Who deserves to be in the center of climate conversations? Who is the most qualified to spearhead solutions to the climate crisis? To Mitzy Cortés, the answer is obvious. Indigenous peoples disproportionately experience climate impacts and are the only ones that have the thorough knowledge of local environments, and their protection of the land will restore the climate. Mitzy Cortés is a young environmental activist from San Sebastián Tecomaxtlahuaca and part of the indigenous Mixtec people of Mexico. As an inherent part of her culture, she was raised to love the living world around her and center her lifestyle around environmental awareness. However, while sustainability was a value she personally upheld, she realized the rest of the world became severely misaligned with protecting the environment. Now at 23 years old, she is an active member of the Red Futuros Indígenas, a network of native peoples that collectively address environmental issues in Mesoamerica from indigenous perspectives. In recent years, Cortés has received significant recognition for her influential campaigns and was particularly celebrated by Global Citizen in 2022 when she was awarded the Global Citizen Prize: Citizen Award Mexico.
Cortés’ advocacy highlights the intersectionality within climate action conversations and how it relates to the origins of man-made climate change. In the larger Mesoamerican area, the long period of colonization has extracted resources, dried up rivers, and devastated the region’s biodiversity. Due to the introduction of large-scale industrial factories, there currently exists a vicious cycle that intensifies droughts and water shortages. The area now experiences long dry seasons while industries also directly overwhelm natural water supplies with their extractive practices. Additionally, as industries such as mining continue their mass-extraction of water, they cause contamination that ruins water sources for local communities without any consideration for the health impacts. Natural resources are exhausted and environmental thresholds are violated by large corporate projects and the legacy of colonial activity in Mesoamerica.
The consequences of industrial interference have also encroached on social matters within the indigenous communities. Scarcity of water has enabled intercommunal conflicts and ultimately increased their tensions by worsening the conditions of their natural surroundings. Instead of giving in to these circumstances, Cortés encourages the communities to unite and resist the structures that colonial practices have forced upon the land. Her work with Red Futuros Indígenas largely associates climate action with decolonization because as the organization’s manifesto mentions, “the colonization of our peoples continues to this day, despite the fact that we are the ones who conserve 80% of the planet’s biodiversity.” Through their campaigns, they call out colonization as a direct source of climate destruction in Mesoamerica and call for sustainable practices of the local communities to be fully restored. In order to combat the extractive industries and economic projects that place profit over life, the indigenous people must actively defend their own land and humanity. In Cortés’ words, “Our intention is to hack the narrative of the climate crisis and show that it is a symptom of a larger disease and that it is we, the people, who fight against this disease by preserving our languages, building collectively, and defending the territory against extractivism.”
Throughout her effort to propose climate solutions, Cortés emphasizes that “[indigenous people] need to be recognized as living solutions to the climate crisis.” In the simplest form, just by continuing their traditions and preserving their environmentally conscious lifestyles, they keep the fight against climate change alive. Cortés was even present at the 2021 United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, or COP26, with a delegation of similar indigenous advocates. As the event itself is often financed by the same industries polluting the Mesoamerican land, Cortés’ attendance was significant in challenging those systems of power and representing indigenous voices in the discussion for climate action. Instead of letting the same governments and entities direct solutions plans, Cortés urges for a shift that will finally spotlight the validity of indigenous opinions. With her firm belief in that the “healing of the land is the defense of life and territory,” Mitzy Cortés proves to be a dominant force in the fight for climate justice and a capable leader of the indigenous populations in Central America.
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