Maria do Rosário Garcia

Brazilian educator and environmental activist who pioneered eco-feminist movements in the Amazon basin

Maria do Rosário Garcia (b. 1952) became a pivotal figure in South American environmental justice during the 1990s through her work with Brazil's Amazon Women's Network. She developed the Agroecology for Survival program that trained over 20,000 rural women in sustainable farming practices resistant to deforestation impacts. Her 1999 study on mercury contamination in river communities exposed illegal gold mining's health impacts, leading to Brazil's first Indigenous land demarcation laws. Garcia's concept of 'ecofeminist solidarity' influenced global climate justice frameworks, particularly through her 1997 UN speech 'The Forests Breathe Through Women's Lungs'. She co-founded the Amazon River Guardians initiative (2000) which uses satellite mapping to protect Indigenous territories, a model now replicated in 12 Amazonian countries. Her 2003 book 《Women and the Green Frontier》 remains a core text in environmental sociology.