Ecofeminism in Latin America: How Latinas And Indigenous Women Are Leading Climate Justice in 2025
Ecofeminism has become a powerful movement in Latin America. Latinas and Indigenous women are shaping global climate policy with solutions rooted in care, sustainability, and resistance.
In her book Bodies That Matter (1993), Feminist philosopher Judith Butler claimed that during the modern era particularly during the Spanish conquest of Latin America, nature and women were both portrayed as a “passive surface, awaiting that penetrating act whereby meaning is endowed.” That’s a scope that ecofeminist activists actively work to reject and reshape. But what is ecofeminism exactly and what can it teach us about our way of life? How are Latinas and Indigenous women changing the way we interact with our world?
We’ll also bring up the Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice that has taken place this past year, to see what ecofeminist plans are being set in motion.
What Is Ecofeminism and Why Does It Matter?
Simply put, ecofeminism is a form of intersectional feminism that studies the domination of women and other oppressed groups in direct relation to the domination of nature. By adopting environmental ethics, this type of activism seeks to find alternatives of emancipation from the masculine exploitation of both resources and marginalized collectives in their search for profit and power.
The term ecofeminism was coined by the French writer Françoise d’Eaubonne in 1974. In her book titled Le Féminisme ou la Mort (“Feminism or Death,) she explains that the logic of our societies’ development is based on the exploitation of nature and women, abusing their procreative capacities. In fact, she claims that women’s revolutionary potential for ecological struggles is explained precisely by our role as procreators.
"There is a clear connection between the treatment of the bodies of women, the enslaved, the disabled, and the racialized, and the treatment of lands, animals, and plants: they are all naturalized terrains of experimentation or conquest,” wrote d'Eaubonne in her book.
Although this could be interpreted as a biologically essentialist view (an argument some trans-exclusionary feminists have used), d’Eaubonne’s intent is quite the opposite: she emphasizes women’s ability to compensate for the physical and social disadvantages that motherhood imposes on their lives.
Actually, the unequal distribution of care tasks makes us stand up against the degradation of life-sustaining goods, and we’re less likely to be blinded by the promises of development. This means that ecofeminism’s goal is to strike a balance between nature and society that enables a sustainable way of life for all living things, not just humans.
2025 Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Latina Voices at the Forefront
Women in Latin America have long played a key role in collective self-organization. From the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo during Argentina’s last dictatorship to Mexico’s Mothers of Ayotzinapa, grassroots movements often made up of working-class women and Indigenous communities have led the way in what sociologist Maristella Svampa calls the “process of feminization of struggles.” In fact, the watchdog group Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas) determined that from the late 1960s to 2022, more than 842 environmental conflicts worldwide involved “women environmental defenders as visible leaders,” leaving at least 81 of them assassinated.
This legacy continues today in ecofeminist movements. Earlier this year, climate justice leaders gathered for the Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, organized by WECAN (Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network.) This is a powerful platform that unites climate leaders across the globe, with Latin America standing out as a region of particular urgency and innovation. The virtual event brought together over 125 women leaders—many of them Indigenous and Afro-descendant activists from Latin America—to amplify feminist responses to the climate crisis. The assembly focused on moving beyond extractive models and instead emphasized community-led solutions rooted in land sovereignty and gender justice.
Patricia Gualinga and the Mujeres Amazónicas Movement
Among the key highlights related to Latin America was an emphasis on forest guardianship and Indigenous land defense. Leaders like Patricia Gualinga of the Kichwa people in Ecuador presented ecofeminist wins such as the creation of community-led monitoring systems to protect the Amazon and legal frameworks that uphold free, prior and informed consent (FPIC.) Another major initiative spotlighted was the expansion of the Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest,) a movement of Indigenous women defending their territories from oil and mining interests while promoting sustainable alternatives like reforestation and agroecology.
“Our struggle is for life, for justice, for Mother Earth. For women, youth, our children, and their children. For our future!” said Gualinga as a closing statement during her speech at the UNFCCC COP23 climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
WECAN’s role has been pivotal in connecting these local efforts to international advocacy: for instance, their call to action urged governments and investors to adopt feminist climate policies before COP30 in Brazil, something which would amplify Latina and Indigenous voices in global decision-making.
These projects show how Latina and Indigenous women are actively rebuilding ecosystems, economies, and legal systems through a lens of ecofeminism and collective care. But most importantly, ecofeminism teaches us that we women must take an interest in the world around us and contribute to its care and preservation for the generations to come.
Resumen en español
El ecofeminismo es una corriente del feminismo interseccional que vincula la explotación de las mujeres y otros grupos marginados con la degradación de la naturaleza. En América Latina, este enfoque ha cobrado fuerza gracias al liderazgo de mujeres indígenas y afrodescendientes que defienden sus territorios y proponen alternativas sustentables. Durante la Asamblea de Mujeres por la Justicia Climática de WECAN (2025), más de 125 líderes se reunieron virtualmente para fortalecer una agenda climática feminista. Entre las iniciativas destacadas se encuentran: los sistemas de monitoreo forestal impulsados por Patricia Gualinga en Ecuador; la expansión del colectivo Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva, que promueve la agroecología y la reforestación; y el llamado global a adoptar políticas climáticas feministas antes de la COP30 en Brasil.
