Women who rebuild connections with nature and fight for its protection in different territories of Chile
From the Andean heights to the southern wetlands, five women share their experiences and knowledge about conservation and its multiple meanings. In their words emerge paths to reconnect with nature through activism, art, science, and ancestral knowledge. We spoke with park ranger Marinella Maldonado; curator Carolina Castro; ecologist Fernanda Romero; teacher and community leader Estela Nahuelpán; and anthropologist Consuelo Biskupovic.
They seek to expand sensitivity toward the defense of ecosystems and promote interdependence. Their commitment, actions, and reflections forge new forms of conservation and protection of nature, overcoming challenges and prejudices. Some discovered their vocation thousands of meters above sea level, others under the rain or fighting to continue living in community. We spoke with five women whose stories intersect education, activism, art, academia, and ecotourism. This March 8 we reflect on how each role contributes to building a shared future.
Fundación Mar Adentro (FMA): What life experiences left a mark on you and connected you with the conservation of nature?
Marinella Maldonado: Getting to know Nevado Ojos del Salado in the 1980s after winning a prize from the Municipal Secretariat of Planning (SECPLA) in Copiapó, when I was a high school student, was impressive. Being up in the heights, so far from everything, in that paradise, made me decide to study tourism because I wanted others to also experience that beauty. Later I decided to dedicate myself to conservation through the creation of routes together with environmental education. Today I explore places valuable to the Chango people through my cultural tourism venture and protect the Humboldt Penguin Reserve.
Estela Nahuelpán: Being part of the community that inhabits the Monkul wetland [1], where life was vulnerable. In the 1980s hunters of birds or coypus entered without restriction. There wasn’t much awareness that this could affect socio-natural harmony. We gradually took on the responsibility of protecting this space to generate security and tranquility in living there; we acquired tools to discern and connect with people who were working for nature, while respecting our ancestral knowledge. After the 1960 earthquake there was abandonment by the State, but we organized ourselves and committed ourselves to the wetland by learning to make us stronger. Since 2012 we have built the Mateo Nahuelpán community made up of 50 protectors of this place, where I serve as a leader.
Carolina Castro: I was born and raised in the Aconcagua Valley, in an environment full of nature, which marked my childhood. As an adult I had the opportunity to live eight years in Spain where I completed my master’s and doctorate, researching and learning about Latin American art, as well as the links between art and spirituality. In my thesis I studied three artists [2] where that connection appeared. In their notes they spoke about how nature lives through various crises and how that impacts us as humans. That led me to remember my childhood, and in 2016, when I returned to where I was born, I began to look at this place with new eyes. Although I had a very intellectually stimulating life in Madrid, it was different to be here and experience the reality of the environmental crisis up close. I grew up in the 1980s in a locality called Lo Calvo, on a dirt road beside a stream that overflowed every time it rained. We communicated by radio, and I took mule rides with my father to the mountains; we played in the irrigation canal. I began connecting my memories and research to look again at Chile from the outside and then ground my concern for nature here.
Consuelo Biskupovic: I’ve asked myself that question many times. Since my doctorate I have always worked on environmental defense through activism. I grew up in southern Chile, which was a privilege, among lakes, mountains, rivers, and the sea. After a very long journey, and living in large cities, I decided to return to the south and approach environmental care from political activism and civic commitment, including the controversies and conflicts between communities and extractive companies in southern Chile and nationwide. Returning to do fieldwork in the south has been crucial in order to think about the ways to face the climate crisis. These experiences have layered over time, nourished by new perspectives and challenges.
Fernanda Romero: My entire family is from Aculeo and I grew up connected to the countryside. Although today everything is more divided between the rural and the urban , for me nature has always been one. Both of my grandmothers loved gardening. As a child I would lie on the grass and smell the hydrangeas. When the adults took a nap, I would sneak away to places we weren’t allowed to go: a water tower over a muddy area that sheltered a forest of dahlias. I would walk among two-meter-tall dahlias with my feet in the mud and it was a great stimulus. The connection with the natural world opens sensitivity regardless of whether it is a native territory or the backyard of one’s house.
FMA: What does conservation mean to you?
