Bertha Zúñiga is no stranger to threats. She remembers the day years ago when she and her colleagues were chased by machete-wielding attackers in western Honduras.
A vehicle blocked their car, and its passengers stepped out with their weapons, trying to attack the group. They managed to escape, but the incident was not the first – nor would it be the last time Zúñiga would face a violent threat.
That encounter came just over a year after Zúñiga’s mother, Berta Cáceres, a prominent indigenous rights activist in Honduras, was killed in her home in March 2016, leading to Zúñiga taking the leadership of her group, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
Zúñiga was a toddler when her mother started the group to defend indigenous Lenca land from commercial interests that local communities say harm and exploit it.
Zúñiga’s group has been fighting against controversial projects such as the since-paused Agua Zarca dam in northwest Honduras that activists say would cost the Lenca people their livelihood. The local community fears the hydropower station on the Gualcarque River would destroy its unique ecosystems and the community’s agricultural production areas and sources of food and natural medicine. But Cáceres’ moves against the project faced powerful pushback.
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