The women of Tz’ununya’ Collective have struggled for eight years to defend and conserve Lake Atitlán by pushing for local authorities to stop the deterioration of the lake.
Latin America Bureau has republished a piece by David Toro, as part of its partnership for the Environmental Defenders series, curated and edited by Katie Jones. It was originally published by No Ficción.
Nancy González strolls along the beach of Lake Atitlán, or, as it is known in the Mayan language Tz’utujil, Qatee’ Ya’: ‘our mother lake.’ González, 32, grew up playing with her siblings along the shore of San Pedro La Laguna. ‘We believe that the lake is like our mother, because she provides food. It’s important for us to have a connection with the lake,’ she says as she recalls how 20 years ago the water was crystal-clear and the beach was solid. ‘We can’t deny that it is deteriorating, and we must work to stop the contamination,’ she asserts.
San Pedro La Laguna, a town of 12 thousand mostly Maya Tz’utujil residents, sits along the mountainous northern end of the Atitlán Basin. It is home to a group of defenders of the lake, most of them women. In 2009 they were the first to warn municipal and health authorities of the appearance of cyanobacteria, an algae that threatens to contaminate the potable water supply of the 13 towns living in the 130 square kilometers around this important lake.
González is the coordinator of the Tz’ununya’ Collective, a group of 12 committees of Mayan women representing the aldeas and sectors of San Pedro La Laguna. For a decade they have acquired the necessary skills to save the lake through litigation. They also organize so that municipal authorities take into account their voices and ideas about care for the water and ending the contamination, as well as the socialization and preservation of Tz’utujil culture.
The collective’s first legal battle is its opposition to the mega-project known as Mega-Recolector (“mega-collector”), a proposal made in 2013 by the Private Association of Friends of the Lake to install sub-aquatic tubes that its proponents say would collect the dirty water of each town and send it to a treatment plant to produce methane that would power three hydroelectric plants.
You can read the full piece, with links and photos by Oliver de Ros, here, Guatemala: environmental defenders of Lake Atitlán.
The Environmental Defenders series was inspired by a Global Witness report and more can be found here, Environmental Defenders.
Categories: Accompaniment, Environment, Gender, Guatemala, Human Rights, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Land, Report, Solidarity in Action
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
Post comments here