...Patricia Gualinga is surrounded by a burgeoning rainforest as she zooms in to participate in an online forum. While her image appears slightly out of focus as she calls in from her remote location in the Ecuadorian Amazon, her words, courage and determination transmit crystal clear:

“We have been criminalized, we have been persecuted, many times threatened and sometimes murdered. This has to stop because our country and the world needs to be conscious that our fight is not an isolated fight of the environmental defenders or the Indigenous peoples. It is a fight that allows the world to survive.”

Gualinga is a Kichwa leader and spokesperson for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva—the Amazonian Women Defenders of the Jungle—a collective of women land defenders protecting their territories in Ecuador from extractive industries and Indigenous rights violations.

“The fight of Indigenous peoples to have a healthy environment is something that needs to be visibilized. We are here, we are alive and we will still be fighting.”

Latin America is one of the deadliest regions for environmental land defenders. In 2019, of those officially recorded, 212 land and environmental defenders were murdered—with over two-thirds of killings taking place in Latin America. Combined with entrenched colonial and patriarchal policies, individuals threatened are often Indigenous peoples and Women Environmental and Human Rights Defenders (WEHRD)...