Estela Nahuelpán: I hold the term conservation in high regard, and although some may associate it with not touching anything, for me it is the possibility of highlighting the natural through memory, through efforts that allow us to bring forth what is so fragile. Conservation refers to all actions that tend to make visible and revalue the past and the present that are carried into the future through the care of life. It is an accumulated responsibility, ensuring that new generations inherit what exists today in better condition, through the connection between nature, culture, and education rooted in the territory.
Marinella Maldonado: Beyond technical definitions, when you are working to protect a place it is necessary many times to have institutional support and that these concepts exist. Hopefully love for the planet would be enough to have an attitude of care. For me, conservation practices lie in working with the community and then focusing on winning over all generations to expand care, because not only children are the future of the planet. This vision has helped me have a purpose when working with children, scientists, and local communities. I would like more and more people to take ownership of the concept, but through actions and attitudes.
Fernanda Romero: At one point we reached a consensus with the team of the Altos de Cantillana Reserve to declare that we work for the conservation of wildlife, even though it is a broader concept that also involves culture. It has to do with the processes and functions of ecosystems in relation to human beings and their understanding. Today there is so much information that knowledge ends up buried under many layers. Conservation is a term that must be approached in an integral way, not only from nature, because many people understand it in a limited sense.
Consuelo Biskupovic: The concept arises some prejudice in me, but it is useful for thinking. I don’t feel qualified to use it, because globally I have always tried to politicize the problem and that is something very difficult, but important, because sometimes the environment is approached as something apolitical through this concept, where both the right and the left can present themselves as conservationists. When I began to compile fieldwork I realized that it was always women who were the most persecuted, imprisoned, and impoverished in different contexts, not only rural ones, and in the contexts I have studied people mostly do not speak from a perspective of “conservation” but rather of struggle. The evolution of the concept seems problematic to me, because it does not represent the political commitment and its implications.
Carolina Castro: The first time I heard the word was when Tompkins arrived in Chile [3], and the understanding of the issue was very different. Over time I related with people who shaped my vision. I began working with Ricardo Rozzi [4] after becoming involved in activism in Parque Andino Juncal and at the same time creating Parque La Giganta [5]. We sought to understand what it meant to open a conservation space by addressing the relationship between culture and nature without divisions, in light of mutual care and reciprocity. On the one hand there is the technical side of conservation, the management plans, and on the other, a sense of being a community that cares for a specific place. That network between both is more visible today. Regarding what Consuelo says, I believe the role of academia is also important. In recent years we worked on the book Linking Art and Conservation, Restoration and Biocultural Communication with Rozzi and a large team, calling for papers that connect art and conservation. Many of the authors see academic work as an opportunity to bridge disciplinary gaps. Public policies are needed to help bridge those gaps, but a conceptual space of mediation is being generated to bring together different ways of thinking and do conservation from new perspectives.
FMA: What does it mean in terms of lifestyle and implications to connect with or dedicate oneself to conservation in Chile?
Estela Nahuelpán: It is taking the responsibility for something that is not easy, that can be romanticized and that is not always pleasant, but it is enriching. Sometimes you face prejudice and labels. They have called us eco-terrorists accusing us of wanting to take ownership of everything. But at the same time a network of respect has emerged where many diverse people work to protect nature. Resistance is a catalyst for growth and for thinking about how to do things better without filling ourselves with anger, but rather transforming it so that communication becomes the best path.
Consuelo Biskupovic: Returning to the previous question, it is important who says what. I do not dedicate myself to conservation, but I see activist women who risk their lives every day and that distances me from the concept. It is important to think case by case. At a macro level, in Chile, institutions have been disastrous—for example there has not been a strong ecological party—but there are achievements worth recognizing such as the Framework Law on Climate Change [6]. Institutions do not align with the urgent rhythms of environmental fragilities and the daily dispossession.
Marinella Maldonado: The role of being a park ranger—even if you take off the uniform—is always to be someone concerned about the environment. It implies commitment. Sometimes people criticize me for talking about nature or whales in different contexts, but it’s part of who I am. You have to work hard and accept that sometimes communities that depend on the sea do not necessarily have good practices. In male-dominated environments—like artisanal fishermen—it is difficult to generate that awareness, because it is hard for them to understand that what I do is also work. I have tried to show that we live at the expense of what nature gives us.
