil drilling, the water and soil contamination from former oil wells pose a great health risk to the residents and deteriorate formerly fertile soil. Additionally, women living in towns where oil extraction occurs have been found to face a greater risk of gender-based violence. Photo credit: Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images

18 05, 2018

Women Leaders Come Together To Fight Climate Change

2019-04-13T16:10:40-04:00Tags: |

Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna hosted the Climate Leaders’ Summit, gathering fearless women from all over the world, including representatives from the public, private, academic, and civil society sectors working to create  solutions to the climate crisis. The summit’s main focus was on women’s leadership, working to ensure female participation in climate policymaking, environmental science, and engineering, and technological innovation. Photo Credit: UN Environment

14 05, 2018

How Cuba’s Women Farmer’s Kept Everyone Fed

2020-10-06T23:13:36-04:00Tags: |

Before 1989, Cuba depended on the Soviet Union for agricultural supplies to help maintain Cuban agriculture industries such as coffee, bananas, and sugar. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, Cuba found itself cut off from these agricultural supplies and in an economic crisis. Over the course of the next six years, the Cuban government encouraged alternative agricultural practices and ran workshops to teach residents various forms of food production methods. Former biology teacher Edith participated in one of these workshops. Afterwards, she founded the urban farm Linda Flor ten minutes away from Sancti Spíritus’ main square. Thanks to Edith’s scientific knowledge, perseverance, and passion for agriculture, Linda Flor flourished despite the small urban space. Now, students from around the world flock to Sancti Spíritus to tour Edith’s farm.   Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images

3 05, 2018

She Stands Up To Power. Now, She’s Afraid To Go Home

2018-08-24T16:59:01-04:00Tags: |

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations special rapporteur for the rights of indigenous people has fled her home in the Philippines due being falsely accused as a terrorist by Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte. Going home is now unsafe for Ms. Tauli-Corpuz due to her powerful stance on land rights for indigenous communities. Recently, she was included on a list of suspected terrorists by the Filipino Government. While the Filipino Government has insisted this designation is due to ties to banned leftist groups, her criticism of the military forced displacement of indigenous people in Mindanao, Philippines is likely the cause. Along with her vocal criticism of displacement, Ms. Tauli-Corpuz has also focused much of her energy on climate change and the inclusion of indigenous people in climate justice - a stance that has jolted the international forefront.  Photo Credit: Annie Ling for The New York Times

1 05, 2018

Climate Solutions: #LeadingWomen – Alaska & Global Warming: Climate Genocide

2019-02-09T19:48:09-05:00Tags: |

Faith Gemmill sees the effects of climate chaos firsthand, and has the solutions: she is executive director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), a grassroots Indigenous environmental network fighting to protect Indigenous land and culture in Alaska. Gemmill, Pit River/Wintu and Neets’aiiGwish’in Athabascan, lives a land-based, subsistence lifestyle in an Alaskan village next to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 110 miles above the Arctic circle. Her community’s livelihood depends on the Porcupine Caribou Herd -- but oil companies directly target this sacred birthplace and nursery, and rising temperatures have already caused many climate refugees to relocate. REDOIL provides knowledge and resources to build resilience in this vulnerable region. Because Gemmill’s community lives in intimate interdependence with the “biological heart” of the Arctic Refuge, they have been fighting for human rights for decades, with no sign of stopping. Photo Credit: MrsGreensWorld

23 04, 2018

Goldman Environmental Prize: Top Awards Dominated By Women For First Time

2018-10-12T15:25:48-04:00Tags: |

Francia Márquez is among the female  earth defenders recognized by the Goldman Environmental Prize for their longstanding role in standing up to social and environmental injustices despite constant threats to their lives from powerful vested interests. A lifetime Afro-Colombian activist, law student, and single mother of two, Márquez led 80 women on a long, 10-day march that pressured the Colombian government to remove illegal miners polluting local rivers. In addition to Márquez, the female recipients were Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid from South Africa, Nguy Thi Khanh from Vietnam, LeeAnne Walters from the United States, and Claire Nouvian from France who have fought to protect vulnerable communities from polluting resources. Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

23 04, 2018

‘Speaking Truth To Power’: Female Activists Dominate Top Environmental Prize

2023-03-19T08:19:08-04:00Tags: |

Six out of seven of the global 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize recipients for grassroots environmental activists were women. One of the recipients was American activist LeeAnne Walters who led a mass citizen testing initiative in Flint, Michigan to prove high levels of lead in the contaminated water in her community. A team of two South African environmental activists, Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid, also received the award for their hard-fought victory against the building of new nuclear reactors. Other award winners included Afro-Colombian activist Francia Márquez who advocated for ending illegal mining on indigenous land, French journalist Claire Nouvian for her campaign against deep-sea bottom trawling in France, and Manny Calonzo who worked to ban the use and sale of lead paint in the Philippines. Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Prize 

19 04, 2018

This Young Environmental Activist Lives 500 Feet From A Drilling Site

2018-10-29T16:36:15-04:00Tags: |

Ashley Hernandez grew up in Wilmington in South Los Angeles, a primarily latino community and home to one of the largest oil fields in the United States. Hernandez tackles environmental justice issues by educating her community about pollution. Her first campaign, “Clean Up Green Up,” led the Los Angeles City Council to support a pollution prevention and reduction strategy. Her new campaign is calling on Governor Jerry Brown to make California the first oil-producing state to phase out existing oil and gas production and to transition to sustainable fuels that can provide new jobs for workers while also protecting public health of vulnerable communities.  Photo Credit: Melissa Lyttle for HuffPost

13 04, 2018

Taking Our Power Back: Women and Girls Are Key To Food Security During Conflict

2020-12-02T21:58:31-05:00Tags: |

Saiyara Khan writes about the fundamental role that women and girls play in ensuring food security during times of conflict. Often, gender inequalities and societal norms restrict their participation in the management and decision-making processes over key resources such as land or livestock. However, given that they are involved in key processes such as food production and water collection for the household, women’s empowerment is a fundamental determinant in whether communities have access to food. Photo credit: UN Women

2 04, 2018

In Service Of Climate Justice

2020-10-02T21:33:39-04:00Tags: |

Dineen O’Rourke was moved to step into leadership in the climate justice movement after experiencing the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy in her community in Long Island, New York City in 2012. She has since become a powerful voice in the movement through her ongoing initiatives promoting community building, policy advocacy, direct actions, and storytelling. In 2017, O’Rourke and fellow climate justice advocate, Karina Gonzalez, co-led a delegation of 15 youth from different parts of the United States to attend the 23rd annual United Nations ‘Conference of the Parties’ climate negotiations. Despite the lack of political will exhibited by the United States during COP23, O’Rourke, Gonzalez, and a crowd of supporters protested false solutions presented by the fossil fuel industry to hold elected officials accountable. Photo credit: Dineen O'Rourke

30 03, 2018

Women Human Right Defender’s In Thailand

2020-09-02T23:48:59-04:00Tags: |

Even after 20 years of “UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders”, women human rights defenders (HRD) face systematic structural violence for raising awareness of political and environmental issues affecting their daily lives. To highlight the stories of these women,  the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok launched a project “Her Life, Her Diary: Side by Side WHRDs 2018 - Diary of Hope and Dreams" featuring 20 women defenders and their everyday struggle against social injustice. Photo Credit: Luke Duggleby

30 03, 2018

Meet The People Courageously Resisting New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

2020-11-07T18:11:24-05:00Tags: |

Oliveria Montes is the spokeswoman for several Indigenous communities including the Totonacos, the Nahuas, and the Otomies in Mexico in active resistance to the Tula-Tuxpan gas pipeline in Puebla and Hidalgo. These communities are organizing against the final portion of the pipeline construction which if completed would run through key water sources and mountainous ancestral lands. Montes affirms that their struggle is not only to protect the land and Indigenous communities, but is also a fight against ongoing foreign corporate influence intertwined with political corruption in Mexico. In the face of intimidation and violence, Montes is spreading awareness of these corrupt actions to international activists for further support. Photo credit: [Video screenshot]

28 03, 2018

Female Farmers In The East Bay Cultivate A Sense Of Community

2020-09-02T22:42:25-04:00Tags: |

Kanchan Dawn Hunter of Spiral Gardens, Kelly Carlisle, founder of Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project, and Gail Myers, founder of Farms to Grow, are three women of colour who are challenging the dominant image of white, male farmers in the agricultural industry. Females farmers are underrepresented both in terms of ownership but also with respect to the power dynamics in the agricultural system. For them, the act of growing food is intrinsically political, and is a way of empowering marginalized communities to re-establish their food sovereignty and restore their connection with themselves and planet Earth. Spiral Gardens provides free educational programs taught at its community farm and hosts community work days. Acta Non Verba aims to empower young people through urban farming and conducts field trips and farm visits. Farms to Grow supports marginalized farmers around the country who are practicing sustainable agriculture. Other organizations such as MESA and Urban Tilth also work to support a sustainable and equitable food industry. Photo Credit: Andria Lo.

27 03, 2018

The World Is a Miraculous Mess, And It’s Going To Be All Right

2020-11-07T17:40:11-05:00Tags: |

In this article, Zenobia Jeffries interviewed activist, facilitator and author Adrienne Maree Brown for the 1st anniversary of her book, Emergent Strategy, a concept she describes as “the way complex plans for action and complex systems for being together arise out of simple interactions”. In short, this means transforming oneself to transform the world. Adrienne addresses movements building and how to include racial justice in broader conversations beyond Black Lives Matter such as #neveragain and #metoo. In relation to movements building and organising, she touches on themes such as connectivity, trauma, resilience and the capacity to heal, the difference between punitive, restorative and transformative justice, and pleasure activism. She suggests that pillars issues like climate change, racism and materialism are not going to be resolved overnight, but are transformative conditions that can be addressed through small compelling experiments and narratives becoming large enough to change the shape of society. Photo Credit: Bree Gant

13 03, 2018

Ecuador’s Indigenous Women’s Restless Defense Of The Amazon “Living Forest”

2018-10-11T17:02:34-04:00Tags: |

On International Women’s Day, in Puyo, the capital of Pastaza, Ecuador’s biggest Amazonian province, over 350 Indigenous women from across Amazonia marched to pressure the Ecuadorian government for failing to meet commitments to Indigenous communities.  The march was followed by a 3-day gathering led by female Indigenous leaders from the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CPONFENAIE). With leaders from 7 Amazonian nations present (Andoa, Achuar, Kichua, Shuar, Shiwiar, Sapara and Waorani) attendees established the Assembly of Amazonian Women. During her long awaited speech Patricia Gualinga, the well-known Sarayaku leader, outlined her community’s proposal to protect the Amazon, Kawsak Sacha “Living Forest”. The proposal seeks to leave responsibility of forest protection to Indigenous communities who have a holistic relation to nature. Photo credit: Andrés Viera V. (March in Puyo on Women’s Day)

9 03, 2018

Indigenous Women March In Ecuador, Vow To ‘Defend Our Territory’

2020-10-23T22:23:24-04:00Tags: |

Indigenous women leaders throughout the Ecuadorian Amazon are committed to the longstanding fight for Indigenous territorial autonomy, women’s rights, and environmental protection. On International’s Women Day, about 350 of them gathered in the city of Puyo to protest the extractive industries in their communities and their role in mass displacement and environmental contamination. For leaders including Hilda Ande of the Quichua nation and Ena Santi from the Sarayaku territory, legal and physical protections for women are critical needs because of the acute violence and abuse women face due to exploitative industries disrupting traditional lifestyles and ecosystems. The march began with a traditional cleansing ritual to pay respects to the earth and reignite their spirits and ended with speeches by numerous women representing diverse nationalities such as the Quechua, Woarani, Zapara, and Sarayaku. Photo credit: Kimberley Brown/Mongabay

8 03, 2018

3 Women On What Climate Justice Means To Them

2020-10-23T23:36:25-04:00Tags: |

Climate change impacts more severely on women and is a significant impetus for female empowerment in the climate justice movement. This piece portrays women whose courage, inspiration and shared vulnerabilities in forms of resistance underscore their activism. By changing the narrative and creating herstory, these stories offer a symbol of strength, such as Joanna Sustento, the warrior of the storm, who is the sole survivor of the storm Haiyan that killed her family. With local female leaders, she heads community mobilisation for climate justice. Desiree Llanos Dee, campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, uses the power of storytelling to humanise climate justice issues and build more conscious communities with more people who care. Hettie Geenen, captain of the Rainbow Warrior Greenpeace ship, gives an international platform to the people and the planet through her tours. These are the women on the frontlines of the local, national and global climate justice movement. Photo Credit: Greenpeace

7 03, 2018

Guardians of the Amazon Rainforest – Women Rising Radio

2019-04-13T15:59:20-04:00Tags: |

Indigenous land and rights defenders, Gloria Ushigua of Ecuador and Aura Tegria of Colombia, share the heart moving victories and struggles of their people against mega extraction projects on their land, weaving in significant moments from their personal stories. Gloria Ushigua is President of Sapara Women’s Association in Ecuador. She was publicly mocked on television by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa after protests in 2001 and violently persecuted after organizing significant mobilizations against oil drilling in 2015. Aura Tegria is an indigenous U’wa lawyer on the Legal Counsel to the U’wa people of Colombia. The childhood memories of her people organizing to protect their land inspired to become the U’Wa defender she is today. After intense protests, campaigns and legal action in 2014 and 2015, they successfully kicked out Occidental Petroleum followed by the successful dismantling of the large Magallanes gas well from their land. Part of the U’Wa resistance has also been against the Catholic and Evangelical church that historically promoted cultural extermination through their boarding schools for indigenous children and other oppressive practices. Both women share the history of their people’s resistance since colonization, their personal stories linked to that resistance, the recent struggles of their people and the inspiring victories.Photo Credit: Amazon Watch

7 03, 2018

Resilient And Resolute: Women Human Rights Defenders Claiming Space

2023-04-16T14:29:09-04:00Tags: |

Women human rights defenders around the world are on the frontlines of countless movements for human rights and equality. These women’s fight for their rights and the rights of others are often hindered by laws against peaceful assembly and other freedoms of expression that work to silence those who challenge the status quo. These restrictions, however, have not stopped women from raising their voices as active agents of change. In this article, Pooja Patel, Programme Manager for Women’s Rights and LGBTI Rights at the International Service for Human Rights explains that women in the United Nations have made a series of demands for the women’s rights and gender equality agenda that will make processes and outcomes more equitable. These women, like other women human rights defenders across the globe, aim to create more just systems that support women in their fight for rights and representation. Photo credit: Bai Ali Indaya

5 03, 2018

Decolonizing Birth: Women Take Back Their Power as Life-Givers

2020-12-15T21:44:23-05:00Tags: |

This article relates Zintkala Mahpiya Win Blackowl’s experience of giving birth to her six children in the comfort of home and safety of a sacred space. Writer Sarah Sunshine Manning relates how a heavily pregnant Blackowl, who is Sicangu Lakota and Ihanktonwan Dakota, joined the Standing Sioux Rock reservation resistance camp. This is where she eventually gave birth to her baby girl, Mni Wiconi (Water of Life). This story reflects the larger Indigenous birth movement in which Native-American women reclaim not only their roles as life-givers and birth-workers, but also their rights to their bodies, traditions and birthing experiences. Counteracting the medicalised and colonised hospital-based birth environment, nurses such as Nicolle Gonzales, Navajo executive director of the Changing Woman Initiative, promotes Indigenous birth and midwifery knowledge; Jodi Lynn Maracle, traditional doula of the Tyendinaga Nohawl nation, works towards the reclaiming of Indigenous women’s powers, self-determination and ancestral traditions. Photo Credit: Unknown

1 03, 2018

Honduran Women Fight For Rights With Their Lives

2018-07-13T16:18:17-04:00Tags: |

Across Honduras, woman activists are fighting for their rights, even in the face of physical and sexual violence, intimidation, incarceration, and sometimes death. Berta Cáceres, who was the co-founder of Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras (COPINH) and fought tirelessly against the construction of the sacred Agua Zarca Dam, was gunned down on March 3, 2016. The government, run by President Juan Orlando Hernández, has rejected calls for an independent investigation of her murder. He has also been accused by Human Rights Watch of actively contributing to the oppression of women and girls in Honduras, and a UN report stated that the administration has paid “minimal attention to” gender empowerment. Cáceres’ death has sparked protests and political action nationally and internationally as women call for an end to gender-based violence. In Honduras, a woman is murdered every 16 hours, a number that increased by 263 per cent between 2005 and 2013. Tragically, 96 per cent of femicides reported are never solved. Still, even in the face of bleak statistics, women leaders in Honduras claim that some changes are being made, particularly as the daughters of Cáceres lead the continuation of her fight.  Photo Credit: Elizabeth McSheffrey (use photo of Berta posters in chapter 1)

