Earth Day – April 22

In Latin America and the Caribbean, home to 335 million women and girls, the defense of Mother Earth takes place in a context marked by deep inequalities. At least 63 million live in rural areas, with a direct connection to nature, and face longstanding barriers to land ownership as well as disproportionate exposure to violence. In this context, in the lead-up to COP4 of the Escazú Agreement, UN Women is promoting the mainstreaming of a gender perspective as an essential requirement to ensure that environmental justice is both effective and equitable. 

To transform this reality, the Gender, Environment and Climate Justice Hub, based in Bolivia since 2024 and supported by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is leading a strategy built on three pillars: the generation of disaggregated data, capacity strengthening, and the empowerment of civil society. The objective is to recognize that women, who represent approximately half of the population, play a central role in sustaining life. They not only shoulder a disproportionate share of care responsibilities within households and communities, but also manage, protect, and regenerate the natural environments on which collective well-being depends. In this sense, they sustain the web of life in its dual dimension: everyday life and the ecological systems that make it possible.

A key instrument within this agenda is Decision III/4 on gender mainstreaming, from which stems, among others, the “Guide for Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in the Escazú Agreement,” a technical tool designed to systematically integrate a gender approach into its implementation. This ensures that its provisions respond to the realities, needs, and contributions of women human rights defenders in environmental matters, and it will be presented at COP4. 

This vision comes to life in our editorial special through four powerful stories: the leadership of Lenca entrepreneur Joselinda Manueles, who promotes sustainability in Honduras through her organic coffee; the advocacy of Geraldina Guerra against gender-based and environmental violence in Ecuador; the leadership of Indigenous women in El Salvador; and the ancestral knowledge of Lucy Pilcué, applied to community-based tourism.