To celebrate International Women’s Month, we spoke with Ingrid Mojanajinsoy, an Indigenous leader from the Colombian Amazon, about the crucial role women play in her community’s efforts to protect this vital ecosystem.

Ingrid is the president of an organization established to advocate for the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Putumayo region. She is from the Indigenous Inga people, which has safeguarded the Amazon and its water sources for generations.

Ingrid’s community is facing down extractive industries that pollute their water and destroy the ancestral territory to which they are deeply connected. This threat inhibits the Inga’s ability to sustain themselves and practice cultural traditions by depleting the natural resources that they rely on for their food sovereignty, medicine, and spiritual practices.

Inga women are at the forefront of this resistance, confronting extractive industries while protecting their cultural heritage by cultivating the chagra, a sustainable farming system that nurtures the land, keeping it fertile after several harvests.