Get to Know the Stars of our "Women of Our Alliance" Short Film

In our last issue of The Understory, we introduced you to a short film that we had just debuted called “Women of our Alliance.” A celebration of women’s leadership, the film focuses on three (s)heroes who have worked hard to build their communities and protect their local forests in Guatemala’s iconic Maya Biosphere Reserve.

In the late 1990s, 12 communities within the 2.1-mllionhectare reserve were granted the right to make a living from these landscapes, as long as they could do sustainably. Their remarkable success speaks for itself: Despite facing a host of challenges, these community-run concessions have maintained a near-zero deforestation rate while supporting the livelihoods of thousands of people.

If you were to visits these forests, you’d meet some extraordinary women, like Ángela Fajardo, board treasurer of the concession in Uaxactún. Over the past 20-plus years, Fajardo has seen women in her community go from being full-time homemakers, to harvesting and processing forest products like xate and ramón nuts, and playing central roles in their forestry enterprise. “We had to tear down barriers of machismo—firstly, by convincing our husbands to let us participate.”

At the concession in La Pasadita, Iliana Humberta Melgar’s work affects every single person in her community. As a health promoter, she is tasked with ensuring that her neighbors stay healthy—a critical role in such a remote, rural area, where access to medical care is limited. She has saved lives and shepherded new ones into the world. “I’ve treated people with snake bites,” she says. “I’ve also delivered a few babies.”

Melgar is similarly proud of her community’s commitment to restoring areas that were degraded by fire—work that has been done largely by women, who cultivate and plant saplings. “Due to the fire, animals had disappeared. Children hadn’t even had the chance to see them,” she says. Thanks to these women’s efforts, however, the situation has changed. “Little animals are coming back. You see more birds.”

It’s not just local wildlife that was threatened. Soon after Felisa Navas Pérez was elected president of the Cruce a la Colorada concession in 2011, she began receiving death threats. The diminutive grandmother took over at a turbulent moment in her concession’s history. “Right before I started, someone in monitoring had been murdered.”

The community was also in danger of losing its concession contract due to incursions from ranchers who sought control of the land. It was Navas’ courage and political acumen that helped turn things around, a feat that earned her the Rainforest Alliance Community Honoree award in 2017.

The impact of these women’s contributions is likely to be felt by future generations. Thanks to Fajardo’s income as a concessionaire, her daughter has been able to attend college. For the young women of Uaxactún, the concession’s achievements open up a new world of opportunities, which Fajardo advises them to seize. “Don’t wait for someone to make space for you. You yourself must set your goals.”

Although Navas and her peers fought hard for everything they accomplished, she believes it has all been worth it. “If we had not [made the effort]—if there were no concession—there might not be a forest right now.”