Christian Science Monitor - Sara Schonhardt*
Women often bear the brunt of climate change's impact. In Guatemala, they also have become some of the country's most visible environmental activists.
Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, Guatemala —The
site of devastating landslides, fierce winds, and volcanic peaks, the
hills in Guatemala's Sierra Madre can be inhospitable. But the women are
just the opposite.
Last summer, dozens of women from across the
country gathered to share strategies about water and forest conservation
and improving crop yields, and they got a crash course in social
auditing, a way for them to understand their rights and get involved in
decisionmaking.
“We welcome our companions with happiness whenever
they visit,” says Diega Rodriguez, one of the organizers of the Ut’z
Che’ network of community forestry groups. “We have to keep working and
we have to keep fighting.”
The
relationships forged on those wind-whipped hills have become a kind of
scaffolding for an increasingly connected network of community leaders,
activists, and groups throughout the country that are working to empower
women to fight for their land and their environment.
Increasingly
forced to bear the brunt of more extreme weather and environmental
degradation, these women are gaining the tools and the support to act on
it.
The same is happening globally, as environmental justice increasingly intersects with women’s rights.
Women
are urging those in power to address problems they feel most acutely,
such as drought and deforestation. They’re also finding their own
solutions, drawing on traditional knowledge about seeds or conservation,
and leading efforts to put this knowledge to use.
As women become
more empowered, they’re better able to take on leadership roles and
know they have the right to do so, say advocates who support these
efforts.
At the meeting in Guatemala, where much of the population
depends on subsistence farming, the women spoke different languages and
came from different ethnic groups, but all could share stories of how
the soil was less fertile, the seasons increasingly unpredictable, and
the rainfall more erratic.
“In
Santa Eulalia there used to be an order of time: a month for the frost,
a month for rain, a knowledge of where to farm so the frost won’t ruin
the crop. Now there isn’t,” says Eulia de Leon Juarez, who helped found a
women’s rights advocacy group in her town in Guatemala’s western
highlands.
As in many places, problems here often revolve around
water scarcity and soil degradation, conditions that increase the
workload for women responsible for providing water, food, and fuel for
their homes. When those resources are scarce, they must travel farther,
sometimes walking for hours to reach the nearest water source.
Because
women’s work is often connected to the land, women have long fought to
protect their natural environments, often from extractive industries and
agribusinesses that compete for access to resources. Now, some are
linking this activism to the impacts they feel from a changing climate.
Building bridges
“What
we’re seeing more and more now is the urgency to address these issues
and really support these women so they can lead in these struggles,”
says Maite Smet, a program coordinator with Global Alliance for Green
and Gender Action (GAGGA), a nonprofit that brings together women's
rights and environmental justice movements.
The issue has also gained traction as the number of women-led households in rural areas has grown.
“This
is due to migration – men are migrating to cities – but also to
conflict,” says Solange Bandiaky-Badji, Africa program director for
Rights and Resources Initiative, where she focuses on land tenure rights
and gender. Women “are then assuming greater responsibilities for the
management and governance of the resources in their communities.”
“It’s
not that it’s new,” she adds. “But these factors have helped people see
that women are really working around managing their forests and
resources.”
Pressures from climate change have worsened poverty,
food insecurity, human trafficking, and child marriage, activists argue.
For a long time, says Ms. Bandiaky-Badji, people have focused on rural
and indigenous women “as victims.”
“But what we’re seeing actually,” she says, “is how these women are organizing themselves to really overcome those challenges.”
They’re
doing so by challenging political and social barriers but also finding
their own way forward, particularly in places like Guatemala, where
political instability can often worsen environmental problems.
“In
many cases, as women become involved in environmental activism, they
get in touch with others and so it builds their capacity to engage with
local governments and even then, to figure out how to make their stories
visible on the international stage,” says Eleanor Blomstrom,
co-director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization
(WEDO), a women’s advocacy group.
WEDO works to get women’s rights
and gender justice included in climate change negotiations at the
national and international levels. In 2015, it helped launch a program
to train female climate-justice advocates to share their stories with
international policymakers during climate negotiations. The organization
has also
created an app
that tracks how often and in what way gender or women are mentioned in
policies, research, and other action related to climate change.
“Women
have always been leaders at all levels, it’s just not been recognized
in the same way,” Ms. Blomstrom says. Part of that is a broader
recognition that the effects of climate change are so varied and
widespread, as well as stronger efforts to recognize women as human
rights defenders.
“Even without scientists saying it, women are
feeling it, so there are a lot of young feminists and activists who may
be more engaged than young people were in the past or more empowered but
definitely more vocal.”
Among the groups supporting those efforts
is international women’s rights organization MADRE, which helps create
networks where different communities around the world can share
strategies for addressing climate-related problems. In late April it
brought indigenous women from countries such as Nepal and Nicaragua to
Arizona to hear how indigenous communities along the US-Mexico border
were impacted by Trump administration policies on migration and climate
change.
Women
still face discrimination and resistance for taking on leadership
roles, particularly in more unequal societies. Another challenge is
making sure goals and plans to recognize women are put into action.
No longer invisible
Since
the meeting in Guatemala in August, several women have come together to
audit state-supported forestry programs that help small landowners earn
money from reforestation and natural forest management. Women often
face challenges participating in such programs because they lack land
titles.
The group hopes to create a database of projects in a
northern part of the highlands, so they can show how land tenure is
distributed by gender and talk with officials about strengthening the
roles that women play in environmental projects.
“We are invisible to a lot of people,” says Ms. Rodriguez.
But
bringing women together to share their struggles helps improve their
visibility. Since gatherings like the one last August started, topics
have gone from building self-esteem to getting women more politically
involved in their communities, says Dina Juc Suc, a former coordinator
with Ut’z Che’, a network of dozens of community forestry organizations
that helped organize the meeting.
Before the women talked about
lack of education or violence they faced, says Ms. Juc Suc, who has been
leading programs like these since 2010.
“Nowadays, women dare to talk about questioning a
government official,” and share tips on how to adapt crops to changing
weather and improve their livelihoods. “Now they are looking to create
strategies,” she adds.
*Sara Schonhardt reported from Guatemala on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project (IRP).
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