The Bright Light of Luna Creciente

An Interview with Ecuadorian Grassroots Leader Elva Ulcuango

Versión en Español

by Kim-Jenna Jurriaans

Ecuador is a country of many riches. A republic roughly the size of Michigan on the South Pacific, bordering Colombia in the north and Peru in the east and south, it drives on seemingly endless reserves of fossil fuels, while harboring the largest biodiversity per square kilometer of any country in the world -- so much so that, in 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to attribute constitutional rights to Mother Nature. Among the provisions adopted in the new constitution -- its 20th since gaining independence in 1822 -- is the right of ecosystems “to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution." It is a right that “every person, people, community or nationality” can
demand.

At the same time, Ecuador’s economy has relied heavily on exporting raw commodities, like crude oil, coffee and tropical fruits, and, as in many places in the global south, free-trade agreements have brought in large multinational corporations whose mere magnitude of production and extraction have threatened the small-scale agricultural production of the country’s indigenous population, which makes up about 25 percent of the country's total population.

It is in this context that grassroots groups of low-income women of indigenous, black and mestiza descent have organized for over two decades to secure their rights to land and livelihoods, and to preserve indigenous practices that nurture sustainable ecosystems. Realizing shared struggles across cultural identity-lines, they have formed a national coalition in the form of Luna Creciente, a diverse network of grassroots women’s groups across Ecuador who primarily work in the agricultural sector.

Unity in Diversity 

“When we talk about the movement, we are talking about 380 grassroots organizations, so 380 communities,” says Elva Ulcuango, a member of Luna Creciente and a delegate to their national council. While they celebrate diversity of practices, they strive for a common political platform, explains the 26-year-old. “We can talk about particularities in production within the Sierra, or the Andean or coastal region, but we are not all the same – we each have our local methods of production.” Some groups work toward the conservation of mangroves and wetlands, which provide them with fish, while others focus on the protection of seeds and communal lands for agriculture. “But politically, we have all tried to improve each organization’s statutes by including a strong focus on assuring families’ nutritional needs, while always preserving and reusing what resources already exist in the community.”

An indigenous woman born in Ecuador’s Sierra in the North Andean region, Ulcuango became a community organizer at the age of 13 and the director of her community organization at 19. By the time she was 22, she served as national delegate to Luna Creciente’s Collective Council, a function that she continued to fulfill while going to college to study Communications -- a personal path that’s far from standard for many low-income women in Ecuador, especially of indigenous descent. It’s a reality Elva’s well aware of. “For indigenous women it has been difficult to access formal education, and for those who have access, it has been three times as challenging,” she says. “In terms of political analysis, we have at times been challenged because some members can’t read and write. So we have sought other forms of learning, and spaces to build capacities and share experiences.”

While Ulcuango is happy to talk about her personal experiences, she’s careful to stress the diversity of experiences within the movement, which derives its strength from its ability to organize collectively regardless of differences in capabilities and opinions.

The care for and exchange of seeds plays a central role in Luna Creciente’s organizing, as it’s both a strategy to strengthen livelihoods and an impetus for cross-regional gatherings, like the national seed fair, which is being held for the 10th year this year. “In our calendar, the fair is always the 1st week of September, because this is the time to initiate the sowing season,” Ulcuango says, explaining how all their activities are coordinated with the agro-astronomical calendar.

In addition to diversification of production and preservation of indigenous crops, exchanging seeds across regions has been a way to experiment with ways to adapt to changing conditions induced by climate change -- a process of trial and error, which has had the usual mixed results. “We’ve tried to work with genetically modified seeds, for example, but we’ve found that they did more harm to our agriculture than good,” recalls Ulcuango, who acknowledges the struggle to adapt, but adds that the group sees achievement in the process of trying itself.

Political Advocacy 

The emphasis on learning-by-doing is an important element of the shared philosophy within the network. At the seed fair, no money switches hands – the emphasis is on exchange rather than commerce, not only of seeds and products, but of knowledge and ideas, as the meeting simultaneously serves as a forum for formulating collective proposals for regional and national advocacy. An example of the network’s national advocacy is its involvement in the campaign to amend plans for a new nationwide Water Law, a widely contested piece of legislation that according to many indigenous and campesino groups lacks mechanisms for community participation in water decisions and fails to protect against corporate water-contamination in the highlands. “In regards to the Water Law, we have had a lot of social participation,” Ulcuango stresses. “This is something we have been fighting for very much in Ecuador, because as communities and as women we have been part of protection and conservation of water sources for a long time. We see the government trying to manage this from their end, but where does our communal contribution come in? How are we being recognized for the work we do?” These and other questions were raised over months of national organizing let by a plethora of national coalitions who drafted counter proposals and staged protests. As a result, the national assembly postponed a vote until community leaders, including members of Luna Creciente, are consulted in the process.