Carolina Castro: There are layers of involvement and risk. In the instances where I am involved, some people are good at communicating, others at researching regulations or organizing or being on the front lines. There is something special about getting involved in activism. We fill different roles and accumulate knowledge and skills. If we go on an expedition to Cajón del Rocín, for example [7], the locals do not speak about conservation, but they know that what they care for must be protected differently than before: through law, science, art, and activism. A new dialogue is emerging
Fernanda Romero: Some people imagine conservation as levitating in the forest, but it is very hard work. At an administrative level it involves many struggles, especially in a country that only recently enacted legislation to protect nature. Our work can sometimes be misunderstood. In the reserve we are like an island surrounded by agricultural areas and real estate developments, and the threats are constant. One does it with commitment, dedication, and sensitivity. Sometimes injured fauna arrive; we are constantly relocating foxes, skunks, or birds, and some do not survive. The connection with death is painful in that sense, because we are trying to defend life. Mental health must also be an issue.
FMA: How would you describe your approaches to environmental activism?
Marinella Maldonado: We must be brave women to do this kind of work. Here the closest conflict is the Dominga mining project and of course I oppose it, as well as megaports and the ecological disasters that could unfold. My connection with activism goes hand in hand with environmental education so that the place we inhabit is valued. I like social movements that defend nature without harming the environment. I am not confrontational, but I do many things to keep people from coming in and destroying this ecosystem.
Estela Nahuelpán: Our first approaches came from the territory. We met biologist Francisco Artigas [8] in 2016, who was studying the wetland. He told us about Ramsar as a figure of international protection that fit the qualities of Monkul, where the most relevant thing was having a protective community. We began to mobilize because Ramsar allows the rational use of the space, where not everything is untouchable, but actions must be carried out with the awareness that everything done today will have implications tomorrow. It is a collective task where academia can act as an articulator. Today we continue collaborating with the University of Concepción and Universidad Mayor, which has worked with us since 2017 on sustainable designs. Everything is done from the community without paternalism, making ourselves part of it.
Consuelo Biskupovic: I have always seen it from a local level, not from large movements like Fridays for Future. Environmental activism is useless if we study a fern without understanding the political networks and extractivism where it exists. Talking about lithium means addressing a chain of actors and unequal relationships. My approach seeks to understand how people define activism, and there are many meanings. For example, in La Araucanía, regarding the idea of being a “guardian of seeds,” there can be a tendency to turn actions that are political into heritage. There are women who do not feel they are “keepers” of seeds, but rather that they care for them, recover them, and exchange them. Political activism also implies ways of recovering and recomposing. We must not fall into a kind of activist tourism that is challenged by activism rooted in territory, a topic I have worked on with environmental defenders. This also happens with conceptualizations that sometimes “come from above,” from academia for example, with themes like ecofeminism. There are many practices that imply resistance: being a shepherd, restoring watersheds, reforesting land, caring for water. These everyday practices should not be romanticized. My activism is through knowledge. I go to the field to learn and mobilize impacts in public policy.
Fernanda Romero: When I entered university one of the first papers we were assigned to read was about the difference between ecology and ecologism. They told us we would be ecologists. Although I come from science, like many who work in this field, activism is carried in the heart. Many of the actions we do—dissemination or environmental education—can be understood as activism. Protest is sometimes a caricature of activism, but it is broader than that. Those of us who work in conservation sometimes have favorite species that become banners of struggle. This is a private reserve, and even so it is threatened. Once a mining company came to break into an area of oak trees. On the day the order came, six of us brought banners and that intervention frightened them away.
Carolina Castro: If I think about academic concepts versus visions of care that come from loving or knowing, the question of what it means to know also arises. Here in Aconcagua there is a women’s gathering called La Cantera. I moderated a panel with a radio host; a leader of the Aconcagua Women’s Coordinator; a researcher of herbalist knowledge; a medicinal cosmetics entrepreneur; and another entrepreneur. All of them mentioned that those were their secondary jobs that allowed them to participate in caring for nature. Although they did not feel like activists, there was consensus that these practices of care led them to defend the land and take to the streets. In their words it became clear that carrying knowledge and making it available to the community is not different from going out with banners—both are forms of activism. It is important to reimagine where activist practices happen, because they are often present in everyday environments.
FMA: There are many cases of activists who have suffered violence or lost their lives. In that regard, how have you followed the current events surrounding cases such as Julia Chuñil and what perspectives are relevant when addressing these issues?
