Rukmini Patidar is in her sixties. In 1990, this farmer from central India took part in a battle to prevent the construction of a large dam on the Sardar Sarovar River. The project would have meant the flooding of Rukmini Patidar's village, Chota Barda. The fight lasted 36 days, during which time Rukmini stayed with the tribes living in the vicinity of the projected dam. Since then, every year she has returned there during the monsoons, "disregarding caste and community prejudices." Rukmini is involved in a movement that is fighting neoliberal globalization.
Rukmini is one of the "remarkable women" whom the National Alliance of Women (NAWO) coordinating body chose to honour in 2000. She sets an example of women who are committed to day-to-day struggles while linking their action to global problems.
Kurdish women are waging a similar fight against the building of the Ilisu dam on the Tigris in southeast Turkey. The dam would entail the destruction of the historic village of Hasankeyf and the displacement of thousands of families. Financed by a consortium of nine industrialized countries, the project is considered by many observers to be part of a large-scale strategy of ethnic cleansing of Kurds in the area.
Women of indigenous communities are particularly sensitive to environmental issues given that nature is the source of their spirituality and their subsistence.
"We denounce the plunder of our natural and cultural resources as well as their overuse, which damages the richness that constitutes our peoples' heritage and the material basis of our lives." So indigenous woman proclaimed in the platform of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women of the Americas, launched in Panama in March 2000. They also stated, "Poverty is due to the unequal distribution of wealth and caused by the blind exploitation of our resources."
These questions were brought up elsewhere: Ecuadorean women demanded that biodiversity resources remain in the public domain. The women of New Caledonia wanted a conservation policy on the environment and natural spaces. African women meeting in Ouagadougou (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Rwanda) in April 2000 denounced "the excessive use of genetically modified organisms in the context of food security." European women demanded that policies be consonant with sustainable development.
For more information : Women – users, preservers and managers of agrobiodiversity, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, december 2001
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