Environmental justice award winner: 'We have the right to live in a territory that for us is sacred'

What environmental threats do you face?

There currently are various plans [in the Quiché region], some under way and others still on the drawing board. One is to generate electricity using water. There is an invasion of transnational companies going after the water, because despite climate change and global warming, in my territory … there are rivers and mountains, so we have water. The Chixoy hydroelectric dam, one of the largest in Guatemala, is in the north of Quiché.

There are plans for other hydroelectric dams, and the communities have never been consulted. One of the big questions we raise is: Energy for what, and for whom? Where they generate energy, they don't provide electricity to the communities. They take it for large-scale economic projects.

Because the area is mountainous there are also minerals, so there are mining leases. But community organizations opposed them. There were various community consultations, not carried out by the government, but autonomous, and we managed to block many leases. One of the actions to block the mines was in 2010 … and that's when the logging companies moved in. We realized that the government had granted 97 forestry licenses to timber companies.

These are licenses to invade. Since we didn't let the mining companies in, they came with "green capital" plan through REDD+ [reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation]. But that is a false green. They plan forestry [plantations] with companies that eliminate ancestral trees like the teun uman pine, which is a tree very specific to Quiché.

In what ways do you still feel the effects of the war?

The war had various consequences. One was being stripped of our land. The Maya people have always had our land plundered. There have been forced displacements, and the lands remain in the hands of the oligarchy. The big problem in Guatemala is that most of the land is in the hands of just a few families. That is one of the great consequences of the war: We have little land.

Another is the socioeconomic situation. If you made a map analyzing where the greatest poverty is, it would be where there was more war, more massacres. That relationship has a great deal to do with the extermination plans. In Guatemala there was genocide. And the socioeconomic effects are very marked. There isn't good education. Young people don't have access to art or sports. It's not like they say internationally, that we're "forgotten". We're not "forgotten peoples." We are "hated." The government hates us because we defend our life through our organization.

How have women organized to defend the environment?

At first, we didn't call ourselves defenders. Later we began to understand that being a defender brought international support. We welcome mechanisms such as treaties, declarations by the United Nations and the U.N. special rapporteurs.

We didn't know that we were defenders. We had to seek that [status] because [it helped] us ask for help as we were trying to survive threats, stigmatization and defamation. They have slandered me, they've called me a guerrilla. They have stigmatized me a lot.

So we analyzed the situation and we organized … not just in the council, [but also] through networks. We women supported each other, because if we didn't, sometimes, the community would not help us. Communities are more likely to recognize men as authorities, because of the machista system. They don't recognize us. And we have to live with the consequences — the attacks on our families, separation from our sons and daughters, rape. Attacks on women are different from attacks on men.

So we got together and organized with national and international networks. That has been a great inspiration: despite being attacked, we have hope that, if we're organized and networked, we will live. And that is a great hope.

Do the networks of women defenders include other Central American countries?

We are united by our histories, ways of life and experiences. … Companies have regional and continental interests and plans. There are recurrent patterns of attack. The [powerful] families in Honduras, for example, have ties with the [oligarchic] families in Guatemala, and the families who are behind the attacks communicate with each other. The military [leaders] in El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala communicate with each other.

The aggressors, those who perpetuate violence, are common to us all: the military, the banks, the drug traffickers. So we women have to be in constant and precise communication, to save lives. We unite not only because we have common agendas and similar situations, but because we need to have regional strategies [and take] urgent action. We need to be able to denounce and demand justice, because otherwise, they'll kill us.

Is the Catholic Church supportive of your work?

More than the Catholic Church as an institution, I would rather speak of a community organization of faith tied to the hope of a decent life. Organized communities and parishes, at the grassroots where the hostile situation really exists, where we're in disputed territory — that's where we find allies in faith groups. … I would speak of the grassroots, the work of faith, of organization, of respect for the land, for the sacred.

That is what unites us. And the people, pastors and congregations, we join together as one, because if we don't join together, they'll kill them [the church workers] and they'll kill us. … The Catholic Church has a very deep history among my people. The Church was also the refuge for people who were persecuted during the war. … When we had to flee our territories, the church's human mobility ministry saved many lives.

What can non-Indigenous people learn from your people's way of life?

We have the right to live in a territory that for us is sacred. We create a bond of reverence with the water, with the four elements, for example. If only [others] would have that connection, we'd have a great deal for which to thank humanity. If only every day, when we get up, we recognized that we are water, we are earth, we are fire and we are air, that we are in a web of life that is connected with other communities. That we, humanity, are not the center of power, the center of importance in life, but there are other communities that also coexist, and we must listen to them.

When we say that the plants speak, the trees speak, the stones speak, the mountains speak, it's because we listen to them. What we ask of humanity is that we all listen to the voices of the land, the air, the water. They are talking, and we need to listen to them so we can continue to coexist and to live together.