Estela Nahuelpán: Regardless of the context of the activist sister, she is a woman, and any person whose disappearance circumstances we do not know should be a matter of concern. Only when this case became visible did there appear to be concern. Sensitivity must go further. There are women among us with tools to bring people together, but there are also those who work silently to keep their garden chemical-free or maintain their own seeds. I highlight that struggle of women who are sometimes made invisible by those of us who are visible. We hope the truth will come to light. In terms of communication, it is also important to strengthen in-person networks, not only social networks, through periodic gatherings.
Carolina Castro: I have followed the case through headlines and somewhat from a distance, but it has raised questions for me about labels. How someone becomes transformed into a great defender whom we all rally behind. I remember a case in France known as “Je suis Charlie.” The case of Julia Chuñil also has a point of identification in that sense, even if we do not know for sure who she really was. It is an extraterritorial problem, as in the case of the Quintremán sisters, where we are the ones asking someone to become a model of activism, when the individual reality of people like Julia seems to be much more complex.
Marinella Maldonado: It saddens me that women who defend nature face aggression. Despite the media attention around the Julia Chuñil case, I haven’t watched much television, but as soon as I heard about it I was struck by the disappearance of someone linked to caring for life. Apparently there is a strength in women that makes us threatening to companies seeking to profit from ecosystems. It is important for us to know one another and create support networks. We need to create spaces for collaboration among women to protect ourselves.
Fernanda Romero: Honestly, it scares me. Here we work with men and women equally. There is a generalized crisis of trust where we do not know whom to believe. Different sources seem to be talking about different cases. Sometimes we are not aware of who we might be a threat to. We have people in the field with safety measures and protocols, but our way of seeing the world is not necessarily shared. Nature is not a subject of rights and that could be a debate, but we are unprotected as people who fight for nature.
Consuelo Biskupovic: Beyond the details of the case, I find the reason for its media coverage interesting. I have kept up with the case through the lawyers involved. There is an interview by Daniel Matamala where the issue was discussed; and many anthropology students want to study the case. I have more questions than answers, but the mobilization it has sparked is incredible. An important point is the debate about who she was: a Mapuche activist, a defender of nature. The press seeks to delimit definitions. These definitions matter. It is not the same if a case is handled in a court or under the Escazú Agreement. Unfortunately, as in other cases like that of Macarena Valdés, there often remains uncertainty, and political spaces and possibilities for life in the territories become fragmented, mistrust in institutions grows, etc. The role the lawyers have played in this case is particularly important and something new.
FMA: How can a shared future aligned with interdependence be collectively brought about? And what role do local and international institutions play?
Carolina Castro: Ways of approaching territories are emerging that require considering multiple layers and crossing them, putting them clearly into play to activate care, whether in everyday life or in the law. Two years ago we carried out a Regional Development Fund project with the Akunkawa Defense Coordinator to hold workshops in local communities and instruct people on how to file environmental complaints, among other topics. The stories laden with the need for work and livelihood on one hand and affection for the place on the other. We needed to make room for listening before addressing more difficult topics. We looked at landmark cases around the world to inspire ourselves, and that was important for the local community to see themselves reflected in others. I also remember the case of the Aconcagua watershed headwaters in Parque Andino Juncal, where some time ago a mining company sought to exploit glaciers—and they keep trying. Mobilization arose and Cecilia Vicuña proposed the “Quipu of Encounter Juncal Aconcagua”, which brought together people from the basin through art to protect the glacier and valley. By introducing art and rituality—Chinese dances, for example—a change in narrative occurred and other ontologies emerged: we became aware that many of us were defending the territory through spirituality, community, and ancestral knowledge. One of my research questions today is what role art plays in that place.
Fernanda Romero: Agreements must be signed because nature is universal and there are actions that need to be collectively agreed upon to guarantee protection beyond local boundaries, but that does not always happen. Most people are far from knowing what biodiversity is. We know what the optimal conditions and goals would be, but not how to achieve them. Unfortunately things keep getting worse and less and less seems to be accomplished at the government level. There is a pressing need to spread knowledge. The world is complex and often decisions must be made at a pace that does not align with science. We are asleep because we live in an individualistic and unempathetic society; we must come together and overcome social conflicts. The work of environmental education is to rebuild the connection with nature. Today we are left with only remnants, although we are a relatively well-preserved country we have threatened ecosystems. We are not fighting to keep everything exactly the same—there are many uses—but they are only possible within a balanced framework. I take hope in the fact that there are more and more of us.
