NO MORE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE WOMEN OF THE MANGROVE

Neither firearms, nor killer dogs, nor electrified fences, nor sell-out authorities will stop the strength of the women who collect and fish in the mangrove estuaries. “We were born here, our grandmothers, our mothers, our daughters, our granddaughters were born here. We work here, we sing and play here. We fall in love here, we find food here. This territory belongs to us by inheritance. We are not leaving the mangroves!” Francisca Nieve Álava Loor.

In the El Verdún community, in the mangrove estuary of the Chone River, in the Tosagua canton, Manabí province, Ecuador, Francisca Nieve Álava Loor fights every day so that her community is not displaced in the face of the ambitions of companies dedicated to industrial shrimp aquaculture. The businessman, Jefferson Loor, claims to have bought dozens of hectares of shrimp ponds that were abandoned in the community from the Pacific Bank; he claims that the Bank has also sold him the mangroves and even the areas where the community has been settled for 70 years. Doña Francisca Alava faces trial after trial, people who pay her and authorities constantly intimidate her, she will not leave her community because she has been here since the arrival of her great-grandparents.

50 years ago, industrial shrimp farming arrived and, with false offers of employment and development, displaced the community. The industry took over the mangroves in the area and pushed the inhabitants out of the way; fishing and harvesting activities, which they were dedicated to, declined significantly. Many community members come and go from the cities looking for work, the community became impoverished; the little mangrove that survived the devastation does not supply all the inhabitants.

With the bankruptcy of the banks in the 1990s, the Deposit Guarantee Agency seized these pools, and they have remained abandoned for more than a decade. Inside the pools, the mangrove forest regenerated naturally and fauna began to appear, turning them into productive areas for fishing and gathering. A few months ago, a supposed “owner” appeared who, at all costs, intends to take over the community, trampling on the rights of this population.

“With the process of regularization of shrimp ponds, promoted by the government, now all shrimp farmers are 'more owners' of the mangroves: they insult us, shoot at us, set dogs on us, surround the mangroves with electrified barbed wire, to prevent us from going to work. They accuse us of being criminals. There is no authority or law that makes us respect them.” Two days ago (November 23, 2011), before the court of the Tosagua canton, a protective action was filed with the objective of safeguarding the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of the El Verdún commune and in particular of the companion Francisca Álava.

Women who collect shellfish, women who catch crabs, women who fish in the estuaries of the mangrove ecosystem of the Ecuadorian coastal strip, suffer daily from the violence of industrial shrimp aquaculture, and from authorities who are complicit in the impunity with which this ecosystem has been destroyed.

THE DEFENSE OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS, THE DEFENSE OF WOMEN'S RIGHT TO LIFE, HAS TO STOP BEING A PHRASE, A DAY, A WISH...
A tribute to Francisca Nieve Álava Loor, a woman from the mangroves, a fighter, who like many women is not willing to let herself be defeated. 

NO MORE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE WOMEN OF THE MANGROVE

Source: C-CONDEM National Coordinating Corporation for the Defense of the Mangrove Ecosystem of Ecuador