16 02, 2018

Environmental Defender Guadalupe Campanur Tapia Murdered In Mexico

2018-03-02T13:07:51-05:00Tags: |

Purépecha activist Guadalupe Campanur Tapia was a courageous Indigenous woman human rights and Earth defender of Cherán, Michocán, Mexico. Her bravery and leadership helped mobilize local Indigenous communities to protect regional forests against illegal logging, and to claim independence against a corrupt government. However, her activism resulted in threats of violence from organized crime groups, and she was murdered in January 2018. Campanur is among an increasing number of defenders across the globe who have been killed in recent years, especially women. This article recounts Guadalupes death in the context of the 312 defenders across 27 countries who were murdered in 2017. Photo credit: Cultural Survival

15 02, 2018

Women Human Rights Defenders Demand The Stop Of The Duterte Reign Of Terror

2018-03-04T23:42:46-05:00Tags: |

Rodrigo Rody Roa Duterte , the 16th president of Philippines was warned by two alliances recently to stop attack on human and Earth rights defenders. Women human right defenders had been facing constant attack under the Presidency, and for fighting against injustice and terror  are often referred as “enemies of the state”. For fighting for their rights in the Cordillera, five women human right defenders, Rachel, Sarah, Sherry Mae, Joan, and Asia, faced false accusation and were threatened and harassed. Similarly, Sarah Abellon-Alikes, Rachel Mariano, Joanne Villanueva, and Sherry Mae Soledad were also falsely accused for homicide. Just like Donald Trump in the U.S., Duterte is known for his sexist behavior and rape jokes. Photo Credit: Cultural Survival

15 02, 2018

Gender Equality Crucial to Tackling Climate Change – UN

2020-10-23T23:42:17-04:00Tags: |

Women are disproportionately more susceptible to the impacts of climate change due to the hindrances caused by gender inequality that they must also face. The report written by UN Women on “Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, draws attention to the need to place gender equality front and centre throughout the implementation of the SDGs Agenda. The report highlights that, globally, more than one quarter of women work in agriculture. As the impacts of climate change on agriculture are already being severely felt, this is one of the areas that needs urgent action. Women face many restraints in accessing land, agricultural inputs and credit which increase their vulnerability reducing their resilience against climate change. However, women are an important representation of strength for combating climate change, they are not just victims. The report emphasizes that diverse women must be present in decision-making environments to ensure inclusive mitigation and adaptation to climate change at local, national and international levels. The UNFCCC has been increasingly recognizing the importance of equal gender representation in the development of gender responsive climate policies. In fact, the Gender Action Plan (GAP) was adopted at the COP23 to guide this goal.

14 02, 2018

The Indigenous Climate Action Women Fighting For Mother Earth

2019-01-21T21:33:46-05:00Tags: |

Ta’ah is an elder indigenous to the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, or what has been known as Canada. With her team of six women, she has been working vigorously for climate justice and indigenous sovereignty with the award-winning organization Indigenous Climate Action (ICA). ICA empowers indigenous communities across Canada to strengthen the solutions that already exist in different nations, from tiny houses to building partnerships. Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, the organization’s executive director and founder, has seen her native homeland of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation struggle due to tar sands and other harmful extraction. Because their communities has experienced so much cultural and environmental devastation, they look to the next generation for hope. Indigenous activist Kanahus Manuel says that indigenous people already practice sustainability, and calls on everybody to cease the destruction of the environment. Photo Credit: Lauren Marina

14 02, 2018

Kenya’s ‘Erin Brockovich’ Defies Harassment To Bring Anti-Pollution Case To Courts

2018-03-02T14:04:12-05:00Tags: |

Anti-pollution activist Phyllis Omido is finally receiving her day in court, after years at the forefront of a landmark class action suit demanding compensation and clean-up from a lead-smelting factory accused of poisoning residents of Owino Uhuru. The founder of the Centre for Justice, Governance, and Environmental Action, Omido has already successfully forced the closure of the factory and is now seeking reparations for community members. A co-winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015, Omido is paving the way for other environmental litigations – even in the face of constant intimidation and threats. However, for Omido, this is just the start, as there are 17 other communities fighting for compensation for lead poisoning with whom she plans to organize. Picture Credit: Jonathan Watts

10 02, 2018

Women Scientists Describe Challenges Of Careers In Conservation

2020-09-02T22:11:04-04:00Tags: |

Camila Donatti, Director with Conservation International (CI) while acknowledging the division of labor among men and women, does feel that women and men need an equal amount of training to share knowledge about climate change. It is the best solution to engage them in good work while respecting their time limits. Shyla Raghav, an Indian American Climate expert with CI believes to find the best solutions for climate change we need to connect the women’s issues with climate change issues. Similarly Kame Westerman, a gender adviser with CI shared her personal experience of being discriminated against because of her gender. Margot Wood, associate scientist with CI shares the same experience while working on the field. Photo Credit: Benjamin Drummand

8 02, 2018

Our Relationships Keep Us Alive: Let’s Prioritize Them In 2018

2020-10-13T20:10:37-04:00Tags: |

This article as part of “Visions of 2018” explores the theme of transformation in activist movements. Written by Ejeris Dixon, a female grassroots organiser, we gain insight into how relationships can be improved within our groups, drawing on Dixon’s 15 years of experience. Call-out culture, neglect, secret maneuvers and a misalignment of values and actions can splinter and break groups. However, honesty, loyalty, integrity, accountability and commitment to personal transformation can repair relationships and rebuild trust. Essential transformations if social justice movements are to thrive in these oppressive times. Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout

7 02, 2018

Climate Change Isn’t Just About the Planet

2020-12-02T20:24:32-05:00Tags: |

In this article, winner of 2017 Nation Student Writing Contest Leehi Yona follows up on her thoughts about the most important issues of her generation. A community organiser, climate researcher and PhD student in environment and resources, Leehi reflects on the interconnectedness between wildfires and trans rights, Hurricane Irma and DACA. She argues that climate change is not a siloed issue and instead lies at the intersectionality of justice – racial, socio-economic, reproductive and environmental. She acknowledges the breadth of challenges faced by her generation, such as the ICE onslaught on undocumented immigrants, the cracked Antarctic ice sheet, the heat waves, xenophobia, fascism, Donald Trump’s policy of climate destruction, and how poor communities of color will be primarily affected by his environmental rollbacks. Whilst such trials can be overwhelming and strip people of hope for the future, Leehi proposes physical, social and spiritual resilience in response to these fights for equality. Photo Credit: Laura Hutchinson / Divest Dartmouth

3 02, 2018

Colombian Environmentalist Murdered Amid Rising Violence

2018-02-22T20:17:06-05:00Tags: |

Yolanda Maturana dedicated her life to defending Colombia’s wildlife and forests, and was an opponent of illegal mining and water contamination in the central and north western Colombian departments of Risaralda and Choco. Because of her activism she was brutally assassinated in her home, in the village of Santa Cecilia. Across the country, violence is escalating towards environmental activists, a trend congruent with global patterns, but also influenced by Colombia’s brutal and continuing war. Photo credit: @yolandamaturana

2 02, 2018

Why Climate Deniers Target Women

2021-01-15T17:17:19-05:00Tags: |

Women who work on climate science, policy, journalism, or advocacy continue to face harassment from climate change deniers, often in the form of sexist and dismissive labels. Although patriarchy and gender inequality pervade many social spaces, research shows that men who value hierarchy are more inclined to hold sexist views and deny the climate crisis. While the research draws no firm conclusions, it illustrates the power imbalances that enable both sexism and climate denial and the need for intersectional climate narratives that demand justice across movements. Photo Credit: Katharine Hayhoe

2 02, 2018

Rise: From One Island To Another

2021-01-15T17:11:52-05:00Tags: |

In a powerfully raw and attention-demanding short film, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna use poetry and imagery to showcase their inextricably linked climate realities of melting glaciers and rising sea levels. Jetñil-Kijiner and Niviâna highlight the interconnections between their ice and sea worlds and make it known that the rest of the world is as connected to our global climate change reality. The two women affirm that colonizers largely responsible for climate impacts can only hide behind screens and watch island and glacial ancestral homelands disappear for so long before they too are affected. Jetñil-Kijiner and Niviâna demand colonizer participation in climate action, and avow that they will not disappear while the world remains silent. Their poetic language showcases the strength and resilience of their communities and places the responsibility for climate change impacts squarely on colonizers’ shoulders. Jetñil-Kijiner and Niviâna declare that colonizers will no longer decide who will live and who will die--that, together, each and every one of us must decide if we will rise. Video credit: Dan Lin, Director

25 01, 2018

BBC To Air Major Nature Series Written And Directed By Women

2020-11-07T18:21:25-05:00Tags: |

Female directors Anne Sommerfield, Hannah Ward, and Clare Dornan are behind a landmark moment in broadcasting history: Their natural history series Animals with Cameras will be the first from BBC One to be entirely led by women. On their programme, threatened animal communities—ranging from meerkats and chimps to cheetahs and penguins—will be equipped with small, lightweight body cameras to help scientists better understand and protect vulnerable species. Their work comes at a time when there is a growing spotlight on women’s underrepresentation in film and television, especially on the awards stage. As the “best candidates for the job,” Sommerfield, Ward, and Dornan are bringing a female lens to stories of wildlife conservation. Photo credit: Anne Sommerfield/BBC

21 01, 2018

At Women’s Marches, A Spotlight On Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women

2018-07-12T17:13:08-04:00Tags: |

At 2018 Women’s March events across the United States, Indigenous women stood in visible contrast to the bright pink pussy hats worn by the other marchers. Indigenous women donned red in remembrance of the missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) in the United States and Canada. The red color shows solidarity against discriminatory practices of the state, judicial system and the increasing violence against indigenous women. Sarafina Joe, a tribal citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation marched holding a red banner with the name of her sister, Nicole Joe on it, Nicole Joe, who died due to domestic violence. Devastatingly, her culprit was only charged with aggravated assault rather than murder. The number of such cases has been increasing among young Indigenous women, a tragedy still left unspoken by the masses and mainstream media. Photo Credit: Jenni Monet/ PBS

17 01, 2018

Can Poetry Turn The Tide On Climate Change?

2020-10-10T19:15:39-04:00Tags: |

Marshallese poet and activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner uses the power of poetry to humanize the climate crisis faced by Pacific nations and demand swift global action. Her spoken word performance of Dear Matafele Peinem at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit was an impassioned call to action to ensure a safe, vibrant earth and rich cultural heritage for future generations. Her poem was met with acclaim and helped to convey the threat of rising sea levels and more frequent flooding to her home nation. She continues to advocate through her art as well as her work with Jo-Jikum, a nonprofit educating and empowering Marshallese youth on climate change. Photo Credit: The Adelaide Review

15 01, 2018

Rights Eroded: A Briefing On The Effects Of Closing Space On Women Human Rights Defenders

2018-03-06T18:10:24-05:00Tags: |

A new era of intensified government controls and restricted freedoms is hindering Human Rights Defenders from voicing their opinions. Constraints have been placed on feminist human rights and gender justice activists through government laws and restrictions. Berkeley Law and the Urgent Action Sister Fund adopt a human rights framework and gender approach to analyze the phenomenon of “closing space” and the challenges it poses for women human rights defenders and their innovative resistance strategies.

10 01, 2018

How Rebecca Solnit Became ‘The Voice Of The Resistance’

2020-10-23T23:21:38-04:00Tags: |

Feminist writer and activist Rebecca Solnit has earned another title amidst the political turmoil of 2017: “the Voice of the Resistance.” Often reflecting on unjust and inept systems that target communities of color, the working class, and women from all walks of life, her writing has served as a beacon of hope and roadmap for action for many people confronting a Trump administration that continues to collude with Russia, dismantle environmental protections, and violate human rights. She is both energizer of and energized by the fervent wave of community organizing that has taken the streets and sounded the alarm. Photo credit: Shawn Calhoun

8 01, 2018

#Oursolutions: Conversation With Jacqui Patterson (NAACP)

2020-04-24T16:09:08-04:00Tags: |

Jacqui Patterson has been fighting for social justice for years, bringing this expertise to her work as the   Environmental and Climate Justice program director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her international work started with HIV/AIDS advocacy, and she has uplifted stories of resilience from women across the U.S. and around the world. Patterson has spoken with South African women facing  increased sexual violence because of climate-induced drought and food insecurity, interviewed women across the U.S. impacted by climate change and fighting for justice, and volunteered with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Seeing a need for more gender and race analysis in climate change conversations, Patterson helped co-found Women of Color United, a global solidarity network. As an African-American woman, she brings a rigorous intersectional analysis of race, gender, class and other social identities into all climate justice work, fighting for a just transition rooted in deep democracy.

27 12, 2017

In Rural Indonesia, Women Spearhead The Fight To Protect Nature

2018-03-02T13:11:54-05:00Tags: |

Aleta Baun, Eva Susanti Hanafi Bande, and Rusmedia Lumban Gaol are just a few of the fierce grassroots leaders fighting against Indigenous cultural and environmental destruction in Indonesia’s rural areas. In July 2017, they gathered with some 50 defenders, most of them women, to share their stories and celebrate their courageous activism in the face of a socio-ecological crisis in their homeland. Timber, mining, palm oil, and other extractive industries have exhausted the country’s natural resources and defenders like Aleta, Eva, and Rusmedia have bravely opposed their efforts in the face of violence, internal persecution, and imprisonment. Photo credit: Lusia Arumingtyas/Mongabay-Indonesia

15 12, 2017

Eight Great Women In The Business And Science Of Solar

2020-10-23T23:26:46-04:00Tags: |

The global photovoltaic industry required hard work and dedication, especially during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s when the solar struggle in surviving as an industry needed the conviction of those working within it that it would one day lead the future of energy generation. The photovoltaic industry would not have come as far without the perseverance of eight key women who were fundamental in pioneering the solar scene of today. Izumi Kaizuka from Japan is an awardee of one of the most prestigious scientific awards in the global photovoltaic industry, the PVSEC Special Award, for her contributions in the study of solar technologies, business models and deployment. Renate Egan from Australia is crucial to the solar industry for her ability to match creative with the technical and leads the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. Darlene McCalmont from the United States is founder of Regrid Power and currently runs a McCalmont Engineering. Nicola Pearsall from the UK is the director of the Northumbria Photovoltaics Applications Centre and leads its Energy Systems research group. These women, amongst the others highlighted in the article, have extensive resumes, but their accomplishments are not the most defining feature of these influential figures. Rather it is their deep passion and commitment that they have dedicated to the global photovoltaic industry that sees their contribution as long-lasting and meaningful. Photo credit: Pixabay

15 12, 2017

Interview With Verona Collantes: UN Women

2020-12-15T22:07:32-05:00Tags: |

In a short video interview with Verona Collantes of UN Women during the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, in May 2017, Collantes discusses her work in gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment. In her work, she aims for equal opportunities, responsibilities, and consideration of perceptions, needs, and contributions of both men and women when addressing climate change. Collantes uses gender mainstreaming as a strategy to create greater equality. UN women do gender mainstreaming at both a national and global level in their climate education, training, and awareness building. In advocating for gender equality in intergovernmental decision-making processes, UN Women mainstream gender by looking at roles, responsibilities, needs, and unique impacts of climate change on women through themes, such as adaptation. In this way, an analysis of the situation is gained through a gender perspective, which allows for greater recognition of gender imbalances. Photo Credit: Screenshot

6 12, 2017

Women Land Defenders In Asia Need More Protection As Violence Rises – Rights Groups

2018-03-06T17:59:29-05:00Tags: |

Rights groups from across Asia and the international community are calling on authorities to do more to protect women land rights defenders. In many cases, defenders reported threats prior to their deaths, but the reports were either ignored or downplayed. In the Philippines, for example, Elisa Badayos and her male colleague were murdered in 2017 after investigating land rights violations. In Thailand and Cambodia, women are facing increased violence, while the matrilineal tradition in Papua New Guinea has been fractured following a decades-long conflict over an open pit mine. In India, defenders also face pressure from their family members and community. Rights groups, therefore, are demanding that these defenders be heard and recognized by the state. Photo credit: Reuters/Samrang Pring

6 12, 2017

Front Line Defenders Profiles Lottie Cunningham Wren

2018-03-06T17:28:27-05:00Tags: |

Lottie Cunningham Wren is a human rights defender and Founder of the Centre for Justice and Human Rights of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Working with 124 remote communities, she helps Indigenous people exercise their legal rights and protect natural resources, and speaks out against the invasion of lands by private companies. Her role in the landmark Awas Tingni vs. Nicaragua case resulted in huge land rights victories for Indigenous peoples through the Americas. However, Cunningham Wren works in a precarious context. She received threatening letters in March 2017, was subjected to a kidnapping attempt in May 2015, and her colleagues now face intimidation. Photo credit: Front Line Defenders

5 12, 2017

Women Who Have Been Tortured For The Environment

2023-04-16T14:56:17-04:00Tags: |

In this article, Rohit David describes the increased violence against women activists and earth defenders – perpetrated by both state and nonstate actors – in 2017. As women continue to speak up against major polluters who are responsible for destroying their lands, forests, waters, and food sovereignty, they face great risks of harassment, threats, intimidation, sexual assault, and assassination. At the 2017 United Nations environment assembly in Nairobi, women’s rights organizations held a tribute ceremony to highlight the important role of women human rights defenders in securing a safe, ecologically intact, pollution-free future at the local and international levels. The women who spoke at this event aimed to raise awareness of the work that women are doing in their communities to protect the environment and the dangers they face in doing so. 

