Presentation short abstract

Saraguro Indigenous women-led organisation defending the Fierro Urku wetlands from encroaching mining interests. We argue that their leadership, rooted in collective care, Andean identity and deep territorial experience

Presentation long abstract

Against the backdrop of global environmental challenges, such as expanding extractive industries and unequal socio-environmental burdens, this work explores the woman-led organisation that protects the Fierro Urku wetland from growing mining concessions in Ecuador’s southeastern Andean highlands. Centring on the June 2022 blockade at the entrance to the wetland, along the Loma de Oro road in the canton of Saraguro, the article examines how their collective action takes shape at the intersection of immediate local pressures and broader structural dynamics. This presentation focuses on the Saraguro Indigenous women-led organisation defending the Fierro Urku wetlands from encroaching mining interests. We argue that their leadership, rooted in collective care, Andean identity and deep territorial experience, challenges both extractivism and male-dominated organisational structures.

Their actions draw upon long-standing processes of Andean cultural revitalisation, strong community solidarity, Andean principles, and a profound commitment to caring for and defending water. Together, these elements shape organisational forms grounded in historical territorial struggles, as well as in the varied leadership roles women take on through community labour, the strengthening of local and ancestral knowledge, and their sense of belonging. Despite facing repression, criminalisation, gendered power asymmetries, and the disproportionate demands of domestic and care work, these women sustain meaningful political participation and collective action. The experience of Fierro Urku thus offers insight into alternative models of political and social organisation, underscoring Indigenous women’s central role in protecting water and in maintaining the vital relationships that bind community and nature.