Today (8 March) is International Women’s Day, so what better excuse to highlight the work and interest of a woman protecting the environment (by no means risk free as the recent murder of award-winning Honduran indigenous and environmental rights activist Berta Caceres shows).
Born and raised in Yucatan, Mexico, Yolanda Lopez, PhD candidate, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Germany and CSVPA member has been fascinated by the complexities of the world. This has drawn her to an extreme curiosity and feeling of awe for nature. She directed her efforts to caring about what surrounds her: water (in Yucatan no surface waters or rivers exist: instead there are groundwater caves, locally called cenotes from the Mayan word ts’onot, sinkhole). Through science, as an academic woman, she learned that freshwater, particularly groundwater, represents an important life-sustaining resource: it feeds springs and streams and supports wetlands. As an indigenous person she learned from my ancestors that our relationships with water and nature are also important.
Read more about her interest and motivation; what’s yours?