2 12, 2017

The WISE Women Of Nigeria Sparking Change

2019-02-09T19:52:58-05:00Tags: |

Olanike Olubunmi Olugboji empowers other women in Nigeria to build sustainable, safe and equitable alternatives to dangerous ways of life. She is the founder and director of the Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), formerly known as Environmental Management and Protection Network (EMPRONET), based in Kaduna, Nigeria. Holding degrees in urban and regional planning, Olugboji urges more women to be involved in the development and management of natural resources. WISE trains and educates women to be proactive against the mounting challenges posed by climate change and deforestation. For example, the Women’s Clean Cookstove Training and Entrepreneurship Program educates women about the health risks of woodstoves and gives them alternatives that are not only environmentally sustainable but financially viable as well. Nearly 10,000 women have participated in WISE programs already, and Olugboji hopes to open up a Women’s Eco Learning and Resource Center to reach even more women.  Photo Credit: Stephen Obodomechine

1 12, 2017

Dozens Of Female Activists Around The World Were Killed In 2017

2023-04-16T15:01:47-04:00Tags: |

Daniele Selby calls attention to the extreme violence that women activists face around the globe and highlights the extraordinary lives and work of some of the women who were murdered for their activism in 2017. Dozens of women were killed for their work in environmental justice, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ activism in countries all over the world, including but not limited to Brazil, the Philippines, Colombia, and Turkey. Selby notes that these violent acts against women activists are a form of silencing individuals and communities who are fighting to protect the earth and each other. Despite the risks, countless women are still finding ways to take a stand for what they believe in. Photo credit: Flickr: Karla Cote

29 11, 2017

Jeanette Sequeira: Calling Out Violence Against Women Human Rights And Environmental Defenders

2018-03-06T18:21:52-05:00Tags: |

Jeanette Sequeira,  gender programme coordinator at the Global Forest Coalition, shares thoughts on the situation of global women who stand up for human rights and the environment, while facing violence and even murder. She shares the stories of frontline women leaders such as Lottie Cunningham, a lawyer from Nicaragua who defends Indigenous communities against illegal corporate and state led land-grabbing despite threats; and the Mapuche women in Chile who are engaged in a struggle to defend their land while facing criminalisation, militarization, and the risk of murder. Sequeira calls out state, non-state, paramilitary, private security and corporate actors who continue to silence activists and act within a culture of impunity.

26 11, 2017

Why Climate Change Is Creating A New Generation Of Child Brides

2018-07-13T16:53:03-04:00Tags: |

As climate change exasperates natural disasters such as droughts and floods, African farmers are finding difficulty maintaining economic stability, leading to an increase in the prevalence of child marriages in Malawi and Mozambique. While marriage under the age of 18 has been outlawed in both countries, the prevalence of child marriages has continued to persist in the face of increased poverty due to climate change. With shifting climate patterns affecting fishing and crop seasonality, many families are finding it difficult to feed each mouth, leading millions of young girls to be married off in response. And while the data detailing this intersection remains largely understudied, the occurrence of lost childhoods and educational opportunities continue to increase. Photo Credit: The Guardian

26 11, 2017

IM-Defensoras Statement During International Day of Women Human Rights

2017-12-26T15:57:00-05:00Tags: |

On the International Day of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD), over 1,000 diverse members of Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM -Defensoras) raised a collective voice to protect WHRDs and secure a dignified life for all. Between 2012 to 2016, at least 53 women defenders have been documented as killed, mostly by state actors, for their activism and voice. Violence and discrimination is used as a mechanism for social control, and women are standing to challenge the patriarchal mandate and demand from the state the protection they deserve. Photo credit: IM-Defensoras

24 11, 2017

The Resisters: Women Human Rights Defenders

2018-07-13T16:36:33-04:00Tags: |

To mark the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence and the International Day for Women Human Rights Defenders, Amnesty Canada draws attention to fierce women doing incredible work in unimaginably challenging circumstances. In this article, Amnesty explores the experiences of three powerful women living in prison or under threat of violence due to their activism. In Egypt, Hanan Badr el-Din, motivated by the disappearance of her husband in 2013, co-founded a group that investigates these injustices. However, she was arrested on false charges and sentenced to 5 years in prison. In Guatemala, Maya-K’iche human rights defender, Lolita Chavez, works to defend Indigenous rights against corporate abuses. After significant threats, she now lives under police protection. In Honduras, activists still live in fear, a year after Berta Cáceres was murdered. Attacks and threats of rape and harm continue to be directed towards their daughters. Amnesty Canada calls for action to protect the rights of these courageous women. Photo credit: CORINH

18 11, 2017

Pipeline Protester Speaks Out For First Time After Nearly Losing Her Arm

2018-07-16T14:18:44-04:00Tags: |

22 year old, Sophia Wilansky was standing outside the Dakota Access Pipeline encampment when she was flattened by a deafening explosion. This became the emblematic moment of violence at the Standing Rock protest was likely caused by a cop’s concussion grenade. The explosion ripped out her bone, muscles, nerves, and arteries in her left arm. Despite this, Wilansky vows to continue the fight against climate change and for the rights of indigenous people. Photo Credit: Annie Wermiel

17 11, 2017

These Women Nobelists Are Fighting For Grassroots Activists In Central America

2020-12-02T20:27:53-05:00Tags: |

Nobel Peace Prize laureates Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú, Tawakkol Karman, and Jody Williams dedicate their lives to defending the rights of women, children, and the earth and, rather than cease this work, they have used their international acclaim to fuel and uplift local women-led movements. In October, they followed grassroots efforts in Honduras and Guatemala, even marching in solidarity with women from Casillas against the San Rafael mine. The laureates aim to bring the world lens to showcase these steadfast women leaders and their work against corrupt economic and political interests that seek to silence them and disrupt their communities. Photo credit: Mel Mencos

17 11, 2017

Nebeday Enables Senegalese Women From Rural Areas To Obtain New Forms Of Income

2020-12-02T20:07:28-05:00Tags: |

Nebeday is an association for environmental protection that supports Senegalese women from rural areas to obtain new forms of income outside of the traditional harvesting period through the cultivation and transformation of the moringa plant. The plant adapts to very arid environments and has a positive environmental impact, while also being nutritionally rich. The project also raises awareness of the need for sustainable resource management and the positive impact women can have on the development of the local economy. Photo credit: Video Capture

16 11, 2017

Mind The Gap

2019-04-13T16:06:44-04:00Tags: |

Women are more vulnerable to climate change but are less represented at the U.N. Climate Negotiations.  The establishment of the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC) at the Climate Negotiations has formalized the voice of women and gender equality. At COP23, in Bonn, Germany, the WGC pushed for a new gender action plan, to help increase female participation at the U.N, increase funding for women, and ensure climate solutions uphold the rights of women and indigenous peoples. Photo Credit:  Patrik Stollarz / Getty Images

11 11, 2017

Training Women In Agroecology Yields Results In West Africa

2021-02-16T20:29:15-05:00Tags: |

In May 2017, the Burkinabe agricultural organization, ‘We are the solution! Celebrate African family farming’ held a farming workshop for female Burkinabe farmers. The workshop focused on agro-ecological food production methods and aimed to train women how to adapt their farming techniques to climate change. The movement’s coordinator Sibiri Dao, has since expanded the movement to include countries such as Ghana, Guinea, Mali and Senegal. Through this movement, Dao hopes to use women to empower local communities to practice food sovereignty and engage in more sustainable methods of agriculture. Photo Credit: L’Économiste du Faso 

9 11, 2017

Making Art, Making Change: Five Women Creatives You Should Know

2020-11-20T17:24:40-05:00Tags: |

In this exposé, writer Lauren Himiak presents artists whose imagination, art and advocacy create space for conversations and connection that influence personal, cultural and national debates transformation. Poppy Liu, playwright and storyteller, is the creator of Brooklyn-based grassroots movement Collective Sex around topics of sex, body, intimacy and identity. Sarah Edwards uses positive, nonviolent imagery and animal artwork to show humanity’s effects on the world and inspire reflection, conversation and action around climate change. Georgia Clark, Australian author and improv performer, organises New-York based female storytelling live event Generation Women; a unique, diverse and multigenerational literary salon with themed readings featuring a woman from each age group from 20s to 70s and up. Favianna Rodriguez creates visual art and prints that support social justice movements and conversation around immigration, climate change and racial justice. Tatiana Gill is a Seattle-based cartoonist taking on subjects like mental health, feminism, body positivity. Photo Credit: Kimberley Hatchett

7 11, 2017

17 Women Rights Defenders Killed Under Duterte

2017-12-07T17:54:22-05:00Tags: |

The association of women human rights defenders in the Philippines, Tanggol Bayi, has reported at least 17 women human rights defenders murdered by the administration of President Duterte, including Elisa Badayos, Cora Lina, Manobo Jessybel Sanchez, Leonila Pesadilla, and many more known and unknown. Leonila and her husband were working to stop mining in their ancestral lands. Many of those killed have included rural and Indigenous women, as well as environmental activists and defenders of peace and democracy. Sexual abuse and gendered violence has been frequent, amongst other human rights violations. Photo credit: Anne Marxze D Umil, Bulatlat

6 11, 2017

This Tribal Lady And Her Band Of Women Saved 50 Hectares Of Forests For 20 Years

2018-10-17T18:02:17-04:00Tags: |

Raksha Bandhan, a hindu festival celebrating the bond between brother and sister has inspired women in Muturkham, Jharkhand to protect their forests. In 1998, when Jamuna Tudu, also known as ‘Lady Tarzan’, noticed large areas of clearcut forest she began to speak out. She managed to organize Van Suraksha Samiti, a band of 25 women fortified with bows and arrows, bamboo sticks and spears to tackle the enemies of their forest. After driving out the mafia cutting down their forests, the women began tying the ‘knot of protection’, around the trees. Stemming from the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, the knot symbolizes the love between brothers and sisters, where a sister ties a rakhi (holy thread) on the wrist of her brother to ward off evil and in turn, he vows to protect her until death. The rakhi around the trees symbolizes that these women will protect their trees until death. Photo Credit: YouTube

23 10, 2017

Minnesota ‘Water Walker’ Hopes To Save Waterways From Contamination

2019-01-21T19:32:28-05:00Tags: |

Sharon Day, executive director of Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis and a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe, is a woman of substance: she has been walking many miles to bring people’s attention to the importance of water and how waterways have been polluted. She has walked along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, joined by a core team of five companions and anyone else who wants to join. Known as Nibi Walks (nibi is the Ojibwe word for water), the walks are prayers, not protests. She is deeply inspired by the grandmother of the Nibi Walks movement, Josephine Mandamin.  Photo Credit: Sharon Day

20 10, 2017

Women Farmers Are Leading Northern India From Subsistence To Regeneration

2020-09-02T22:54:54-04:00Tags: |

The increasing feminization of agriculture is an expanding market for women farmers in northern India. They are organizing themselves in self help groups and cooperatives such as Aarohi, Chirag and Mahila Umang (one of largest cooperatives in Uttrakhand) by helping each other to bear financial expenses. These cooperatives promote the traditional way of agriculture in nearby states like Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya along the restoring the hills by reforestation. In most of these states, men and young people have moved to urban areas. So, now the women who are left behind are creating balance between the rural economy and ecology, says Kalyan Paul, co-founder of Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation in Almora, Uttrakhand. Photo Credit: Esha Chhabra

13 10, 2017

The Marikana Women’s Fight For Justice, Five Years On

2018-03-02T13:37:41-05:00Tags: |

Sikhala Sonke is a grassroots group of women social justice advocates, who began organizing in response to the tragic events of police violence at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, South Africa. Five years after the tragedy, with no compensation and no end to abuses, the women campaign ongoingly for recognition, safety, and justice in the face of intense, ongoing economic and physical exploitation of mine workers. The mining fields of Marikana offers little to no security at the workplace, poor wages and constant threats of rape and assault for women, in a country where every third South African woman fighting violence against them. Despite the all the challenges, Sikhala women stands in solidarity and support each other to expose injustice and create solutions for healthy and safe livelihoods. Photo Credit: Sikhala Sonke

30 09, 2017

Making Change Happen: Rethinking Protection, Power, And Movements

2017-10-31T15:51:45-04:00Tags: |

Around the world, the intensity of threats to women human rights defenders continues to escalate. This report from JASS Just Associates and JASS MesoAmerica offers new feminist and social movement perspectives to questions surrounding why, despite increased attention and legal protections, women human rights activists and the organizations and communities with which they work continue to face worsening persecution and dangers.

26 09, 2017

Mexican Presidential Candidate Maria De Jesus Patricia Martinez On Healing For Land And People

2017-10-26T16:10:53-04:00Tags: |

María de Jesús “Marichuy” Patricio Martínez, a Nahua Indigenous woman leader born in Tuxpan, Jalisco, has made history as Mexico’s first ever Indigenous woman presidential candidate for the 2018 elections. María is a traditional healer in her community, know for her lifetime of work to protect traditional ways, culture, language and the wellbeing of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. She was prompted to run for office after witnessing the dangerous impact of industry, particularly mining, on the health and lives of her people and the land on which they depend. Photo credit: Duncan Tucker

19 09, 2017

Murder Of Celedonia Zalazar, Community Judge And Defender Of Indigenous Territory On Caribbean Coast

2017-10-21T23:53:05-04:00Tags: |

Celedonia Zalazar Point, a community judge and defender of indigenous land rights, was unjustly murdered due to escalating territorial disputes between Indigenous communities and imperialist settlers. After Bernicia Dixon Peranta, she is the second women’s human rights defender to be murdered on the Caribbean Coast, in addition to numerous deaths and displacements due to government inaction. Photo credit: Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders

8 09, 2017

Decolonize Justice Systems! An Interview With Dine’ Lawyer Michelle Cook

2020-09-08T21:23:05-04:00Tags: |

All over the world, Indigenous communities exist and function within two justice systems based on different worldviews: the European and the Indigenous. Human Rights Lawyer Michelle Cook (Diné), member of the Navajo Nation and born of the Honághááhnii clan, discusses the unequal relationship between these two frameworks and explains how the language of Human Rights can help challenge the colonial legal system which understates Indigenous' institutions. Photo Credit: Indigenous Rights Radio.

3 09, 2017

In Our Bones: Afrida Ngato

2017-09-03T21:28:50-04:00Tags: |

Afrida Erna Ngato is an indigenous activist and a “Sangaji Pagu” – a leader of the Pagu, a tribe living on their land since the 11th century. Previously, all leaders of the tribe were men but, Afrida stepped forward and became the first female leader. The mining in the Gulf of Kao caused water shortages, polluted rivers and bays, damaged ecosystems, and loss of biodiversity. Since the pipe burst, people began to fear eating fish, using the river water, and having trouble finding fish in the river. Access to clean water has reached crisis levels and this situation made Afrida take action. She protested for her community's rights along with 23 community members. All of them were arrested by the police but this made them even stronger. After this incident, Afrida widened her network by collaborating with neighboring tribes and now this makes it more difficult for mining companies to exploit them.

