猫咪社区

Sara In茅s Lara, leader of Colombia-based bird conservation organization Fundaci贸n ProAves, got her first taste of conservation鈥檚 potential more than 30 years ago. She grew up in , seeking refuge in the forests, mountains, and pools of the Andes. Then, in 1998, she learned about the yellow-eared parrot.

It was once a common bird near her hometown and across the Colombian Andes, but its population had dwindled to a flock of 81 individuals. Captivated by the fate of the little bird, she abandoned her career as a civil engineer and, along with British ornithologist and her now-husband Paul Salaman and a group of other conservationists, founded ProAves to protect it.

With the help of nearby communities, especially local women, the group successfully fought for an end to the logging of wax palms鈥攖he bird鈥檚 nesting and feeding site鈥攁nd hunting of the parrot for sport. The yellow-eared parrot was adopted as a regional emblem. Soon, the population started growing rapidly. Today, there are more than 2,800 individuals, and a couple of years ago, a flock of two dozen parrots was spotted near Lara鈥檚 hometown. 

It was a huge win, and it taught Lara an important lesson: Women are instrumental in conservation. Women often , and their participation in ProAves鈥� work quickly demonstrated that they were essential to the success of community-based conservation projects. In many rural communities in Colombia, women are responsible for meeting their families鈥� most basic needs from nature, including water, firewood, and food鈥攁ll of which become increasingly difficult as the environment suffers. But the women she encountered needed support, too.

鈥淢any of the women I met were exhausted from childbearing, they did not have any food to feed their children, and they were desperate to have access to family planning,鈥� says Lara. 

In 2004, Lara founded Women for Conservation to increase access to public health, family planning, economic opportunities, and environmental conservation. The nonprofit organization aims to build the health of the communities bordering nature reserves, so they can be more economically independent and better able to protect their local environment. The organization runs workshops and trainings, ranging from environmental education to sustainable livelihoods and family planning, for women in 10 communities. It became independent of ProAves in late 2019, and reports that it has since directly reached more than 2,200 people, mostly women and young girls. 

Women for Conservation also teaches women to produce wildlife-friendly artisan crafts to replace dependence on cattle ranching and prevent deforestation. In Puerto Pinz贸n, for example, as part of a broader project to protect the blue-billed curassow, the organization , the seeds of palm trees that are known as 鈥渧egetable ivory,鈥� and to produce jewelry that they can sell on the market. Women for Conservation also encouraged the local community to ban hunting, use fuel-efficient stoves to decrease deforestation, and start a tree nursery.

Women for Conservation also runs workshops aimed at training women for careers in conservation and ecotourism. 

Ninfa Estella Carinialli was the first woman forest ranger trained and sponsored by Women for Conservation and ProAves. She , and she works in the 脕guila Harp铆a ProAves Reserve, which is located in the eastern Colombian state of Guain铆a. 

Carinialli鈥檚 first few years as a forest guard were hard. 鈥淢y son drowned and my husband passed away from COVID,鈥� she remembers. But, as it had with Lara, the forest proved a refuge. 鈥淚 felt a deep sadness, but I am thankful for the memories I have with them, and for the opportunity to work in conservation, which makes me happy and fills me with peace.鈥�

Overcoming Myths and Barriers

One of the most important鈥攁nd sensitive鈥攖asks Women for Conservation has taken on is a focus on reproduction and family planning in local communities. Lara initially had to deal with pushback from local communities. 鈥淲hen we started talking about family planning, we had a couple of incidents where women were severely beaten up for participating in our workshops,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 learned in a hard way that we need to present women鈥檚 empowerment not as a threat, but as a benefit for the family.鈥� 

In partnership with the reproductive and family health organization , Women for Conservation organizes reproductive health workshops and provides family planning services. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the organization reports it has facilitated 360 contraceptive implants and 27 surgical procedures, including tubal ligations and vasectomies. 

The ability to plan pregnancies becomes vital for women and girls when they can鈥檛 depend on the natural environment for basic survival needs, says Kelly Donado, who organizes logistics for the family planning brigades at Women for Conservation.

鈥淲hen there鈥檚 ever-less food, jobs, and water, it scares me to think of bringing more babies into the world,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hat kind of situation are we bringing them into? When girls have unplanned pregnancies, they cannot be adequate carers, and often, they鈥檙e not able to provide for their babies.鈥� 

Donado is leading a campaign in Zona Bananera, a municipality of Santa Marta, which suffers from water scarcity due to diversion for banana and palm growing. Her sister is a local nurse and has offered her home as a center for the clinics and workshops, as there are no medical clinics in the area. Ana Marquis, an 18-year-old from the area, is one of those who participated and decided to get a contraceptive implant. 

鈥淚t lets me decide when to have my children,鈥� she says in Spanish. She lost two pregnancies in recent years. 鈥淩ight now, I鈥檓 looking after myself so that I can study and not have to worry about getting pregnant.鈥�

In February 2022, Women for Conservation provided 72 women in Zona Bananera with contraceptive implants, in addition to offering cancer screenings, follow-ups, and reproductive education workshops. By the time the group鈥檚 representatives returned in March for checkups, more than 190 women and girls had added their names to the waiting list. Men also began requesting contraception from Women for Conservation, which resulted in the first vasectomy procedures in the Zona Bananera region in February 2022.  

鈥淔amily planning has myriad social, economic, and environmental benefits: It improves the livelihoods and well-being of people and the planet and relieves population pressures on the natural environment, as well as on food production and water scarcity,鈥� says Catriona Spaven-Donn, the Empower to Plan project coordinator for the British charity , which supports Women for Conservation.  

While Women for Conservation has made significant progress destigmatizing family planning, resistance remains. Marquis says her family forbid her from getting the implant until she was 18, as they have for her 16-year-old sister.

Some families believe that denying teenagers access to contraceptive resources will prevent them from engaging in sexual activity, . 

Women for Conservation also faced resistance from its peers in the environmental world. Lara remembers other conservation leaders telling her that working with women was nice, but it was not a priority. Whenever she spoke about the link between a growing population, increasing poverty, and environmental impacts, she was told to avoid talking about population. 

among development, environmental, and reproductive rights community groups. The focus is instead on sexual and reproductive health, choice, and rights of individuals, rather than addressing demographic factors.

鈥淚n the past, people wasted a lot of time stereotyping our planetary crises, asking whether the main problem is population or consumption,鈥� says Phoebe Barnard, professor of global change science and futures at the University of Washington, and founding director of the global , which aims to stabilize and reduce consumption and global population. 鈥淲ell, of course, it鈥檚 not either鈥搊r. It鈥檚 both. Investing in women鈥檚 education, leadership, and opportunities remains a really powerful way to bring benefits not only for women, but for families and children, nature, and the future of our whole civilization.鈥� 

Still, even the issues of reproductive health and women鈥檚 rights can be difficult to raise among poor, rural Colombian women living in communities where maternity and a large number of children are often viewed positively, and where men may feel a loss of control over women鈥檚 sexuality when women use modern contraceptives. In such contexts, contraception is and is therefore not trusted or not used.

What鈥檚 clear is the close tie between women鈥檚 empowerment and environmental outcomes. Recent research found that . The , from equal access to education to family planning. 

That link has pushed Women for Conservation beyond family planning to providing basic services to ensure Colombian women are healthy and safe. , so last year, the NGO started providing mammograms and training women on how to conduct a self breast exam. With a drastic increase in calls to domestic violence hotlines during the pandemic, Lara has also started leading workshops and education on the subject.