Marinella Maldonado: Alliances and resources are lacking; we are always in debt to nature. I would love for park rangers to one day coordinate across territories. For example, the Humboldt Penguin Reserve, where I am a ranger, seems disconnected from marine areas at the institutional level. In practice those borders do not exist. Conservation protocols could be improved; training is needed; and faster responses for endangered species. Today a whale may be far from the reserve, but it still needs protection. There is a huge gap. I wish conservation administrative areas would unite and there would be more personnel.
Consuelo Biskupovic: Difficult question, but there are cases of local indigenous groups and associations that build knowledge to care for the environment: taking water samples from wetlands, studying flora and fauna, restoring and recovering ecosystems, protecting them in ways that carry political implications in their everyday lives. Public policy can be influenced—for example declaring Valdivia a “wetland city” after the CELCO disaster—even if it took 15 or 20 years. The other day I heard a sociologist criticize the “excessive judicialization” of environmental issues, and that is violent because it dismisses achievements of local movements that are actively building a shared future. Through different initiatives in Los Ríos I saw that although few people manage to push things forward or projects are limited, progress does exist. It is a challenge to create spaces of transdisciplinarity and interdependence. We must seek each other out, make encounters happen; it no longer works to stay inside the university.
Estela Nahuelpán: Interdependence happens through communication and nourishing ourselves with what each person is doing. In the community we have discovered how what one person does connects almost magically through art and through shared skills that come together in activities that bring people from different generations, such as the Monkul Bird Festival. It is important to activate channels of dialogue. Regarding institutions and agreements, we must know how to listen, stand alongside rather than at the center, generate sensitivity, and understand that we can be invited participants. We need the willingness to make things work better, because for a long time institutions convened people but their efforts did not necessarily endure. Territories, capacities, and solutions must be strengthened. Having the Ramsar Convention here is a protection network and that possibility opens day by day through good living.
FMA: What messages or inspirations would it be important to transmit to new generations of girls and women who want to dedicate themselves to these fields?
Estela Nahuelpán: Follow your heart. Let your thoughts be guided by what is important to you and value your own life experiences. There may be contexts of poverty, such as walking through mud, but living that can also be a privilege in feeling the earth—something not everyone has. There is a responsibility to fulfill with pleasure, love, and affection. It is a difficult task and it is shared. Strength and inspiration come from contact with nature, from honoring each person’s experience, and if that has not happened yet, from seeking it. Nature calls you when you have not been in contact with it and gives you strength. It is also important to listen to elders and their experience.
Carolina Castro: I feel that right now there is a lot of fear about expressing oneself. If we are mothers, it is important to show the world beyond screens and school. Being in nature, opening our minds to other experiences. There is a monocultural world where children know nothing about the place where they live. Returning to the idea of loving in order to care, of getting to know people and stories that awaken curiosity. The way of seeing the world is forged in childhood and being faithful to intuition is something that can be educated. I read a phrase by Ursula K. Le Guin that said artists are children who managed to survive; art builds character and empathy. Caring for childhood means caring for that unique space of growth to become an adult, to see the world again with wonder and pay attention—which can be a revolutionary weapon.
Consuelo Biskupovic: One must be honest about one’s desires and always contribute from a different side. For me the message is to return to one’s own instinct, to everyday struggles, and to push political boundaries. Sometimes it is frustrating to reconcile motherhood with the passion from which one contributes, but it is important to think about it. Courage is needed, not necessarily to do very big things. The women I admire most are those who are there day after day, fighting, risking their own lives. It is important to sit down and think, which is also a luxury nowadays. Choosing other more modest, respectful, and deeper ways of life is a message to transmit to children, understanding that not everyone has access to that.
Marinella Maldonado: We are all the future of the planet and we must get moving starting from the family nucleus. Lack of information leads someone to see a sea lion on the road and take it to the sea, without understanding that sometimes it wants to stay out of the water. I have been asked things like “what time do the whales come out,” as if it were a show. We need to revalue how much we depend on one another. I would like new generations to continue restoring ecosystems until society changes its mindset. I would like us to be more united in this work. In order to draw strength and inspiration we must understand that it is a matter of mutual survival.