27 08, 2017

Maria Nailevu On Climate Justice For Fijian Women

2017-10-09T21:34:05-04:00Tags: |

Maria Nailevu recounts how her lived experience of climate change on the island of Taveuni has led to her current work on gender and climate change. She details her important work with feminist and community-led organization Diverse Voices & Action for Equality (DIVA). She recounts the work of the Women Defend the Commons campaign, which promotes social, economic and ecological justice in a women-led Suva-based organisation. Photo credit: Christine Irvine/Survival Media Agency

26 08, 2017

Recommendations To Protect WHRDs Confronting Extractive Industries

2017-10-26T23:28:57-04:00Tags: |

The Association for Women in Development (AWID and the Women Human Rights Defender International Coalition published a report entitled “Women Human Rights Defenders Confronting Extractive Industries” that lays out recommendations for practitioners to support this crucial work. They advocate for the recognition and support of women human rights defenders, an end to the criminalization of their activities, and empowerment and capacity-building for key leaders.

26 08, 2017

Defending People And Planet: Women Confronting Extractive Industries

2017-10-26T23:24:03-04:00Tags: |

This video introduces several women human rights defenders from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They share their struggles for land and life, and speak to the risks and challenges they face in their activism. This video is released alongside a helpful practical guide entitled "Weaving Resistance Through Action: Strategies of Women Human Rights Defenders Confronting Extractive Industries” by the Association for Women in Development. Photo credit: AWID

26 08, 2017

Equality In Dissent

2017-08-26T12:53:11-04:00Tags: |

When the state government of Uttarakhand proposed construction of the Desvari dam, a 252-megawatt hydropower project on the Pinder River, residents of Chepdu village were worried: blasting through rock in an already flood-prone seismic zone would put the lives and livelihoods of 20,000 people at risk. While some men in the community obtained contract work from the construction company, making them partisan to the project, women like Bilma Joshi stood strong, organizing their community to demand their statutory rights and oppose a project that would all but destroy the Pinder River. Photo Credit: Matu Jan Sanghathan

18 08, 2017

Climate Justice Is Racial Justice Is Gender Justice

2020-09-08T21:50:16-04:00Tags: |

Though climate justice is not typically thought of as integral to civil rights or women’s rights, Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, asks us to see their overlapping nature. Marginalized communities are often marginalized in many ways simultaneously: black populations are concentrated in poor neighborhoods, as is food insecurity, as are toxic waste facilities. While combatting climate change then, the concerns of marginalized communities need to be centered. Thus, access, affordability and viable livelihoods should be of high priority—as is consistent with a just transition. Photo Credit: Unknown

27 07, 2017

The Dangers Of Being A Defender Of The Environment In South Africa

2017-10-27T01:38:40-04:00Tags: |

Kristen Youens, an attorney specializing in environmental law and justice, examines the threats and intimidation faced by environmental activists in South Africa. Women activists, such as Lebogang Ngobeni from the Fuleni Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal and Nonhle Mbuthuma, spokesperson for the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), are often targeted.. Mining laws make it easy for corporations and businesses to confiscate land and plunder the resources for their benefit. Activists are silenced using tactics such as strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP). Environmental defenders receive no protection from authorities, while the perpetrators walk free. Photo credit: Leon Swart

27 07, 2017

Berta Cáceres’s Daughter Speaks Out After Surviving Assassination Attempt In Honduras

2017-10-27T01:30:44-04:00Tags: |

There was an attempted attack on Bertita Zúñiga Cáceres, the daughter of renowned environmental activist Berta Cáceres, and the new leader of Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) on her way home from a community visit. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks with Bertita Zúñiga Cáceres to get insight into the attack and the possible motives. She is also joined by US Representative Hank Johnson and Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a former COPINH member. Photo credit: Democracy Now!

27 07, 2017

Thailand’s Women Land Defenders Facing Violence

2017-10-27T00:50:17-04:00Tags: |

According to a joint report by the Observatory, Protection International and the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, rural Thai women are facing an increasing risk of violence and harassment. The report details how the military government of Thailand is failing to uphold civil rights of women human rights defenders who are at the forefront of fights for land and natural resource protection. Institutional discrimination renders women susceptible, and the government has failed to ensure their protection and access to justice. New laws are being introduced alongside existing laws to criminalize the efforts of women activists.

15 07, 2017

Women Climate Defenders – Video

2017-12-15T14:20:04-05:00Tags: |

Global women’s rights organization, MADRE, participated in the People’s Climate March in Washington D.C., bringing together Indigenous and frontline women from across the world to ensure their voices are heard, and to highlight the disproportionate impacts of climate change felt by women. Amongst the Women Climate Defenders who marched with MADRE were Winnie Kodi (Sudan), Lucy Mulenkei (Kenya), Martha Ntoipo (Tanzania), and Alina Saba (Nepal), alongside Yifat Susskind, MADRE’s executive director, and Diana Duarte, MADRE’s policy and communications director.

13 07, 2017

Thailand: Women Human Rights Defenders At Higher Risk Of Threats

2017-12-13T14:13:47-05:00Tags: |

Defending human rights is not a task for the faint hearted. It is dangerous task, especially if you are a woman human rights defender (WHRD) living in politicized societies such as Thailand. Thai human rights defenders such as Pranom Somwong , a member of Protection International, understand the risks associated with their jobs. Since the 2014 coup, women are more vulnerable to online intimidations and physical attacks. Women living in rural areas who are advocating for environmental rights and natural resources rights face a higher degree of danger. Montha Chukaew and Pranee Boonra were ruthlessly murdered  in cold blood and their bodies mutilated for their agricultural land rights advocacy. There is critical need for the provision of basic protections and justice, in line with the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Photo Credit: AP

27 06, 2017

Women Of The Cloud Forest Take On Mining Giants

2017-10-27T01:09:17-04:00Tags: |

The Intag cloud forest has been a hotspot for mining corporations for decades. A group of strong-willed women are taking a stance against these companies to protect the area’s biodiversity. Headed by Silvia Betancourt, The Coordination of Women, an umbrella group of 13 collectives, is fighting mining companies and ecological contamination. Marcia Ramirez, the leader of an anti-mining group, wants to prove that women too are capable of leading. She believes women dedicate more time to taking care of nature and are thus vulnerable to slight changes in the environment due to the nature of their daily errands. Photo credit: Naomi Renee Cohen

27 06, 2017

Gunmen Threaten Guatemalan Land And Territory Defender Aura Lolita Chávez

2017-11-01T23:26:16-04:00Tags: |

Members of the Council of Ki’che’ Peoples (CPK), including Aura Lolita Chávez Ixcaquic, identify unauthorized clear cutters in the protected forest area and take matters into their hand. They are confronted by a group of armed men who directly threaten Lolita and other members of the CPK, including children, causing them to flee in search of refuge. Photo credit: IM-Defensoras

27 06, 2017

Regional Gathering Of Defenders Of Land, Territory And Environment

2017-10-27T00:56:41-04:00Tags: |

Defenders of land, territory and environment, primarily women, from the Andean Region and the Latin American South gathered in Mexico City to scrutinize the context of violence in the region. Earth defenders in the region are a target of increasing violence, from both state and non-state actors, and imprisonment with little to no recognition of their rights. The culture of violence and discrimination against women and gender mandates reduce their authority and value of their work. A pact was made to ensure the protection of these women within their movements, to recognize and promote their work, to promote political formation for both genders and to foster their ownership of land. Photo credit: IM-Defensoras

19 06, 2017

People Power: Lessons From Standing Rock And Beyond

2017-10-09T21:48:25-04:00Tags: |

Tara Houska, an Ojibwe woman of the Couchiching First Nation who is a tribal attorney in Washington, D.C., and Native American Affairs Advisor to Bernie Sanders, discusses the biggest challenges and lessons from her time on the front line at Standing Rock and what’s next in the fight against corporate environmental destruction and systemic racism. She advocates engaging with local governance, taking direct action (such as protesting or participating in lawsuits) or indirect action (such as refusing to support corporations that fund destructive activities), and using social media to raise awareness of climate issues and protests. Photo credit: NITV

15 06, 2017

This Is My Land: The Indigenous Women Chiefs Protecting The Amazon

2017-10-14T16:34:20-04:00Tags: |

The Kayapo tribe in Brazil is shifting traditional gender roles with the emergence of three new female chiefs across its many communities within the Amazon rainforest. Tuire, one of the first female chiefs of the Kapran-krere village, is using her position to unite the fractured communities against outside threats. Recent legislation has reassigned land rights from the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest to the Ministry of Justice, suspected to allow for private interests to use the land for logging, mining, and cattle ranching. Tuire and other female chiefs are working to regain the rights to own and conserve their ancestral land. Photo credit: Pinar Yolacan

13 06, 2017

“A Transformative Vision”: Naomi Klein on Platforms for Racial, Health & Climate Justice Under Trump

2020-10-23T22:41:01-04:00Tags: |

In this interview, Canadian journalist, columnist and best-selling author Naomi Klein talks about the broad lines of the Leap Manifesto – Caring for the Earth and One Another. The success of neoliberalism, she argues, is based on the fallacy it is the only viable economic system; that no matter how bad its policies, the alternative would be worse. However, the Leap Manifesto in Canada expresses the transformative vision stemming from the courage to step forward and envision a different kind of economy in which everyone is provided with quality healthcare and education. The manifesto, endorsed by 220 grassroots and NGO organisations, thrives on utopian imagination and advocates for a transition towards progressive trade policy, which includes broader issues on alternatives to fossil fuel, solidarity with refugees, racial justice and indigenous rights. Klein asserts that the bold people’s platforms emerging from grassroots social movements will lead politicians to follow suit.

31 05, 2017

Inuit Mother Jailed After Protesting Dam At Muskrat Falls

2017-09-03T20:39:00-04:00Tags: |

Beatrice Hunter is many things at once: mother, grandmother and unapologetic land protector from the Indigenous Inuit community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Canada. Last fall, Hunter joined dozens of local land protectors in occupying the construction site of a highly controversial dam on Muskrat Falls, which holds immense cultural, economic and spiritual value for her people. Hunter now faces one criminal charge and two civil charges, and has defiantly refused to stay away from the Falls despite law enforcement's demands. In speaking out about the series of events, Hunter emphasizes that her people’s identities and livelihoods are deeply interconnected with the Falls, as well as the injustice of continued exploitation by settler-colonialism. Photo credit: Facebook

30 05, 2017

Creative Resistance: Meet The Women Challenging Extractivism And Patriarchy

2017-10-30T03:31:09-04:00Tags: |

Globally, the killings of environmental rights defenders is growing at an alarming rate. In 2015 alone, of the 156 killings investigated by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, 45% were those of land, indigenous and environmental rights. Inna Michaeli and Semanur Karaman, of the Association for Women in Development, write about the grassroots resistance of women like Havva Ana, a forest protector from Turkey. Bonita Meyersfeld, professor of law at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, argues that development projects are only successful if the economnic benefits are reinvested in communities. Photo credit: Gabby de Cicco

27 05, 2017

Remembering Jane Julia de Oliveira

2018-03-06T17:49:14-05:00Tags: |

AWID pay tribute to Jane Julia de Oliveira as part of their series that honours the memory of over 350 women human rights defenders from 80 different countries, highlighting these women in our collective memory so their struggle lives on. Jane Julia de Oliveira, from the Pará state of Brazil, was a land rights community leader, environmental defender, and president of Associaҫão dos Trabalhadores e Trabalhadoras Rurais (Association of Rural Workers). On the 24th May 2017 she was shot dead by local police, along with a group of people on the farm where she worked. Photo credit: AWID

27 05, 2017

Women Heroes Of The Honduran Resistance

2017-10-27T01:06:56-04:00Tags: |

Standing up to dams, mines, logging and unsustainable agricultural practices on your land could cost you your life in Honduras. Honduras has been ranked as the world’s deadliest country for environmental activists. Berta Cáceres, founder of Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) was murdered there for her environmental activism. Melissa Cardoza has dedicated her book “13 Colors of the Honduran Resistance” to Cáceres and women of the Honduran Resistance in the aftermath of the June 2009 coup. Photo credit: Fernando Antonio

27 05, 2017

Rethinking Women Activists’ Safety At A Time Of Escalating Risk

2017-10-27T00:48:43-04:00Tags: |

An ever-increasing number of women activists are targeted due to their functions as advocates against all sorts of abuse. Because of that, the organization JASS and its partners have been trying to develop a different approach to guidelines for the safety of activists, one based on a feminist perspective. The Mesoamerican Women Human Rights Defenders Initiative has been informed by dialogues that take place in a plural environment, with the participation of organizations, activists, donors, the United Nations, etc. The idea is to provide insights and come to conclusions as to how to diminish the dangers these women are exposed to when confronting powerful interests. Photo credit: JASS Just Associates

25 05, 2017

A Voice From The Forest In The Corporate Boardroom

2020-12-02T19:53:25-05:00Tags: |

Tribal attorney and Native advisor to Bernie Sanders, Tara Houska of Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe recounts her work of drawing attention to Indigenous rights issues in corporate boardrooms. She speaks specifically about the Indigenous-led resistances against large international financial corporations investing in fossil fuels. For Houska, the Paris Agreement and “sustainable action” plans do not hold corporations accountable for the environmental and social harm that they have caused. Now, Indiegnous resistance groups are rising up against these institutions, posing threats to Big Oil and its investors. Photo Credit: Tara Houska

15 05, 2017

Women And The Right To Land: A Case Study Of Brazil

2020-09-02T22:37:55-04:00Tags: |

Ana Célia, Edite Rodrigues, and Odete Mendes are among many rural Brazilian women who are struggling to make a living off of sugarcane farming but face unhealthy working conditions and unfair wages—conditions being exacerbated by land monopolies and market speculation. In the case of women like Maria Souza and Lusiane dos Santos, these stories have repeated themselves throughout multiple generations, with mothers and daughters being forced to work in the fields to sustain their families. Despite small farmers being most responsible for food production and job creation in the countryside, they occupy less agricultural land and receive less state support than large landowners and corporations, causing food insecurity and displacement in rural communities and subjecting women workers with limited alternatives to degrading conditions. That is why leaders like Carlita da Costa, president of the Cosmópolis Rural Workers Union, is fighting for labor rights by organizing rural women and focusing on structural changes to ensure secure markets for women farmers, public resources and social services, accessible education in the countryside, and basic rights to land and food. Photo credit: Feminist Alliance for Rights

7 05, 2017

Interview With Anna Peters: Federation Of Young European Greens

2020-11-07T17:44:13-05:00Tags: |

In this short video (1:12), Anna Peters recalls how she started getting involved in activism at a young age (13 y.o.) by demonstrating against nuclear power plants because she felt strongly about the danger of nuclear power. Fuelled by a desire to do something and take action, she eventually joined the Federation of Young European Greens, which is an umbrella organisation encompassing 36 Young Green organisations from across the European continent. FYEG promotes capacity building, networking, political meetings; runs campaigns at street level and lobbies the European institutions on Green issues. Anna advocates the importance of showing initiative and act for what matters to one’s heart. The act of getting out there to do something and change things little by little can be empowering, especially for young women when they supported by mature people, family and friends. Photo Credit: Video Screen Capture

2 05, 2017

Female Eco-Activists Live in ‘Constant State of Fear’ in Latin America

2021-01-27T20:47:45-05:00Tags: |

This article addresses the issue of violence against female eco-activists in Latin America (intimidation, threats, illegal detention). We read about the scale of the issue, with Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, assassinated in March 2016 for campaigning against plans to build hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River (in which the Honduran government was implicated). And 41-y.o. Evani Lisboa, coordinator of the Biological Reserve of Gurupi (Brazil), responsible for protecting the area from illegal logging or wildlife poaching, and constantly threatened by criminal organisations attempting to exploit the reserve’s resources. And Valeria Brabata, Global Fund for Women’s program director for Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights, who tries to help through financing, advocacy and networking for grassroots organisations. A note of hope with young activist Itandehury Castaneda (30), who co-produced a documentary with Carolina Corral La Battaa de la Cacerolas to tell the stories of Mexican women taking a stand for nature. Photo Credit: ATP Orlando Sierra

1 05, 2017

Faces Of Change: Than Than Aye

2017-11-01T01:12:34-04:00Tags: |

Than Than Aye is an activist lawyer for human rights. She decided to study law after she saw how her brother and his peers suffered violations of their rights and could not afford a lawyer to defend them. The siblings later created a civil and political organization to help communities empower themselves legally. Than Than is also part of EarthRights International, working with communities in search of justice in themes such as land and human rights. Being a lawyer on the ground is a big challenge and Than Than faces many dangers, but she believes that helping communities is of the utmost importance. Photo credit: EarthRights International

