Five Indigenous women from Guyana recently joined an Amazon-wide fellowship of Indigenous women who are protecting, managing, and restoring the Amazon Forest.
They are Immaculata Casimero – a Wapichan from Aishalton Village, in Region Nine; Caroline Jacobs – a Makushi of Surama Village, also in Region Nine; Esther Marslowe – a Lokono of Santa Cruz Village, Region One; Loretta Fiedtkou – a Lokono of Muritaro Village, Region Ten; and Althea Harding – a Carib of Kwebana Village, Region One.
According to Conservation International (CI), the Guyanese fellows, supported by the ‘Our Future Forests – Amazonia Verde’ project, join 19 other regional fellows, selected from 150 candidates across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Perú and Suriname.
In a release on the development, CI noted that the new fellowship programme seeks to foster their leadership efforts and recognises the women acting as important stewards of the Amazon.
The fellowship will last 12 months and involves execution of a variety of projects that support women and nature.
Casimero will be focusing on supporting the role of Wapichan women in environmental protection in the South Rupununi. “She will be working with the Wapichan Women’s Movement to raise their voices in encouraging the protection of Guyana’s headwaters in the region,” the release said, while adding that the project will include the conduct of education and awareness workshops on environmental sustainability, stewardship and laws.
Jacobs will be documenting and recording traditional leadership knowledge by engaging a council of elders that includes indigenous women within four communities located in different ecosystems /geographic locations, that is, savannahs, forest, wetlands and mountains. “The aim of documenting the traditional knowledge is to show community members, including youth, how these core values were applied and implemented years ago thus enabling the maintenance of a healthy environment up to today,” the release notes.
Marslowe, of the Lokono people and from Santa Cruz village, Region One, will be promoting the preservation of Indigenous culture and working on youth empowerment, especially for other Indigenous women.
Fiedtkou will be highlighting the importance of replanting an area in the community with Crabwood trees, Hubadi trees and other endangered trees and reminding people about the benefits of the old ways of farming and caring for land.
Harding, meanwhile, will host empowerment sessions with other Indigenous women in her community to build soft skills, improve literacy and develop handicraft making skills. She will also document the Carib language spoken in her village in an effort to keep the language alive.
The five women all responded to an open call for the inaugural edition of the programme.
According to CI, the projects being implemented by women in the other six Amazonian countries include community-based conservation efforts that draw on ancestral knowledge and focus on the restoration of forests using nature-based solutions, support the sustainable management of bee populations, and generating sustainable finance for ongoing conservation efforts.
Noting that women embody a fundamental role in the structure of local communities and Indigenous peoples, CI said supporting Indigenous women to improve their knowledge and financial means can enhance their leadership roles and contributions to ensuring security and conservation of indigenous ways of life, territories and forests they call home.
In the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the release said Fellows have established communication virtually, advancing the programme despite limited physical contact. It further said the programme is committed to connecting Fellows with quality internet and other tools necessary for collaboration, with the intention of formally starting Fellowship contracts and programming in the coming months.
The release noted that ‘Our Future Forests – Amazonia Verde’ is a CI project funded by the Government of France and working with the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA. It noted that the project is working with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to help conserve up to 12 percent of the Amazon — about 73 million hectares (180 million acres) — by 2025. The project directly contributes to the objectives of the Alliance for the Conservation of Rainforests, an open coalition led by France to promote the protection, restoration and sustainable management of rainforests worldwide.
More information on the Indigenous Women Fellowship programme can be found at https://www.conservation.org/lideresindigenas.
