Original title: Biocultural Ethics and Environmental Resistance: Berta Cáceres’s Legacy for the Defense of Rivers, Territories, and Life
The paper describes Berta Cáceres’s fight against a hydroelectric project that threatened the sacred Gualcarque River. She helped organize local communities and connect them with supporters abroad, contributing to the project’s funders withdrawing support. The author treats the river as part of a living relationship among people, ancestors, spirits, and nature—not just a resource. The paper calls for attention to violence against defenders, especially Indigenous and peasant women, and to the cultural ties and ways of life they are protecting.
Imagine a family trying to keep a shared garden safe. The garden is not just a patch of land: it holds memories, provides food, and brings people together, but a powerful company wants to use it for something else. In this paper, the garden stands for the Gualcarque River and the community ties around it; neighbors organizing and supporters far away stand for the effort to protect them.
Environmental conflicts can put rivers, community life, and the safety of local defenders at risk together. This paper argues that protecting Indigenous and peasant women means making violence visible, examining how gender and race shape it, and challenging corporate and state impunity.
The abstract presents an ethical and political analysis centered on Cáceres and the Agua Zarca conflict. It does not describe a research method, provide measurements of the campaign’s impact, or establish how broadly its conclusions apply to other conflicts.
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Biocultural Ethics and Environmental Resistance: Berta Cáceres’s Legacy for the Defense of Rivers, Territories, and Life — Ricardo Rozzi — Philosophies — doi:10.3390/philosophies11050180
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.