27 04, 2017

In Indonesia, Women Farmers Crushing Cement Mining and Production Factories

2017-10-27T01:15:37-04:00Tags: |

The Samin women of Indonesia are taking the lead to save Kendeng Karst mountains in Central Java from environmental destruction as cement companies consider expanding mining and production. The courageous Nine Kartinis of Kendeng from the Samin Community use non-violent resistance by planting their feet in cement to take a concrete stand against cement plants. Photo credit: Yes To Life No To Mining

26 04, 2017

AWID Report Reveals The Gender-Specific Risks Women Human Rights Defenders Face

2017-10-26T23:22:07-04:00Tags: |

Building off of findings from the report, “Women Human Rights Defenders Confronting Extractive Industries,” the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) outlines the gender-specific barriers Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) encounter when they defend their land and communities from extractive industries and environmental degradation. Testimonials from the women illustrate their individual experiences. In this post, AWID also emphasizes the inseparable link between extractive models of development and risks and threats WHRDs face worldwide. Photo credit: ACDI/Katalina Morales

20 04, 2017

Defending Earth Every Day With Women Around The World

2020-04-24T16:00:22-04:00Tags: |

April 22 is Earth Day, and in 2017, women and men took over the streets of Washington, D.C. as part of the “March for Science” in recognition of the need to address climate change.  For many women around the world, however, Earth Day truly is every day. Because land is often passed down from father to son, and because land rights are so closely tied to economic empowerment and independence, women are keenly aware of the opportunities that accompany land rights. Not only that, but in many parts of the world, land is also deeply tied to ancestral knowledge and culture. These are only some of the reasons why women are leading powerful movements for land and women’s rights. Bai Bibyaon of the Philippines, Ana Sandoval of Guatemala, and Melania Chiponda of Zimbabwe are just a few of the women leading the resistance against environmental destruction by mining companies across the world. For these women and for women everywhere, land is about dignity and justice. Illustration credit: Maria Maria Acha-Kutscher

11 04, 2017

Going It Alone

2020-12-15T21:48:06-05:00Tags: |

Rahawa Haile is an Eritrean American writer. In this piece, she shares her experience of being a queer black woman backpacking across the Appalachian Trail and challenges the preconceived notion that ‘blacks don’t hike’. Rahawa addresses the politics, history, survival kills and fear inherent to the relationship between black peoples and the outdoors in a predominantly whites-only mind-set; and highlights that access restriction to natural sites are linked to the park system, Jim Crow laws and Native American removal campaigns. She cites Evelyn C. White, author of ‘Black women and the wilderness’, who describes wilderness as both an access to the past and a trigger of race-based suffering, since these places have history of abuse, eradication and persecution of non-white hikers. Rahawa also notes how this relationship is changing with black public figures like Oprah promoting a new vision of black people enjoying hiking through the wilderness. Photo Credit: Rahawa Haile

31 03, 2017

One Woman Against Big Oil And Patriarchy

2017-09-04T09:07:58-04:00Tags: |

In 2013, Alicia Cawiya, Vice-President of the Huaorani Nation of Ecuador, addressed the country’s Constituent Assembly in Quito denouncing the oil companies and defending her Indigenous brothers and sisters from other groups, and their culture. After her powerful speech, Alicia became an inspiration for Indigenous women and a respected national political figure and Indigenous activist. Later, she wrote to the Permanent Representative for China to the United Nations to protest the violation of Indigenous rights by the Chinese state company Andes Petroleum that resulted from the agreements signed with the Ecuadorian government in 2016. In addition, she helped to organize a Women’s March to demand that Indigenous territories be declared a petroleum-extraction-free zone. Alicia is the founder of the Huaorani Artisanal Women’s Association and she continues to fight for women’s economic empowerment. Photo credit: Elle Enander

27 03, 2017

Women Environmental Defenders Condemn Systemic Violence Before The Inter-American Commission On Human Rights

2017-10-27T01:44:51-04:00Tags: |

A delegation of women environmental advocates appeared before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to denounce systemic violence against environmental land defenders. Among those testifying were Juliana Bravo Valencia, Amazon Program Coordinator for EarthRights International,  Joan Martínez Alier, Naomi Klein and Esperanza Martinez Yanez and Ivonne Ramos from Acción Ecológica. The timing of the hearing was meaningful for environmental defenders, as several governments in the Americas have prioritized the welfare of corporations over human rights. Photo credit: EarthRights International

27 03, 2017

Alicia Lopez Guisao: Another Indigenous Human Rights Activist Killed In Colombia

2017-10-27T00:43:10-04:00Tags: |

Alicia Lopez Guisao was a leader of the Asokinchas community in Colombia, organizing the Agrarian Summit Project, which distributed land and food for 12 Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in the department of Choco. When shopping in a grocery store in Medellín, she was shot to death by two gunmen. Since the retreat of Colombia’s FARC, other paramilitary groups have been acting to gain power in the city, and consequently the rate of attacks to human rights activists increased. In spite of all the pain, Alicia’s family might not be able to attend the burial, as they have been threatened to be the next in case they do. Photo credit: Congreso de los Pueblos

27 03, 2017

On International Women’s Day, Honoring Women Land And Human Rights Defenders

2017-10-27T00:40:49-04:00Tags: |

Women represent a major force in the defense of the environment and human rights. Because of the resistance they present, women are harassed, criminalized and murdered around the world. The violence against them increases over time, and yet these women continue the fight for what they believe in. As a celebration of Women’s Day, learn from the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network about five incredible women: Melania Chiponda, Josephine Pagalan, Ana Mirian Romero, Joy Braun and LaDonna BraveBull Allard. Photo credit: CommonDreams

6 03, 2017

Killing The Messenger: Attacks Rise On Women Human Rights Defenders

2018-03-06T17:52:20-05:00Tags: |

More and more often, women who defend the rights of their communities and lands are victims of sexual and physical violence and are even killed for “crossing the line.” In 2012, Juventina Villa was killed alongside her son in the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico. For years she had led the environmental organization Peasant Ecologists of Petatlán and Couca, and as a leader, she worked tirelessly to defend the forests, rivers, and communities of the region. Anoterer woman, Josefina Reyes, was killed in 2010 after criticizing the military’s violation of human rights along the U.S.-Mexico border. Margarita Chub Che, too, was murdered when she fought back against displacement due to agribusiness expansion. In Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, more than 24 women human rights defenders have been killed in a few short years. As a result, organizations of women across the world are demanding protection for those courageous enough to stand up against injustice.

3 03, 2017

Colombian Human Rights Defender Ruth Alicia Lopez Guisao Shot Dead In Medellin

2018-03-06T17:34:01-05:00Tags: |

Ruth Alicia was a well-known and respected community leader, engaged in the promotion of health and education projects, most recognizably through the food security projected organized by the ‘Cumbre Agraria’. Her bravery and empathetic social engagement helped organize and empower local indigenous and Afro descendant communities in areas neglected and condemned within the violence of the Colombian war. As a result of her humanitarian commitment, Ruth Alicia and her family received constant threats and were displaced by paramilitaries. Ruth Alicia was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen on March 2, 2017. Photo credit: HRD Memorial

27 02, 2017

Environmental Lawyer Murdered In Philippines

2018-03-06T17:37:30-05:00Tags: |

Mia Manuelita Mascarinas-Green was a renowned Filipino environmental lawyer working in pursuit of public interest, respect for human rights, and the promotion of social justice for over ten years. She dedicated her life towards the investigation of crimes against the environment, women, and children, and was known nationally as an empathetic and passionate individual. Mia Manuelita Mascarinas-Green was murdered in response to her life’s work, adding the death toll of Filipino environmental activists killed over a 15 year period to a staggering 112. Photo credit: Rappler.com

26 02, 2017

Ana Sandoval Stands Against Mining in Guatemala

2017-11-01T23:28:28-04:00Tags: |

Ana Sandoval’s journey as a land defender has been marked with plenty of remarkable moments. She started as early as a high school student fighting to stop a gold mining mega-project in her community. The experience turned her into a law student leader in a non-violent, women-led grassroots movement “La Puya” in the defense of land. Photo credit: Global Fund For Women

21 02, 2017

How Mexican Human Rights Lawyers Found A New Route To Accountability

2017-09-03T21:17:31-04:00Tags: |

On February 21 2017, Mexico City’s Museum of Anthropology and History delivered an official apology to three Indigenous women for the violation of their human rights. Alberta Alcántara, Jacinta Francisco Marcial, and Teresa González, members of the Hñä-Hñú (Otomí) people, were first arrested and unlawfully detained in August 2006, after the police tried to seize goods from Indigenous vendors. They were falsely charged with the kidnapping of six federal police and despite the lack of evidence, sentenced to 21 years in prison without the Hñähñu translator they should have been provided with under the law. The case is emblematic of the failures of Mexico’s justice system to offer equitable access to justice to indigenous people. Photo credit: Open Society Foundations

13 02, 2017

Biodiversity Here And Now

2018-10-19T19:02:03-04:00Tags: |

Gabrielle, an aspiring biologist and environmental scientist, is educating her community about the Central Cebu Protected Landscape (CCPL). The Central Cebu Protected Landscape, home to various endemic and critically endangered species, is a forest reserve located in the mountains and drainage basins of central Cebu in the Philippines. After working for a local NGO, Gabrielle learned about the forest “dead zones”, areas where invasive species like Mahogany have taken over and inhibited native species from growing. Now her main objective is to educate the public and protect the CCPL’s unique biodiversity and water supply.  Photo Credit: Commundos

26 01, 2017

Melania Chiponda, Zimbabwe’s Women’s Rights Activist

2017-11-01T23:29:06-04:00Tags: |

Melanie Chiponda started as an activist the day the police stopped the bus she was traveling in and forced all the women to get naked in order to search them. Since then, she has been harassed several times by state agents, but it didn’t prevent her from fighting the oil and mining interests that are destroying the local ecosystem and displacing families. On the contrary, Melanie has bravely been working in the defense of women’s right to land. Photo credit: Global Fund For Women

26 01, 2017

Chevron’s Massive Pollution In Ecuador Frames Death Of Legendary Nurse Rosa Moreno

2017-10-26T13:38:47-04:00Tags: |

This story, published by Amazon Watch, honors the life and legacy of Rosa Moreno, a nurse who dedicated over 30 years of her life to treating cancer and fighting on the frontlines of a dire environmental health crisis in her Amazonian village of San Carlos. San Carlos is located near dozens of Superfund sites or open-air pits filled with toxic oil sludge. These dump sites, presently owned by the American-based Chevron Corporation, continue to funnel waste into the local drinking water sources. Photo credit: Amazon Watch

17 01, 2017

Rachel Carson : The American Experience

2020-11-20T17:41:36-05:00Tags: |

Writer and biologist Rachel Carson published the controversial book Silent Spring in September, 1962. Prior to writing Silent Spring, Carson was already one of the most celebrated writers in the United States, known for her work’s emphasis on the natural world. In Silent Spring, Carson unveils the damaging effects of the renowned synthetic pesticide DDT. She provides a counter-argument to the narrative of human domination of the natural world, and warns that humans need to take caution against the detrimental environmental effects their actions create. Silent Spring forced the United States to question its relationship with the environment, as well as its rapidly industrializing methods of agriculture. Photo Credit: Screenshot

1 01, 2017

In Our Bones: Eva Susanty Hanafi Bande

2017-09-04T09:03:15-04:00Tags: |

Eva is a defender of women’s human rights, land rights, and the environment in Central Sulawesi Province, Indonesia since 1998. She founded the People’s Front for Central Sulawesi Palm Oil Advocacy when the company PT Berkat Hutan Pusaka illegally appropriated land from local Indigenous people. As a result, fields and homes were constantly swamped because of the resultant flooding and water-borne diseases increased. Eva, together with local farmers, organized peaceful demonstrations against the company but due to tensions she was arrested and sentenced to prison. Nevertheless she continued to advocate behind bars. Eva has a deep commitment to the value of education, especially for women, as she believes that land justice cannot be discussed only in the classroom, it has to be put in practice. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund

27 12, 2016

Intimidation And Death Threats Against Ana Mirian Romero

2017-10-27T00:08:25-04:00Tags: |

Due to her work as a human rights defender, Ana Mirian Romero, along with fellow members of the Consejo Indígena San Isidro Labrador, has been receiving death threats. Since 2010 she has been fighting the development of a project that lacks free, prior and informed consent by the affected communities, the Los Encinos hydroelectric dam. Ana Romero has been through a lot: an arson attack to her house, police raids in her home, physical assaults by the police, harassment by authorities. And yet, once again her life is endangered. Photo credit: Frontline Defenders

17 12, 2016

Prominent Indigenous Environmental Activist In Colombia Faces Death Threats

2017-07-16T13:23:58-04:00Tags: |

Jakeline Romero is a renowned Colombian Indigenous advocate who has been fighting against the British-owned Cerrejon open pit coal mine in her community for years. Jakeline has seen five communities razed to allow for mine expansion, disproportionately affecting local women and children. A member of the Wayuú Women's Movement, Jakeline stands strong despite a recent open threat on her life, and uses the opportunity to draw attention to strength of the movement and the women she represents. Photo credit: London Mining Network

12 12, 2016

For Indigenous Women, Land Access Essential To Eradicating Gender-Based Violence

2017-07-16T13:34:59-04:00Tags: |

In this interview, Myrna Cunnigham, a Miskita feminist, Indigenous rights activist and president of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) in Nicaragua explains why the gender-based violence Indigenous women and girls experience within their communities cannot be separated from colonisation or traditional territorial governance systems. As climate change and land grabs threaten Indigenous women’s role as traditional protectors of Mother Earth, Cunningham invites people worldwide to mobilise against gender-based violence, as it is also a matter of collective rights. Photo credit: Intercontinental Cry

1 12, 2016

Tara Houska Stands With Anti-Pipeline Activists

2017-10-14T16:16:52-04:00Tags: |

Attorney and Director of Honor The Earth Washington D.C., Tara Houska provides legal support for non-violent water protectors that are resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Her work has brought her from the Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota to the United States congress to lobby for Indigenous rights. She has also promoted the interests of Native Americans as an adviser to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Photo credit: grist 50!

30 11, 2016

Defending The Territory, Defending Life: Women Human Rights Defenders Resist Extractivism In Latin America

2018-03-06T18:04:32-05:00Tags: |

Across Latin America, women human rights defenders are creatively organizing themselves as they resist the extraction of natural resources that destroys their lands and ways of life. Since the 1990s, Latin America has received the greatest foreign direct investments for the extractive sector, which has nearly destroyed entire ecosystems and communities. Watershed headwaters, the Amazon jungle, and Andean lagoons all face threats. Most of these projects are imposed on marginalized communities, thereby demonstrating the link between social and environmental violence. In response to territorial destruction, women have risen up against mining projects, dams, and monocultures, only to be met by brutal repression, criminalization, and sexual and physical violence. Some defenders, such as Berta Cáceres of Honduras, have been murdered, while others, like Lonko Juana and Machi Millaray Huichalaf of Chile, have been imprisoned. Still, despite all the obstacles they face, women have been able to temporarily stop or paralyze extractions in Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. They have organized autonomously and organically, and they have led collective transformations of solidarity. Photo credit: Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition

29 11, 2016

Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRD-IC) Statement On International Women Human Rights Defenders Day

2020-10-13T20:23:06-04:00Tags: |

Since, 2006 the world has been celebrating International Women Human Right Day to promote the human rights under various International Human Rights treaties like International Bill of Human Rights and Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women. Women Human Right Defenders often face the resistance from mainstream society for protecting women rights and environmental rights. Thus, to protect the rights of these defenders, the government must ensure justice and establish its law in sync with UN treaties. Photo Credit: Unknown

30 10, 2016

Indigenous Sexual Assault Survivors Plead For United Nations Action Against Canadian Mining Giant

2017-10-31T15:34:03-04:00Tags: |

Barrick Gold, the Canadian mining giant and the world’s largest gold producer, is infamous for human rights abuses and ecocide. Nearly 120 sexual assault survivors from Papua New Guinea have taken their case to the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, demanding justice for the sexual and domestic violence that they and many more have faced over the years at the hands of mine security personnel working at Barrick Gold’s Porgera mine.