One source of contention for the women of Luna Creciente are large-scale mining operations, which cause problems both in regard to water conservation and preservation of livelihoods for people living in the Amazon and coastal regions, Ulcuango explains. “We’ve been fighting hard against government proposals to increase large-scale commercial mining, because it no longer allows the small-business artisans, many of which are women working for daily subsistence, to engage in artisanal mining.” Now it’s the big NGOs with contracts and intermediaries who are all doing it, she says, emphasizing that from the collective experience of Luna Cresciente, “this is a large destructive force that is destroying our land, water and our biodiversdity.” The network is now working on a counter proposal to the Water Law that specifically discusses the conservation and protection of the highland plains, and the multitude of water sources they hold.

Once every eight weeks, on the second Saturday of the month, the various committees of Luna Creciente’s collective directorate come together to take stock of achievements and challenges across the eight provinces in which the movement is active. This is also the time to assess what political strategies have been successful and which haven’t, to review proposals and assign members to field work witnessing or supporting the activities of member groups. Recognizing the need to create an enabling environment for women’s groups to strengthen their leadership capacity and expand their networks, Huairou Commission, with support from the Dutch Cordaid, has facilitated a regional process enabling Luna Creciente to strengthen both its institutional capacity nationally and its regional ties of learning with women across Latin America.

Strengthening Regional Networks

For the first time this year, the network was able to convene a national assembly of 80 women from eight provinces who met for three days to identify regional priorities, evaluate the success of current advocacy campaigns and agree on common goals for the year to come -- a valuable movement-building exercise of the kind that many grassroots networks of low-income women, including Luna Creciente itself, have long struggled to realize for lack of sustained funding. The meeting also provided a chance to assess strategies for increasing political education across the network and to find new ways to reach out to indigenous groups.

Over the last year, Luna Creciente has smartly adapted its communications strategy to address literacy gaps by starting a Youtube channel with videos that reflect the movement’s standpoints on such issues as agricultural sovereignty and ecological sustainability. As Ulcuango point out plainly, “It makes no sense to distribute pamphlets to illiterate populations -- that’s why we have the videos.”

In a landscape of international donors who continue to prefer project-based funding addressing hot-button issues, the collaborative commitment of Cordaid and the Huairou Commission to invest in women’s regional organizing, more broadly, stands out for its recognition of the need for strong coalitions to initiate structural change across Latin America and the region’s non-white female population, which continues to be most vulnerable economically.

As climate change has affected poor rural communities both in their ability to produce and their likelihood to experience disasters, the Huairou Commission and GROOTS International have supported international knowledge exchanges between women leaders across Latin America working toward building resilient communities. In one such exchange in May of 2011, a group of community practitioners from the GROOTS Peru network representing Bancos Communales and Mujeres Unidas traveled to Cayambe, a highland town north of Ecuador’s capital, Quito, to lead a groups of local women through a three-day skill-training in risk mapping. Armed with notepads and markers, the women descended on the community, taking inventory of houses and roads at risk of flooding, barren lands and those who flourish. “We were able to identify vulnerable zones and why we are unable to grow crops in some areas and not others,” says Ulcuango about the participatory exercise that serves as a tool to strengthen community voices, generate data and guide communities to develop their own plans based on identified priorities.

Through Luna Creciente’s network of hundred of local groups, the new mapping skills will soon travel to other parts of the country, where they can be applied to different geographical contexts and local needs. Experiences like these will continue to be shared at fairs and in committees, and through the network’s central communications via its website, email updates and regional print publications that serve to strengthen a common advocacy agenda among Luna Creciente’s members.

Adaptability is a central theme for a coalition of women so diverse in cultural backgrounds and target issues. What binds them all, according to Ulcuango, is the dedication to strengthen the rights of women and their access to livelihoods. To achieve this, building a strong collective voice to incorporating grassroots women’s priorities into the national political agenda is key. After all, says Ulcuango, “Who is going to express what we feel and need, if not us?”