From the issues raised regarding women and ecology, their environments and their disenfranchisement, come great minds and leaders who stand up and speak out. Women at every environmental disaster and threat to the well being and productivity of themselves and their people. Some brave physical attacks, disregard, lawsuits, imprisonment, kidnapping and more. Yet they stand. I think immediately of Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan, speaking out for the education of young women, shot in the head by a stranger, a man, who wanted to stop her movement of educating girls and women. She survived and continues her work, unafraid of what may come. Her story is a lot like the stories below, of brave women who move forward despite their fears.

There are thousands of women activists working for an equitable environment in which to live their lives. Women environmental activists who stand up against the greatest of odds. Ecofeminist activists who put their lives on the line for what they believe in and for their loved ones futures. Isn’t giving voice to the voiceless and their continued struggle to save their livelihood and the planet a worthwhile endeavor? Here are just a few:

Maxima Acuna and her family filed a lawsuit against a Colorado based Corporation that wanted to purchase their family owned land which Maxima did not want to sell. After many violent acts by the Corporation toward Maxima, including completely destroying their home, they sued. “Newmont Mining Corporation, owner of some of the world’s most lucrative gold and copper mines, has led a campaign of harassment and abuse against Máxima and her family since 2011. The company attempted to force them off their land to build the Conga mine, one of the largest open-pit gold mines in Latin America” (see website to left). Now, 10 years later, they have had several grassroots environmental agencies standing behind Maxima and her family.

 

Phyllis Omedo founded the Centre for Justice, Governance and Environmental Action in Mombasa. Her son was poisoned by the lead in their local drinking water, which was  poisoned by a lead smelting factory along with surrounding air. She has brought a class action suit against the company, has been threatened, arrested and gone into hiding in fear of her life. But she moves forward, her head held high, speaking truth to power. The company has closed but the fight continues.

 

 

 

Judi Bari has been a long time activist wherever injustice rears it’s ugly head. She has fought the injustice of war, racism, sexism, political repression, economic exploitation, and the unnecessary destruction of ecosystems. She was the principal spokesperson and leader for Earth First!, to fight for the redwoods of Northern California. She has organized unions, wild cat strikes, protested peacefully against the Vietnam war, Bari has organized countless Unions, including Restaurant, Retail, Railroad, Marine, Food Product and Publishing workers, just to name a few.

 

 

Wanjira Mathai is the Vice President and Regional Director for Africa for World Resources Institute in Kenya. She is an environmental activist and fights against deforestation and for energy access. Her mother was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Wanjira has worked on disease control in Africa, empowering women to create renewable energy jobs, worked for the Green Belt Movement to plant trees and save forests and promotes a culture for young people to take on leadership roles.

 

Marina Silva is an environmentalist and politician in Brazil. She has served as Senator and Minister of the Environment. As Senator, she decreased deforestation by 59% and implemented policies for sustainable development, territorial zoning, and attached greater value and preservation of standing forests. Marina has run for President three times, campaigning on the same issues to strengthen citizens rights to their lands and production.

 

 

 

 

 

Erin Brockovich is best known for her suite against PG&E for water contamination by chromium in Northern California. She went on to be part of several other water and air contamination suits since then. Erin has become a prominent activist and educator of environmental issues. She is now in the process of litigation involving SCG (Southern California Gas Company) because of a methane leak in a community north of Los Angeles, CA.

 

 

 

 

It seems wherever there is injustice toward the environment, women are at the forefront demanding action. Giving them a voice to speak for themselves and others in these unfortunate and unjust crises is our global conscious. Our global conscious for Mother Earth and the mothers and daughters and women who cannot speak for themselves, in fear of extreme retaliation from big business and giant corporations. And yet, these and more courageous women everywhere have the strength and stamina to change peoples hearts, minds and politics. It seems only fair that the men in charge should listen. “In the face of unprecedented biophysical and socio-economic predicaments, scholarship in the heterodox school of ecological economics must articulate feasible pathways to transformational societal change that adapt “not only to new hazards and changing resources but also to new sustainability regimes of knowledge, as well as to changes in access to and control over resources”(Ruder pg 20-21). Only when new ideas and resolutions arrive to restructure our methods of dealing with environmental degradation and women that are suffering because of them will we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity–then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.

David Suzuki, Canadian Academic and Environmental Activist

Annotated Bibliography

Ruder, Sarah Louise and Sanniti, Sophia Rose. “Transcending the Learned Ignorance of                Predatory Ontologies: A Research Agenda for an Ecofeminist-Informed Ecological                  Economics. School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability University of                        Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Cananda. January 2019.

Analyzing economic capitalism and ecological feminism, the researches look for new ways to address the oppressive connection between women, animals and the environment, offering different ways of addressing this oppression, outside of economic and environmental capitalist society. In fact, they state that societal’s approach to women and their environmental issues must come from a new paradigm.