30 10, 2016

Strike A Rock: Out Of Dust And Iron, The Women Of Marikana Rise

2017-10-30T03:13:41-04:00Tags: |

On August 16th 2012, 37 striking mineworkers from Lonmin Plc demanded better living conditions and an increase in their wages before being brutally gunned down by the South African police. Hundreds were injured in what is now referred to as the Marikana massacre. The documentary “Strike A Rock” brings much-needed needed focus on the lives of women touched by the giant South African mining industry. The film is a story of two South African mothers and best friends, Primrose Sonti and Thumeka Magwangqana, who formed a women’s organization, Sikhala Sonke (We Cry Together) in order to fight for social and economic justice.

27 10, 2016

Voices Of Indigenous Women Human Rights Defenders From The Philippines

2017-10-27T01:14:04-04:00Tags: |

A short film produced by the Asia Indigenous People’s Pact and shared by Yes To Life, No To Mining investigates the non-recognition of Indigenous people’s rights to ancestral lands due to large-scale mining in the Philippines. It looks at the threats and challenges encountered and actions taken by several Indigenous women human rights defenders, such as Betty Belen, Mother Petra, Bai Lita Kundag, Marevic Aguirre, Christina Lanatao and Bai Madalna Kundag in their struggle for self-determination and collective rights against transnational corporations. Photo credit: Asia Indigenous Peoples' Pact

27 10, 2016

‘They Said They Would Rape Me’: Defenders Of Women’s Rights Speak Out

2017-10-27T01:11:22-04:00Tags: |

Activists advocating for women’s rights around the world are systematically targeted with threats and abuse. Daysi Flores, Renu Adhikari Rhajbhandari, Azza Soliman and Li Tingting, four campaigners from Honduras, Nepal, Egypt and China share their stories.

26 10, 2016

Bay Ali Indayla Protects Lands Of Phillipines

2017-11-01T23:27:28-04:00Tags: |

Bay Ali Indayla is a Bangsomoro (Moro) activist from the Maguindanaon region of the Phillipines. After documenting human rights violations against her community in the context of ongoing conflict between separatists and government forces, she became the Secretary General of the Alliance for the Advancement of Moro Human Rights. As armed conflicts go on over access to land and natural resources, the need for the kind of work she does increases, and so do the dangers to her safety as a human rights activist. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund

26 10, 2016

Bai Ellen Manlimbaas: Her Weapon Is Her Voice

2017-10-26T16:30:19-04:00Tags: |

In this World Pulse story, Bai Ellen Manlimbaas, Lumad Indigenous women leaders of the Matigsalog tribe living in the village of White Culaman, Bukidnon, Mindanao, Philippines, recounts her abduction and month-long detention by the military for to her work with other local leaders and rural women to oppose the continued ingression of destructive development, militarization and corporate farming and mining into Lumad homelands.  Photo credit: World Pulse

24 10, 2016

Brutal Attack Stiffens Cambodian Woman’s Resolve To Protect Forest

2018-02-22T20:25:23-05:00Tags: |

Phorn Sopheak is an environmental activist and member of Northern Rural Development (NRD) and Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), a grassroot movement to protect Prey Lang Forest in Cambodia.  Sopheak started working with her parents in the field at very young age and observed the illegal deforestation and logging in her area, as well as the chemical factories which dumped waste into the river and killed many species of fishes. After raising her voice against illegal loggers, she was brutally slashed in the foot with ax in an act of intimidation. Following the attack, Phorn Sopheak declared that the attack only made her stronger to fight for environment. She was awarded with UN Equator Prize at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 for her efforts to protect her regions ecosystems, and spread knowledge via the Women On Air radio program. Photo Credit: Savann Oeurm / Oxfam America

29 09, 2016

Gloria Ushigua Works To Defend Indigenous Territory In The Ecuadorian Amazon

2017-10-09T21:19:09-04:00Tags: |

Gloria Ushigua, President of the Sápara Women's Association of Ecuador (Ashiñwaka) is actively working against state and privately-run oil companies’ efforts to develop the Pastaza Province of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Despite increased harassment, intimidation, and persistent threat of violence, Ushigua has persevered in her defense of Sápara land and right to a traditional way of life in the Amazon. Photo credit: Land is Life

13 09, 2016

In Her Bones: Female Tribal Leader Defends Land In Indonesia

2017-07-16T14:19:29-04:00Tags: |

Afrida Erna Ngato is an Indigenous activist and tribal leader in her community of Pagu, a position that women very rarely occupy. Afrida is fighting against gold and silver mining on almost 30,000 hectares of Indigenous territory. Decades of mining have led to detrimental impacts on the environment along with the health and livelihood of community members. Afrida leads protests in front of the mining company offices and collaborates with neighboring tribes to map borders, making it difficult for future mining companies to exploit the land and its people. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund

4 09, 2016

Gendering Documentation: A Manual For And About Women Human Rights Defenders

2023-04-16T14:51:32-04:00Tags: |

The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition’s 2016 publication, Gendering Documentation: A Manual For and About Women Human Rights Defenders, highlights the activism of women human rights defenders (WHRDs) from around the world and the violence they face as a result of their work. The manual aims to utilize feminist documentation as a methodology for politically-motivated storytelling, centering women’s experiences defending human rights at the same time their own are blatantly violated. Gendering Documentation is rooted in gender analysis to present well-informed critiques of unjust social systems and uplift the women who fight to dismantle them.

11 07, 2016

Water Song: Indigenous Women And Water

2023-04-16T15:28:48-04:00Tags: |

For Indigenous Peoples in Canada, water is a living thing and a spiritual entity with life-giving forces. Indigenous women have a strong relationship with water and traditionally have been considered its caretakers and protectors. Unsurprisingly, these women have often been referred to as “Keepers of the Water” or “Carriers of the Water.” Colonial institutions and tools have fragmented this relationship, creating disconnects between the land and Indigenous Peoples and, thus, the role of women in water governance. But Indigenous women are resilient, strong and are reasserting their role in local, regional, and national governance systems and dialogues. They are leading efforts to rebuild spiritual and cultural connections with water in their communities and are leading efforts across Canada to protect water. Indigenous women played a key role in developing a framework to support the engagement and re-empowering of Indigenous women in water governance in Canada. Already, the implementation of this framework is supporting Indigenous women to reassert their traditional roles and engaging more women in water stewardship activities. 

27 06, 2016

Ana Miriam Romero Vows To Continue Her Activism In Defense of The Environment

2017-10-27T00:01:34-04:00Tags: |

Ana Mirian Romero, a Honduran human rights and environmental activist, travelled to Dublin in order to receive the 2016 Front Line Defenders Awards. Her work against the construction of a hydroelectric dam was recognized as instrumental to the defense of her community’s ancestral lands. She fights for the possibility of providing Indigenous children with a better future, one in which the air, water and soil are not devastated to benefit companies. Photo credit: Conor McCabe

17 06, 2016

Thailand: Women Human Rights Defenders And Villagers Oppose Coal Mining And Demand Climate Justice

2018-03-01T14:19:19-05:00Tags: |

In this statement, members of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), Protection International (PI) and the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) express their solidarity with the Ban Haeng community of Thailand, which is opposing a nearby coal mine. Part of the Global Call for Climate Justice campaign, the statement condemns the harassment, intimidations and threats experienced by the community members, particularly women environmental and human rights defenders, such as woman leader Waewrin Buangern. Photo credit: Alexandra Salmon-Lefranc Gennai

16 06, 2016

Women Human Rights Defenders And Villagers Oppose Coal Mining And Demand Climate Justice

2017-07-16T14:40:40-04:00Tags: |

Asia Pacific Indigenous and women’s organizations are joining the Ban Haeng community in opposing the coal mine in Tambon Ban Haeng, Thailand. The government of Thailand granted a mining concession to Green Yellow Co. Ltd. in August 2015, threatening both local forests and the Ban Haeng people. While vocalizing their opposition and taking legal action to revoke the mining concession, villagers and their allies have faced physical harassment and deaths threats from military personnel. As part of the Women’s Global Call for Climate Justice, this solidarity action stands together not only with Asia Pacific regional communities, but also with women all over the world fighting for a fossil fuel free future. Photo credit: Alexandra Salmon-Lefranc Gennai

10 06, 2016

From Child Laborer To Women’s Rights Defender

2017-07-16T14:07:02-04:00Tags: |

Lucrecia Huayhua Choque, an Indigenous Aymara woman, was sent away from her community in Cocapacabana at the age of eight to the city of La Paz where she worked long hours without pay. She returned to her community at the age of 22, when she was forced into marriage. After a lifetime of difficulties, she was selected to participate in the UN-funded School for Women Leaders, where she learned about women's rights and gender equality. Now she is a passionate advocate for women, traveling to various urban and rural communities to fight against violence and exploitation with education. Photo credit: OMAK

2 06, 2016

Indigenous Woman Leader Threatened For Defending Environmental And Human Rights

2017-07-16T14:48:47-04:00Tags: |

Gloria Ushigua, coordinator of the Indigenous Sápara women’s organization Ashiñwaka, faces great danger in her home in the Ecuadorian Amazon as a result of her determined work to stop the expansion of oil drilling and the displacement of her community. Since 2010, she has defended her community Llachama Cocha from the encroachment of foreign and state-sponsored fossil fuel extraction. Photo credit: Frontline Defenders

12 05, 2016

Indigenous Women Take Action To Protect Mother Earth

2017-09-04T21:57:25-04:00Tags: |

On May 12, 2016 a group of Indigenous women leaders from South and North America (Turtle Island) united to share their concerns, struggles and plans for change at “Indigenous Women of the Americas Protecting Mother Earth: Struggles and Climate Solutions,” an afternoon event presented by the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International and our allies at Amazon Watch and the Indigenous Environmental Network. It was held in New York City in parallel to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to bring public visibility to the diverse stories, solutions and demands of frontline women climate leaders. The speakers shared with the audience unique experiences and all focused on several main areas: (1) respect for and implementation of Indigenous rights and knowledge as a prerequisite for climate justice and effective sustainability solutions and (2) the protection of the rights, health, lives and lands of Indigenous peoples, and nations. Photo credit: Emily Arasim, Joan Beard

8 05, 2016

Honoring Women Defenders Of Land And Life

2017-07-20T17:30:04-04:00Tags: |

On Mother’s Day, the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network honored the inspiring stories of six women leaders dedicated to defending land and life. Maanda Ngoitiko of Tanzania, Máxima Acuña of Peru, Suryamani Bhagat of India, Cherri Foytlin of the United States, Antonia Melo de Silva of Brazil, and Tep Vanny of Cambodia are powerful women leaders fighting to protect and heal our earth. Photo credit: WECAN SAFECO Regional Climate Solution Training Programme

27 04, 2016

The Dammed Of The Earth

2018-10-17T18:33:57-04:00Tags: |

Listen to Sian Cowman and Philippa de Boissière, researchers at The Democracy Center, discuss their article “Dammed of the Earth” in which they address the terminal environmental and human rights impacts of hydroelectric projects on indigenous territories. They also provide background to the assassination of Berta Cáceres and hint at possible means of continued resistance. Photo credit: Daniel Cima

17 04, 2016

Statement In Solidarity With Non-Violent Protestors In Kidapawan City, Philippines

2018-07-13T16:34:21-04:00Tags: |

From 30th March, 2016, more than 6,000 farmers from various municipalities in the North Cotabato Province of the Philippines held a protest to demand rice subsidies following food shortages caused by droughts. The government responded with violence, killing 2, wounding over 100 and leaving many missing or detained, including 34 women, 4 of which were pregnant. Bai Ali Indayla, Secretary General of KAWAGIB Alliance of the Advancement of Moro Human Rights, a negotiator on behalf of farmers, was wounded in the protest. She and the other protestors took shelter in a nearby church, only to be barricaded in by PNP-Region 12 and other units of State forces. Women Human Rights Defenders: International Coalition (WHRDIC) condemn this brutal attack and call for Karapatan, a human rights organisation, to be able to carry out an investigation without harm, they demand the release of those unlawfully detained and accountability for violations perpetrated against protestors. Photo credit: WHRDIC

9 04, 2016

Daughter Of Murdered Activist Berta Cáceres Continues Her Mother’s Work

2017-07-20T17:39:58-04:00Tags: |

26-year-old Bertha Zúniga Cáceres is demanding justice for the death of her mother Berta Cácares Flores. Zúniga has criticized the Organization of American States and called for an independent investigation into the death of her mother, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work protecting forests and rivers, and other climate activists who have disappeared or been murdered for their opposition to the construction of mega-dams. Photo credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post

6 04, 2016

Violence Against Women Human Rights Defenders In Mesoamerica 2012-2014 Report

2018-03-06T17:55:26-05:00Tags: |

Hostilities against women human rights defenders (WHRDs) take many forms, and are initiated by various state and non-state actors. In this informative report, IM-Defensoras adopts a gender perspective to highlight the experiences of  WHRDs on the ground in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua as of 2014. Whilst quantifying the scale and types of violence against WHRDs in the region, it also recognizes their specific and place-based needs of diverse women and their communities. Photo Credit: Im-Defensoras

2 04, 2016

Guatemalan Q’eqchi’ Women Take Canadian Mining Firm To Court

2017-07-16T15:01:20-04:00Tags: |

Indigenous Guatemalan women, such as Margarita Caal Caal, spoke out against the sexual violence they experienced at the hands of Canadian mining company Hudbay Mineral, Inc. and brought their case to court in Guatemala. The Q’eqchi’ people have suffered eviction, sexual violence and exploitation due to the presence of international mining firms, but these women are seeking justice for themselves and their communities. Photo credit: Adriana Zehbrauskas, the New York Times

29 03, 2016

Six Indigenous Women Are At The Heart Of Argentina’s Anti-Fracking Resistance

2017-07-12T20:08:39-04:00Tags: |

Chela Campo is amongst the six Indigenous Mapuche women from the Checho Maripe community who are putting their bodies at risk and chaining themselves to fracking machinery to stop drilling in the Argentinian Patagonia. The Mapuche come from a long legacy of resistance, first to genocide by the Argentinian state in the late 19th century, and most recently to the alliance between multinational fossil fuel companies and the Argentinian government that permitted drilling without the Mapuche’s consent. Photo credit: Checho Maripe

27 03, 2016

Human Rights Defenders Paying A Heavy Price To Ensure Gender Justice

2017-10-27T01:42:55-04:00Tags: |

The assassination of Berta Cáceres, Honduran environmental activist and leader of the Lenca people, sparked international uproar for the stopping of unlawful and brutal attacks on activists. Women are often in the firing line as victims of these attacks. They are the target of violence by corrupt governments and corporations and repressive institutions. The matter has gained interest amongst academics and civil society groups. According to Jagoda Munic, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International, environmental justice can not be attained without eradicating violence against women. Photo credit: Young Feminist Fund

22 03, 2016

Human Rights Defenders Paying A Heavy Price To Ensure Gender Justice

2018-07-13T16:15:23-04:00Tags: |

Around the world women environmental defenders are being shot in broad daylight, kidnapped, threatened and tried as terrorists for standing in the way of so called “development”. Ayesha Constable, writing for Frida the Young Feminist Fund, highlights that the murder of Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres reveals the systematic violence that targets women who dare to challenge patriarchy and capitalism. A Global Witness report in 2013, “Deadly Environments”, names Honduras the second deadliest country in the world for environmentalists, with 101 activists murdered between 2010-2014. Before her death, Berta pointed out that this aggression is worse for women as, “we are women who are reclaiming our right to the sovereignty of our bodies and thoughts and political beliefs, to our cultural and spiritual rights…”. While calls for an independent investigation into Berta’s murder grow louder, Jagoda Munic, Friends of the Earth International, affirms that no environmental justice can be achieved without ending violence against women. Photo credit: Frida

18 03, 2016

UN Envoy Warns Of Environmental Activist Murder Epidemic

2017-07-17T14:47:22-04:00Tags: |

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has urged world governments to take urgent action to address violence against defenders of the Earth, which she sees as a growing global epidemic. Photo credit: Jorge Cabrera/Reuters  

10 03, 2016

Indigenous Women In The Philippines Defend Their Livelihoods

2017-07-17T18:10:11-04:00Tags: |

36-year-old housewife and mother Minda Dalinan, from the Blaan Indigenous people, was amongst hundreds protesting the violence and human rights violations committed by paramilitary forces, which are terrorizing and displacing her people. Indigenous tribes in the Philippines are fighting to save their ancestral land from mining companies and government takeovers, and women are leading the fight. Photo credit: Iris Gonzales  

