Violation of the Rights of Nature

On April 20, 2010, in Cochabamba-Bolivia, at the World People Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el Cambio Climático y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra), the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth was adopted. This Declaration raises the Right to nature to exist and respect its right to integral regeneration and restoration.

The extractivism is a policy that violates the Rights of nature considering that it is at the service of human beings. The environmental impacts, such as the destruction of wild ecosystems, the contamination of water, soil or air or the loss of access to water, are all violations of the so-called third generation rights, focused on the quality of life or a healthy environment.

Elvia Dahua

Elvia Dahua, women leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon, explains the Pachamama ́s teaching for the indigenous and native communities of the Amazon and the role of women in the transfer and conservation of this knowledge.

Zaila Castillos

Zaila Castillos, environmental leader sarayakuna sings to Nature. “We in my jungle, we have oil under- neath the earth. That is the blood of Pachamama and it is forbidden to remove it. If they would take our blood, would we live long enough? “

Dispossession of land and Contamination

The dispossession of land and the contamination and disappearance of water sources as a result of extractivism pose a situation differentiated by gender and result in risks for women and their families.

Given this situation, women are forced to move to other areas or cities to ensure the provision of resources and food for their families, and thus exposing them to extreme poverty, discrimination, labor exploitation, prostitution and sexual violence (United Nations, 2014).

The inability to access goods for livelihood due to contamination or disappearance and the incompatibility between extractive activities and other productive activities generate a drastic loss of economic autonomy for women.

Martha

Martha, defender of the territory, tells how more than a hundred families of the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores in Guatemala had to abandon their lands when their houses collapsed because of the vibrations of the explosions of the work of the Mine “El Escobar”.

Mónica Ambama

Mónica Ambama, a Shuar member of the Nankints native community in Morona Santiago, Ecuador, testifies about the violent eviction of her community by the military for the development of the Chinese Mining Company Explorcobres S.A.

National Network of Women in Defense of Mother Earth (Bolivia)

The women of the National Network of Women in Defense of Mother Earth in Bolivia talk about the environmental damages in their communities caused by mining in Huanuni and Poopó and their repercussions on the living conditions of indigenous, original and rural women.

Violation of the Food Sovereignty

The contamination of the ground, the air and the water has a drastic impact on the biodiversity and agrobiodiversity of the planet. It affects dangerously the food sovereignty. Therefore, women are directly concerned as they are mainly in charge of food production for self-consumption as such as the preservation of natives seeds.

Josefina Gana Portal

The farmer patrol leader from Bambamarca, Mela Vásquez, and the environmental defender Josefina Gana Portal denounce the impacts of the mining industry and its consequences on the agriculture and the feed resources. They propose ecological alternatives and a Solidarity Economy project for their country, Peru.

Militarization of the Territory

The militarization of the territories where extractive activities are developed responds to a common measure used by the governments in Latin America. It facilitates the repression of the social mobilizations and preserve the extractive operations from being affected.

Furthermore the militarization of the territories generates the masculinization of the land and in the same way an upsurge of the patriarchal violence and gender inequality.

Sara Catalán

The 23rd of may 2014, the militaries attacked the female environmental defenders of the municipals of San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc in Guate- mala. Many of them still have aftermaths but do not give up fighting.

Isabel Anongonó

Isabel Anongonó, defenders of the land for 22 years and a half, narrates the rebellion of the villages of Intag with the mining companies Selva Alegre and Cooper and the confrontation with the paramilitaries.