Fernanda Romero: It is important to understand history in order to decide where we want to go, something that has been lost. Most of the country lives in cities and follows whatever circumstances arise. It is important to know that we have the power to decide or change the path. Everything today is called regenerative—the concept is everywhere—but at least it has been a step toward giving it relevance. In addition to restoring what has been damaged, it is important to know that we can influence things at some level. Strength comes from community; others inspire me when I see shared sensitivities. There are groups of people discovering the world and that seems to be part of the essence of life. Today there are fairs dedicated to these issues and sometimes they are small initiatives, but there are more of us every time, and that is where the energy to continue lies.
About the interviewees
Consuelo Biskupovic is an academic in the Department of Anthropology at the Catholic University of Temuco. She is an anthropologist from Université Paris X, Nanterre, France, and holds a PhD in Anthropology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. She is the principal investigator of the Millennium Nucleus on Citizen Technoscience for Socio-Environmental Transformation and leads the project “Multiscalar Governance of Climate Change in Chile: Deliberation and Participation in Hybrid Forums.” Her research focuses ethnographically on activism and participation processes in contexts of fragile and extractive environments.
Carolina Castro Jorquera is a curator and researcher. She holds a PhD in Art History and a Master’s in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture. As a curator she has organized numerous collective and individual exhibitions, and her writings have been published internationally. She has collaborated with organizations linked to biodiversity conservation such as the International Cape Horn Center (CHIC) and Parque La Giganta. She is currently part of the Akunkawa Defense Coordinator and is a postdoctoral fellow in Art and Climate Change at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Chile.
Estela Nahuelpán Burgos is a teacher of Language and Communication and holds a Master’s in Communication and Interculturality. She is a leader of the Mateo Nahuelpán Mapuche Community, an organization she represents in the defense and management of the ancestral territory they inhabit in Carahue. She has played a key role in the nomination of the Monkul Wetland as a Ramsar Site—the first in La Araucanía—leading collaborative work from the community with academics, authorities, and local organizations.
Marinella Maldonado is the first park ranger of the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, sector Isla de Chañaral de Aceituno, and a tourism operator. She has created multiple local ecotourism routes focused on valuing marine and terrestrial biodiversity. She has developed environmental education initiatives with an intergenerational and community focus. In 2020 she was recognized by CONAF for her community engagement work. She also works as a tour operator and guide in her venture Marytierra, with an emphasis on local knowledge, environmental education, and co-construction of knowledge.
Fernanda Romero is an ecologist, landscape designer, and holds a Master’s degree in Wild Areas and Nature Conservation from the University of Chile. She is the general coordinator of the Altos de Cantillana Natural Reserve and president of the association Así Conserva Chile. In 2022 she was recognized as a Living Human Treasure for her work in conservation and ecological restoration in the Aculeo basin. She has led flora research throughout Chile and currently works on biodiversity conservation and restoration in the reserve located in the Altos de Cantillana mountain range in the Metropolitan Region.
Footnotes
[1] The first Ramsar site in La Araucanía. It refers to the Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental treaty signed in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran, focused on the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands of global importance.
[2] Víctor Grippo, Mira Schendel and Cecilia Vicuña.
[3] Douglas Tompkins arrived in Chile in 1991, the year he began acquiring land in the south of the country (continental Chiloé) to start conservation projects and create Pumalín Park.
[4] Chilean biologist and philosopher, research director of the International Cape Horn Center, which he founded, and academic at the University of Magallanes.
[5] Together with Nicolás Melo and Pablo Fontaine.
[6] The Framework Law on Climate Change (No. 21.455), published in Chile in June 2022, establishes the binding objective of achieving carbon neutrality and climate resilience by no later than 2050. This regulation commits 13 ministries, regions, and municipalities to implement mitigation and adaptation plans, setting concrete obligations to reduce emissions and vulnerability to climate change.
[7] The Rocín River is the main tributary of Putaendo in the Valparaíso Region, running 48 km. Castro refers to the concern of mayor Mauricio Quiroz Chamorro, who visits the area weekly, as well as the relevance of the work of biologist Aarón Cádiz who, from a botanical perspective, has mobilized the community to defend it in the face of an environmental conflict caused by¿ imminent mining extraction.
[8] Academic at Rutgers University, United States.