8 03, 2016

Women Are Fighting Tough Environmental Battles Around The World

2017-07-20T17:40:48-04:00Tags: |

From organizing protests against big mining companies and polluters in South Africa and Indonesia, to helping relocate those whose homes are threatened by rising sea levels in Papua New Guinea, women are at the forefront of  the fight against climate change. Photo credit: thinkprogress.org  

8 03, 2016

Indigenous Women Of The Amazon And Allies March For Climate Justice And Indigenous Rights On International Women’s Day

2017-10-12T14:43:28-04:00Tags: |

On International Women's Day, Indigenous women of the Andoa, Achuar, Kichwa, Shuar, Shiwiar, Sapara and Waorani nations marched in opposition to a contract between Chinese oil conglomerate Andes Petroleum and the Ecuadorian government. Rosalia Ruiz (Sapara) and Alicia Cahuiya (Waorani) spoke about defending their ancestral territory for their people, their rights and climate justice. Photo credit: Amazon Watch

19 01, 2016

Three Women Arrested For Protesting Gas Wells Project In Australia

2017-07-20T17:42:18-04:00Tags: |

Angela, Dominique and Theresa were arrested for locking themselves to the gates of a waste treatment site for 850 coal seam gas wells. The women, who are part of anti-coal seam gas group The Knitting Nannas, were charged and released but vow to continue their protest against the project. Photo credit: Facebook

1 01, 2016

Women We Love: 25 Influential Women In Food And Agriculture

2020-10-10T20:35:41-04:00Tags: |

This article lists an international array of influential women farmers and system changers who are helping to combat the climate crisis through their agricultural and food work. Some of the women and their respective organizations include: Food Corps co-founder Debra Eschmeyer; urban gardener and Executive Director of Abalimi, Tengiwe Cristina Kaba; agricultural engineer and founder of IBS Soluciones Verdes, Susana Chaves Villalobos; community activist and co-founder of Black Urban Growers, Karen Washington; farmer and founder of the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network, Denise O’Brien; and Dinnah Kapiza, the CEO of Tisaiwale Trading, a chain of farm supply stores in rural Malawi. Photo credit: Food Tank

1 01, 2016

Miriam Miranda And Garifuna Women Fight For Climate Justice

2017-07-17T15:54:14-04:00Tags: |

Miriam Miranda, director of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), is fighting numerous battles for climate and environmental justice. The land and ocean resources of the Afro-Indigenous Garifuna people of Honduras are threatened by foreign extractive industries, violent government land seizure, drug cartels, tourism, and changing ecosystems. Food scarcity, poverty, and climate disasters lead Garifuna men to seek work in the cities or migrate to the United States. As a result, women often bear the brunt of the effects of climate change and the burden of maintaining the Garifuna community’s land and traditions. In response, Garifuna women have set up camps on their ancestral land despite the increasing militarization of the area. They have also begun to replant coconut trees and mangrove forests to counter river erosion and create barriers against rising sea levels. Photo Credit: Felipe Canova, feministing.com

6 12, 2015

Defending Land And Community In Southeast Asia

2017-06-20T21:02:37-04:00Tags: |

Throughout Southeast Asia, women environmental activists are risking physical assault, arrest and jail time to defend their lands and communities. For example, Bai Ali Indayla, a Moro woman from Mindanao in the Philippines, is an outspoken advocate for the Bangsmaro people, whose safety and well-being is threatened by militarization, conflict and multinational mining companies. In Indonesia, Jull Takaliuang worked to stop destructive gold mining, reclaim beaches and halt illegal logging. Eva Bande, a mother of three from Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, founded the People’s Front for Central Sulawesi Palm Oil Advocacy to organize communities to stop illegal land grabs and monitor environmental degradation. These three women received death threats and even prison sentences due to their activities, but continue to fight for justice. Photo credit: Krissanto Triputro

6 12, 2015

Defending Land And Community: Women On The Frontlines Of Climate Justice

2023-04-16T14:43:00-04:00Tags: |

Nathalie Margi details the stories of three women environmental activists in Southeast Asia who have taken action at the grassroots level to defend the earth from the extractive industries that threaten the health and safety of their communities. Bai Ali Indayla, a Moro activist from the Philippines, fights back against the multinational corporations that exploit her community’s land and resources and degrade the environment. Eva Bande, an Indonesian land rights activist, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for her work with Palm Oil Advocacy, an organization that resists illegal land grabs, extraction, and other forms of environmental destruction. Another Indigenous Indonesian earth defender and human rights activist Jull Takaliuang, has also experienced various forms of violence for her work to fight back against harmful extractive industries like gold mining and illegal logging. Women like Indayla, Bande, and Takaliuang fight on the frontlines of climate change, but are silenced in international conversation to advance climate efforts and solutions. 

5 12, 2015

Fossil Fuel Extraction Dangers: Native American And Women’s Organisations Request UN Help On Sexual Violence

2017-10-06T19:29:45-04:00Tags: |

The fossil fuel industry is breeding lawless hubs of human trafficking and sexual violence against Indigenous women and girls in the Great Lakes and Great Plains region of the United States and Canada, but women are fighting to stop the violence. A coalition of Indigenous and women’s organizations, including Honor the Earth, Brave Heart Society, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, One Billion Rising and the Indigenous Women’s Network have filed a request for intervention with the United Nations. The request focuses on the Bakken oil fields of western North Dakota and eastern Montana, and the Tar Sands region of Alberta, Canada, where an influx of industry workers into temporary housing "man-camps" is causing a rapid rise in sexual violence. Members of the coalition draw attention to current violence as an extension of a legacy of colonization, genocide and systematic abuses towards Indigenous peoples, which has always had a disproportional impact on women and girls. Photo credit: John Isaiah Pepion

18 11, 2015

Women Of Color Speak Out: Systems Of Oppression

2023-04-16T16:31:01-04:00Tags: |

Climate activist group ‘Women of Color Speak Out’ is changing the face of the white-dominated climate space by uplifting the voices of women of color through educating and informing their communities on the climate crisis. At the Ethiopian Community Center in Seattle, climate activists Sarra Tekola, Afrin Sopariwala, Zarna Joshi, and Yin Yu of the Women of Color Speak Out group speak on how racist systems of oppression have created and maintained our climate crisis. Women of Color Speak Out highlights the historical and current uneven impacts of capitalism, colonialism, and the prison industrial complex on the environment and people, as well as solutions for just system transitions. Emphasizing that marginalized communities have been/are bearing the brunt of violence from these oppressive systems both directly and indirectly through climate change, this educational presentation is rooted in truth telling and a call to action for local and global solidarity. 

6 11, 2015

Alicia Cahuiya Fights Oil Drilling In Ecuador

2017-07-17T17:33:00-04:00Tags: |

Alicia Cahuiya has fought tirelessly to protect the rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenani Indigenous people of the Amazonian region of her native Ecuador. In spite of repeated death threats, Cahuiya calls upon the government to do more to protect Indigenous people, particularly from expanding oil activity which is causing tensions among communities and threatening their livelihoods. Photo credit: Daniel Cima

27 10, 2015

“Why Did The Fish Die?”: The Questions And Facebook Posts That Led Vietnam To Imprison A Mom Blogger

2017-10-27T00:53:04-04:00Tags: |

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as Mother Mushroom, is a Vietnamese blogger who on many occasions has blogged about human rights, environmental issues and environmental crimes. Her numerous writings on the Formosa Ha Tinh Steel company disaster shed light on why dozens of metric tons of fish died and drew government attention.  Consequently, she has been assaulted and detained several times by the police. Now, she has been unjustly sentenced to ten years in prison for her online and offline activities. Photo credit: Vietnam News Agency via AP

26 10, 2015

Miriam Miranda Fights For The Rights Of Garifuna Indigenous People In Honduras

2017-10-26T23:57:14-04:00Tags: |

Miriam Miranda is a leader of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), an organizations that supports Garifuna Indigenous rights and defends natural resources. She became a women’s rights defender after witnessing the living conditions women suffered in the slums of Tegucigalpa. Since the 2009 coup in Honduras, the encroachment of oil palm interests, drug trafficking, mining, hydroelectric projects, and large-scale tourist development has intensified threatened the well-being of the Garifuna people. Miranda uses traditional song, dance and drumming to revitalize her community while spearheading resistance efforts. Photo credit: Global Fund For Women

26 10, 2015

Honorate Nizigiyimana Defending Women Of Burundi

2017-10-26T23:52:49-04:00Tags: |

Honorate faced a lot of resistance to attend school in Burundi as a girl.With the civil war that started in 1993, she observed even more severe violations of women’s rights, such as rape, assaults, and gender-based violence. This led Honorate to establish the organization Développement Agropastoral et Sanitaire (DAGROPASS) in 2001. It aims at empowering women by teaching them their human rights, raising awareness about domestic violence and offering women with training about small business entrepreneurship and agriculture. Photo credit: Global Fund For Women

26 10, 2015

Manobo Women Stand To Stop Logging And Mining

2017-10-26T23:49:58-04:00Tags: |

Bai Bibyaon, of the SABOKAHAN Lumad Women Regional Confederation, was raised in the Manobo tribe to become its only woman chieftain. Her understanding of peace includes the right to live and cultivate the ancestral Pantaron mountain lands, and that turned her into a fighter against the logging and mining industries. Because of actions taken by the military and paramilitary, her community was forced to leave their lands. Now she fights them from the evacuation camp she lives in, as she can’t return home due to threats to her life. Photo credit: Global Fund For Women

26 10, 2015

Jull Takaliuang, Indonesia’s Environmental Justice Campaigner

2017-10-26T23:47:08-04:00Tags: |

Mining activities contaminated the soil in Buyat Bay, Indonesia, causing adverse health impacts in Indigenous communities in the area. To tackle the problem, Jull Takaliuang started a movement in Bangka Island community and founded Yayasan Suara Nurani Minaesa (YSNM), a human rights organization. As a result of their campaigning, the company responsible for the pollution halted its activities. Having worked for over ten years in various fronts to guarantee the rights of her indigenous community, in 2015 Takaliuang was awarded the N-Peace Award from the UN Development Programme. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund

26 10, 2015

Josephine Pagalan, The Indigenous Manobo Leader Fighting For The Environment

2017-10-26T23:35:02-04:00Tags: |

Josephine Pagalan is a Lumad Indigenous woman leader fighting against the mining that affects her community in the Surigao del Sur province in the northeastern part of Mindanao, Philippines. Due to her advocacy, Josephine has been harassed and witnessed a friend being shot to death. In spite of all that, she continues to oppose logging and mining operations, including those of the  Lianga Bay logging company and the Semirara Coal Mining company, working to amplify her community’s voice in the media. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund  

13 10, 2015

How Women Are Saving The Amazon: Nina Gualinga

2017-10-12T14:37:58-04:00Tags: |

With the third-largest oil reserves in South America, Ecuador is home to fossil fuel resources that foreign companies, and consumers, want to extract. Nina Gualinga, an Indigenous Sarayaku woman, has been at the forefront of the fight to preserve her ancestral homelands and the Yasuni National Park, a biodiversity hotspot, from drilling. In 2012, Indigenous groups won a settlement and apology from the Ecuadorian government, who had permitted drilling without prior consent. Photo credit: Amazon Watch

12 10, 2015

Rural Women’s Assembly: What We Do And Who We Are

2021-03-03T20:08:54-05:00Tags: |

The Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) is a self-organised network of rural women’s movements comprising eight countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The organization launches agricultural campaigns, organizes regional women’s assemblies, lobbies in local and national political settings, and more to defend the agricultural rights of poor, rural women. The RWA focuses on seed conservation and agro-ecological farming to achieve food sovereignty among the local communities they represent. Photo Credit: Video Capture

1 10, 2015

Woman’s Five Day Fast Opposes Nestlé Water Grab

2017-07-20T17:43:16-04:00Tags: |

Anna Mae Leonard went on a five-day hunger strike to protest a plan by Nestlé to build a bottled-water plant in Cascade Locks, Oregon. The plant threatened take over 100 gallons of fresh mountain water every year from the nearby Oxbow Springs and sell it under the Arrowhead brand name. In 2016, local residents halted the construction of the plant via a local ballot measure. Photo credit: Facebook/NO Nestlé in Cascade Locks

29 09, 2015

African Women March Against Oil Extraction In The Niger River Delta

2017-07-20T17:44:17-04:00Tags: |

Emem Okon of the Kebetkache Women’s Development & Resource Center addressed a march in Port Harcourt, Nigeria that drew attention to how Chevron’s oil extraction in the Niger River Delta has impacted women’s livelihoods. The women registered their complaints with the Nigerian government, and called upon the international community to take action on climate change and implement environmentally sustainable solutions. Photo: Flickr  

14 08, 2015

Ecuador’s Indigenous People March Now For Their Children’s Future

2017-07-17T17:03:53-04:00Tags: |

Harkening back to the first colonization of the Americas and the Indigenous uprising of 1992, Indigenous woman leader Nina Gualinga of Ecuador wrote a beautiful letter to urge Rafael Correa, president at the time, to listen to his people's peaceful demonstration and protect their land for their children to enjoy. Photo credit: Amazon Watch

2 07, 2015

Brazilian Fisherwomen Practice Aquaculture In The Face Of Industrialization

2017-07-12T20:52:33-04:00Tags: |

Fisherwomen in Brazil's marisqueiras communities, who have harvested mollusks, crabs and shellfish for generations, are standing strong in the face of threats to their livelihoods and health caused by nearby industrial expansion. Photo credit: Zoe Sullivan

17 05, 2015

Latin America: Women In Resistance And Resilience

2017-10-08T22:20:23-04:00Tags: |

Indigenous women in Latin America are at the forefront of efforts to protect human rights and Mother Earth. The women of the Network of Women in Defence of Mother Earth in Bolivia, such as Margarita Aquino, and Doña Máxima of Peru, are leading the charge to oppose extractive industries. Women like María Eugenia are part of intentional community of Mária Auxiliadora in Bolivia,  educating on how violence against women is connected to violence against the Earth. Photo credit: Photo credit: Maxima Acuña

7 05, 2015

Phyllis Omido Shuts Down Dangerous Lead Smelter

2017-07-20T17:45:42-04:00Tags: |

Phyllis Omido, a single mother from Mombasa, Kenya took action to close a local lead smelter after finding out that her child was suffering from lead poisoning from her breast milk. She collected data in the form of local knowledge and hospital visits with patients suffering from lead poisoning, and founded the Center of Justice, Governance and Environmental Action. With proof of the plant’s impacts, Omido organized letter-writing campaigns and street protests, and in 2014 the smelter ceased operations. Throughout the duration of the protests, Omido was arrested and attacked by armed men. Today, Phyllis Omido continues to push for a clean and safe environment for all Kenyans. Photo Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

19 04, 2015

Marilyn Baptiste Recognised For Inspiration Work Defending Her Native Land

2017-06-20T21:19:39-04:00Tags: |

Marilyn Baptiste, from the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation, led her community’s struggle to stop the construction of one of the largest proposed gold and copper mines in British Columbia, which would have destroyed the land, air, watershed, and a lake central to the spiritual identity and livelihood of the Xeni Gwet’in people. Photo credit: ici.radio-canada.ca

18 03, 2015

Tahira Ali Shalah: A Martyr For Water Rights And Women’s Rights

2017-08-26T12:34:19-04:00Tags: |

In 2004, para-military forces known as Rangers illegally occupied numerous fresh water bodies in the Indus Delta, Pakistan, depriving local communities of their fishing livelihoods. In need, the fishermen sought the help of Tahira Ali Shah, the the senior vice-chairperson of the Pakistan Fisher-Folk Forum (PFF). Shah helped to break the longstanding gender bias that women should not be on the front lines of political struggle, so that when the day came to stand up to the Rangers, women and men succeeded in reclaiming their waters - shoulder to shoulder. On the eve of International Rivers Day on March 14, 2012, Shah led a historic people’s caravan under the banner “Keep Rivers Free” as part of a year-long campaign to restore the Indus River. Since her death in 2015, Tahira has been remembered for her tireless work.

1 03, 2015

Mayan Women Resist Obstetric Violence

2017-10-31T14:52:06-04:00Tags: |

Obstetric violence is defined as violence inflicted upon women by health officials or midwives during birth. Mayan women in Mexico are often victims of obstetric violence in the Yucatan Peninsula. This research is focusing on the expressions of activism women utilized to counter obstetric violence. Through interviews, this research highlights the goals and methods of activism used by Ime, Yuritizi, Itzel, Doña Ake, Irna, Margarita and America, women who fight day by day to end gendered violence. Their activism takes on various forms, from creating services to changing policy to encouraging community based organizing. Their narratives show the constant restrictions they have over their bodies and safety. However, these women show extraordinary forms of resistance. Whether they are mothers, midwives, or activists, women are constantly resisting against all odds.

22 01, 2015

This Urban Farmer Is Growing Jobs In Her Richmond Community

2020-11-07T17:31:45-05:00Tags: |

In her hometown of Richmond, California, Doria Robinson invests in the health of her community through her role as executive director of Urban Tilth. Through her environmental activism and work with Urban Tilth, Till has overseen the launch of a Richmond-based CSA, the creation of an urban garden spanning 42 blocks, the passing of Richmond’s first urban agriculture ordinance, and the initiation of various education-based community volunteer and work programs within the urban garden. Robinson’s work in Richmond emphasizes the importance of local food systems and the various ways communities benefit from food justice initiatives. Photo Credit: Twilight Greenaway

28 11, 2014

Indigenous Women In West Timor Fight To Defend Their Land – And Win

2017-07-11T18:14:50-04:00Tags: |

Aleta Baun, an indigenous Mollo woman from West Timor, Indonesia risked her life to oppose the destruction of local forests by mining and palm oil companies. Despite facing death threats and beatings, she led a group of women to stage four sit-ins at the mines, which forced the mining corporation to close operations and saved 130 homes and local forests. Photo credit: Goldman Prize

25 11, 2014

Alice Eather: My Story Is Your Story

2017-10-09T20:32:52-04:00Tags: |

In this poem, Alice Eather, one of the leaders of the Protect Arnhem Land Campaign, poetically recounts the need to fight against the offshore exploration, mining and drilling that is threatening the entire coastline of Australia’s Northern Territory region, her home. Arnhem Land is a sacred area in the most northern region of the Australian Northern Territory. It is home to the oldest living culture of Indigenous peoples existing on the planet today. The last remaining existence of this ancient, traditional culture and its practices is under threat. Photo credit: Luka Lesson

27 10, 2014

EarthRights International Woman Leader on Chiquita Violations

2017-10-27T01:23:56-04:00Tags: |

In this piece, Katie Redford, co-founder and director of EarthRights International, writes about the human rights allegations against fruit company Chiquita. The banana giant, after a decade-long legal battle, has failed to get out of a lawsuit brought against it for sponsoring death squads to kill and intimidate farmers in Colombia. This legal decision is a feat for farmers, workers and other victims who were terrorized and murdered through Chiquita’s financing of Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia.

21 10, 2014

Mariana Goméz Soto: We Prefer Water To Gold

2017-07-12T20:58:16-04:00Tags: |

Anthropologist Mariana Goméz Soto is on the front lines of the battle against a giant government-backed gold mine and tailings dam in her hometown of Doima, Colombia. Doima is a farming town located in the Andean Highland’s Paramos, a water-rich ecosystem particularly vulnerable to mining waste. The community opposed the mining project during the consultation phase, and women continue to resist the construction of a toxic tailings pond through sit-ins and legal battles. Mariana Goméz Soto has been actively creating bridges between the community, experts in Bogota, and international allies to protect Doima’s farmland and aquifers. Photo credit: theecologist.org

2 09, 2014

The Pain In Our Hearts – A Conversation With Yudith Nieto

2019-01-14T17:52:08-05:00Tags: |

Yudith Nieto is a community advocate with the Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS) fighting against capitalism, marginalization, and racism in the U.S. Her home community of Manchester, a neighborhood of Houston, is surrounded by industrial pollution, which impacts the health of people regardless of age. She has been working to mobilize a younger generation to fight against environmental and human injustice, especially in the face of mounting gentrification.  Photo Credit: The Life Support Project

17 07, 2014

The Legacy Of Jeannette Kawas Endures

2017-07-20T17:47:02-04:00Tags: |

In 1990, Jeannette Kawas formed the Fundación para la Protección de Lancetilla, Punta Sal y Texiguat PROLANSATE (Foundation for the Protection of Lancetilla, Punta Sal and Texifuat) to protect Honduras’ northern coast from the development of resorts, cattle ranches, palm oil plantations and industrial farming. In 1994, the group’s efforts led to the creation of the Punta Sal National Park, later to be renamed after Kawas in 1995 after she was murdered for her work to protect the forests, oceans and mangroves during her term as the president of PROLANSATE. She is remembered in light of recent declarations that Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be an environmental land defender. Photo credit: Ejold.org

30 04, 2014

The Woman Who Breaks Mega-Dams

2017-08-26T14:21:18-04:00Tags: |

Ruth Buendía Mestoquiari is an environmental rights defender who insists that the law is on her side. Invoking an International Labor Organization treaty that Peru ratified in 1994 and legislation passed in 2011, Buendía maintains that the Peruvian government must consult with Indigenous communities before launching infrastructure projects or mining concessions that will affect them, a process known as prior consultation. As the first female president of CARE, an organization which represents about 10,000 Indigenous Ashaninka in the Peruvian Amazon, she has successfully stopped the construction of two mega-dams along the Ene River. Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

4 01, 2014

Women Farmers In Chile To Teach The Region Agroecology

2020-11-07T17:29:27-05:00Tags: |

The National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women is opening the Agroecology Institute for Rural Women (IALA) in Auquinco, Chile. The work of the IALA aims to support campesino family agriculture and to promote the role of women in food production. The knowledge and work of rural peasant women is key to food sovereignty initiatives and sustainable agriculture practices.  The IALA hopes to conserve the knowledge and agricultural skills of these women. Photo Credit: ANAMURI 

1 01, 2014

Leading The Way Against Illegal Mining For Indigenous Communities In The Philippines

2017-10-04T21:31:27-04:00Tags: |

Wilma Tero Mangila is a Subanen environmental activist from Midsalip, in the Zamboanga del Sur province of Philippines, who has devoted her life to fighting illegal logging and mining on Subanen ancestral lands and defending Indigenous peoples’ rights to Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in order to protect their ancestral lands. She is also leading the way for women’s rights to  participate in decision making processes within her community. Photo credit: Urgent Action Fund

28 12, 2013

One Mapuche Woman’s Peaceful Fight Inspires Chile’s Environmental Movement

2017-08-26T14:32:42-04:00Tags: |

Nicolasa Quintreman and her sister, Berta, led a decade-long battle against the construction of a dam on the Bio Bio River in south-central Chile. Nicolasa inspired her neighbors to peacefully occupy mountain roads and bridges to block construction equipment from reaching the site where the Endesa electricity company had planned to construct the dam. Although the Quintreman sisters and the Mapuche Indigenous community lost the fight against Endesa and were displaced to Alto Bio Bio, their struggle led the Chilean government to strengthen national environmental protections and laid the groundwork for the creation of a network of community organizers, indigenous leaders, politicians, scientists and lawyers that have blocked more than 20 environmentally damaging energy projects. Photo credit: twitter

21 11, 2013

Korean Women’s Peasant Association: Saving And Sharing Native Seeds

2020-12-15T21:31:09-05:00Tags: |

The Korean Women’s Peasant Association (KWPA) promotes food and seed sovereignty among Korean communities by establishing an inter-Korean network dedicated to the saving and exchanging of native seeds. As 90% of these seeds are collected by women, the KWPA directly works with Korean women farmers to support them in their fight against globalisation, neoliberalism, and climate change. Photo Credit: Stuart Ramson/Insider Images for WhyHunger

27 10, 2013

Battle Over The Serengeti Pits Maasai Against Dubai

2017-10-27T01:05:23-04:00Tags: |

Outraged Maasai activists, led by women, are opposing government plans to appropriate 600 square miles of their grazing land for a private hunting reserve for the Ortello Business Corporation (OBC), owned by Dubai’s royal family and operating in Loliondo for over two decades. This would mean the eviction of 30,000 herders in the in the Loliondo area and the destruction of their livelihoods. Women will suffer the most from the mass removal of Maasai herders, as witnessed during the 2009 drought, when Maasai women left behind to care for the children were denied access to water by OBC security forces. Photo credit: Jason Patinkin

26 10, 2013

Dayamani Barla Defends Rights Of Adivasis And Forests In India

2017-10-26T16:15:14-04:00Tags: |

Dayamani Barla of the Munda tribe, of Jharkhand, India has emerged as a central leader opposing the increase in dams, mines, and industrial projects displacing India’s tribal Adivasis peoples. In 2012, Dayamani was jailed for her work to lead a people’s movement in Nagri to prevent land grabbing of key agricultural areas, yet continues forward in her outspoken work to protect tribal resources and ways of living and relating to the natural world. Photo credit: Cultural Survival

16 04, 2013

Lori Gibbs Advocated For Health, Against Toxic Dumping For Decades

2017-07-20T17:32:43-04:00Tags: |

Lois Gibbs’ children started showing signs of illness after her family moved to Love Canal, New York and attended a school built above a landfill and toxic waste site. Gibbs mobilized the community in order to demand for fair compensation and cleanup, and formed the Center for Health, Environment and Justice to help communities advocate for themselves to industry and the government. Photo credit: Associated Press

15 04, 2013

Women Nurture Seeds

2021-03-03T20:05:21-05:00Tags: |

In Karnataka, South India, women farmers engage with indigenous and local food sovereignty practices used before the Green Revolution. The video highlights two women from the local community, Mrs. Hombalamma and Mrs. Jayarathnamma, who both practice forms of local food sovereignty. Having internalized the need for biodiversity in agriculture, Mrs. Hombalamma grows a variety of crops on her land. She takes care to conserve her seeds and supplies them to the confederation of local farmers. Mrs. Jayarathnamma also conserves and protects seeds from her robust vegetable garden. Women and their agricultural knowledge, specifically their work with seed conservation, play a pivotal role in Karnataka’s food system. Photo Credit: Video Capture

23 12, 2012

Idle No More: Maori Women In Solidarity

2019-01-21T21:24:25-05:00Tags: |

Idle No More is a movement for indigenous sovereignty and land justice started by three indigenous women and one non-native ally in Canada. The movement has received much appreciation from women around the world, including Indigenous women from New Zealand, known as Maori. A group of Maori women showed their solidarity by sending blessings and thoughts to the movement’s brave leadership and to all those who are guardians of the Earth.  Photo Credit: Te Wharepora Hou

13 09, 2012

Cambodia: Detention Of Women Land Activists

2019-04-13T16:15:43-04:00Tags: |

Yorm Bopha and Tim Sakmony, are the latest targets of the Cambodian authorities’ attempt to intimidate Cambodia’s human rights defenders and social activists. Bopha and Sakmony, have protested against forced evictions in Phnom Penh and were both arrested in 2012 on false accusations. Both women have been detained before their trial, which is unwarranted under Cambodian law.  In view of the Cambodian authorities’ established record of abuse of the law and misuse of the courts to prosecute social activists and human rights defenders for their legitimate exercise of basic human rights. international organizations have stated that the legal actions against Bopha and Sakmony are motivated by their involvement in protests and campaigns on behalf of the land and housing rights of the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila communities.

1 09, 2012

Experts Emphasize Women’s Role in Domestic Water Conservation

2020-10-23T23:11:23-04:00Tags: |

Simi Kamal, chairperson of the Hisaar Foundation and Karachi Water Partnership, is an expert on water conservation and its intersections with women’s rights. Under her leadership, a series of workshops and events have been arranged so that housewives in Karachi can better understand the need for conservation as well as learn appropriate conservation techniques. Another water leader, Farzana Saleem, also highlights how water management has traditionally been considered “women’s work” and so women are still the main, albeit informal, water managers in Pakistan. But their voice in these matters has also traditionally been neglected. Thus, the importance of organizations like South Asia Women and Water Network cannot be stressed enough. This organization provides a platform for women across South Asia so that their inputs concerning water management and conservation can be heard by the larger community. 

4 07, 2012

Para El Bien Común: Indigenous Women’s Environmental Activism And Community Care Work In Guatemala

2017-10-31T14:55:26-04:00Tags: |

A total of 33 indigenous Kaqchikel women who call themselves “Mujeres Unidas Por Amor a La Vida” (“Women United for the Love of Life”) were interviewed by sociologist Rachel Hallum-Montes between 2006 and 2009. The interviews reveal Kaqchikel women’s gender, race, and class play a significant role in their decisions to become environmental activists, and that the women view their activism as a way of caring for both their families and their indigenous community. 

1 01, 2012

Stories From The Mines Of Struggle, Sisterhood, And Solidarity

2017-10-31T18:52:47-04:00Tags: |

Alyansa Tigil Mina, a consortium of organizations dedicated to challenging mining in the Philippines, compiled an array of stories from Filipino women struggling with mining in their communities. Women leaders including Imelda Mape and Carmen Ananayo have put their lives in danger in the struggle for human rights, environmental protection, and conservation. Imelda Mape, an elected official from Cagayan Valley, took a stance against the authorization of a new magnetite mining project. While her intransigent opposition to the project has made her the object of resentment for barangay officials, it has also helped her gain her community’s trust and support. Similarly, Carmen Ananayo of the Didipio Earth Saver’s Multi-Purpose Association refused to sell her land to Oceana Gold Philippines. The narratives in this collection provide many lessons on overcoming fear and what it takes to do the right thing for the community. Photo credit: Alyansa Tigil Mina

27 10, 2011

Environmental Activist Severely Beaten And Tortured In Iran

2017-10-27T01:00:05-04:00Tags: |

Faranak Farid, an environmental activist and journalist from Iran’s marginalized Azeri minority, was arrested for partaking in demonstrations over the destruction of Lake Orumieh, the largest body of inland water in the Middle East. She was tortured and beaten severely while in custody. She is one of several hundred environmental campaigners who have been arrested since the intensification of the campaign against the shrinking of Lake Orumieh in August 2011. Photo credit: Green Prophet

27 10, 2007

Land Loss And Garifuna Women’s Activism On Honduras’ North Coast

2017-10-27T01:01:51-04:00Tags: |

This report looks at the impacts of gendered land loss and privatization on Afro-Indigenous Garifuna women. Land in Garifuna culture is passed through matrilineal lines and thus the expansion of coastal land markets has resulted in women’s loss of territorial control. Whilst collecting testimony to present before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Gregoria Flores, the head of Fraternal Black Honduran Organization (OFRANEH), a grassroots organization promoting political and land rights of Garifuna communities, was shot and wounded. Miriam Miranda, also a member of OFRANEH, was searched by masked men with a warrant signed by a judge. After being forced out of her house, 19-year-old Mirna Isabel Santos Thomas was found dead alongside the road. Land loss issues have rooted Garifuna women in political struggles.

27 03, 2007

Persistence: The Power Of People And Prayer

2018-10-25T17:06:28-04:00Tags: |

The Climate Listening Project and Mom’s Clean Air Force have collaborated to tell meaningful stories of climate and community. This short video documents the stories of two moms, Tracey and Caroline, who discovered their communities above average cancer rates were directly linked to a nearby coal ash pond. Now they work to protect North Carolina residents from coal ash and fracking. Photo Credit: Moms Clean Air Force

1 01, 1992

Medha Patkar, 1992 Goldman Prize Recipient, Asia

2017-10-18T11:50:32-04:00Tags: |

Since 1985, Goldman Environmental Prize recipient Medha Patkar has fought tribal displacement and environmental degradation from dam construction in India. She is the lead organizer of Narmada Bachao Andolan, a grassroots organization dedicated to opposing dams along the Narmada River, and helped establish the National Alliance of People’s Movement. Although facing police violence, she organizes rallies, occupations, hunger strikes, and legal battles against development projects and has seen success with a ten-year campaign against the Sardar Sarovar Dam, among other efforts. Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

20 08, 1991

Robyn Van En: The First Lady Of Community Supported Agriculture

2020-11-20T17:28:59-05:00Tags: |

Robyn Van En of Indian Line Farm and Jan VanderTuin started the first United States-based CSA program in southwestern Massachusetts in 1985. They started the program by selling 30 shares of the local farm harvest before the start of the season, and calling it the Community Supported Agriculture project. Van En found inspiration to start the CSA from the development of similar programs in Japan and Western Europe. She emphasises the ways in which CSAs cultivate a more local food system by facilitating a closer relationship between farmers and their local communities. According to Van En, CSAs should be embedded in every community, including prisons and other large institutions. Photo Credit: Clemens Kalischer

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