25 Berta Cáceres Quotes on Nature, Indigenous Rights, and Resistance
Berta Caceres (1971-2016) was a Honduran indigenous and environmental activist who co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) at the age of twenty. A member of the Lenca people, she led a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world's largest dam builder to withdraw from the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project on the sacred Gualcarque River. In 2015 she received the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's foremost award for grassroots environmentalism. On March 2, 2016, she was assassinated in her home by gunmen later linked to executives of the dam company and trained by Honduran military intelligence.
Berta Cáceres was a fearless Honduran environmental and indigenous rights activist whose life and words continue to inspire defenders of the Earth around the world. As co-founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), she led the Lenca people in a successful campaign against one of the world's largest dam builders, demonstrating that grassroots resistance can prevail against powerful corporate interests. Here are 25 of her most powerful quotes on nature, indigenous rights, and resistance.
Who Was Berta Caceres?
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Born | March 4, 1971, La Esperanza, Honduras |
| Died | March 2, 2016 (age 44), assassinated |
| Nationality | Honduran |
| Role | Indigenous Rights and Environmental Activist |
| Known For | Leading the fight to stop the Agua Zarca Dam and defending Lenca indigenous rights in Honduras |
Key Achievements and Episodes
Stopping a Dam to Save a Sacred River
Berta Caceres co-founded the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) in 1993 at just 22 years old. Her greatest campaign was the fight against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, which the Lenca people considered sacred. The dam, developed by the Honduran company DESA with backing from international financiers, would have devastated local communities. Caceres organized protests, blockades, and international advocacy that ultimately pressured the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and Chinese state-owned Sinohydro to withdraw from the project.
Winning the Goldman Environmental Prize Despite Death Threats
In 2015, Caceres was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's most prestigious award for grassroots environmental activism. In her acceptance speech, she called attention to the murders of environmental defenders in Honduras — the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists. She revealed that she had received multiple death threats and that several COPINH members had already been killed. Despite international recognition and calls for her protection, the Honduran government failed to provide adequate security.
An Assassination That Exposed Corporate Complicity
On March 2, 2016, Caceres was shot and killed in her home in La Esperanza by gunmen. An international investigation revealed that executives of DESA, the company behind the Agua Zarca Dam, had ordered her murder. In 2018, seven men were convicted of her killing, including a DESA executive and active-duty military personnel. The case exposed the deadly nexus between corporate interests, government corruption, and violence against indigenous defenders in Latin America. Her assassination galvanized the global movement to protect environmental and indigenous rights activists.
Who Is Berta Cáceres?
Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was born on March 4, 1971, in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. Her mother, Austra Bertha Flores López, was a midwife, social activist, and mayor who took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador during the civil war. Growing up in this environment of compassion and political awareness, Berta developed a deep commitment to justice from an early age.
In 1993, at just 22 years old, Cáceres co-founded COPINH (the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) to address the growing threats facing the Lenca people — Honduras's largest indigenous group. Under her leadership, COPINH fought against illegal logging, plantation owners who seized indigenous lands, and the installation of military bases on indigenous territory. Her organizing brought international attention to the struggles of Central American indigenous communities.
Cáceres's most celebrated campaign was her fight against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, a waterway sacred to the Lenca people. Despite facing death threats, arrests, and intimidation, she organized sustained community resistance that ultimately forced the world's largest dam builder, Sinohydro, and the project's international funders to withdraw from the project in 2013. This victory demonstrated the power of indigenous-led environmental movements.
In 2015, Cáceres was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, one of the world's most prestigious environmental honors. In her acceptance speech, she called on the global community to take action against the forces destroying the planet. She used her growing international platform to connect the struggles of indigenous peoples across the Americas and to challenge the economic systems driving environmental destruction.
On March 2, 2016, Berta Cáceres was assassinated in her home in La Esperanza by gunmen linked to the Agua Zarca dam company. Her murder provoked international outrage and intensified global scrutiny of the persecution of environmental activists. In 2018, seven men were convicted for her killing, and in 2021, a former executive of the dam company was found guilty of ordering her assassination. Her legacy lives on through COPINH and the countless defenders she inspired worldwide.
Quotes on Nature and Environmental Justice
Berta Cáceres's urgent call to "wake up, humanity" and shake free from "rapacious capitalism, racism, and patriarchy" was delivered during her 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech — less than a year before her assassination. As a member of the Lenca people, Honduras's largest indigenous group, she understood environmental destruction not as an abstract policy issue but as a direct assault on the sacred relationship between her community and the land. She co-founded COPINH (the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) at just twenty years old in 1993, building it into one of Central America's most effective grassroots movements. Her campaign against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project on the sacred Gualcarque River succeeded in pressuring the world's largest dam builder, China's Sinohydro, to withdraw from the project. Cáceres connected the exploitation of nature to the exploitation of indigenous peoples, arguing that environmental justice and indigenous rights are inseparable struggles.
"Let us wake up, humanity! We're out of time. We must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism, and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction."
Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech, 2015
"The river is our life source. It provides water, food, medicine, and spiritual sustenance. To destroy it is to destroy us."
Speech on the Gualcarque River, 2013
"Our Mother Earth — militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated — demands that we take action."
Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech, 2015
"We cannot defend what we do not love, and we cannot love what we do not know."
COPINH community address, 2014
"They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them."
Interview, Democracy Now!, 2015
"Water is the most sacred element of life. When they dam our rivers, they dam the veins of the Earth."
Speech at COPINH assembly, 2014
"We must undertake the struggle in all parts of the world, wherever we may be, because we have no other spare or replacement planet."
Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech, 2015
Quotes on Indigenous Rights and Identity
Cáceres's declaration that she "cannot be silent while the indigenous peoples of Honduras are being persecuted, threatened, and murdered" was not rhetoric but a description of daily reality in one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. Between 2010 and 2016, more than 120 environmental activists were killed in Honduras, many of them indigenous leaders opposing mining, logging, and hydroelectric projects on ancestral lands. Cáceres herself received numerous death threats and survived multiple assassination attempts before her murder on March 2, 2016. Her advocacy for indigenous rights drew on the Lenca cosmovision, which regards rivers, forests, and mountains as living beings with rights of their own — a worldview increasingly recognized in legal frameworks from Ecuador's constitutional rights of nature to New Zealand's granting of legal personhood to the Whanganui River. Her insistence on speaking out despite mortal danger made her a symbol of indigenous resistance across Latin America.
"I cannot be silent while the indigenous peoples of Honduras are being persecuted, threatened, and murdered for defending their land."
Press statement, 2015
"The Lenca people have been the ancestral guardians of the rivers. We are their voice when they cannot speak for themselves."
Interview, Al Jazeera, 2015
"For us, the territory is not a piece of property to be bought and sold. It is the space where our ancestors lived, where our culture was born."
COPINH community meeting, 2013
"Indigenous peoples have the solutions. We have the knowledge that has sustained life for thousands of years. The world needs to listen."
International forum on indigenous rights, 2014
"Our fight is not only for our communities but for all of humanity. When you destroy the forests and the rivers, everyone suffers."
Speech, Latin American social movements gathering, 2014
"They want to take our lands because underneath lies gold, silver, and resources they want to exploit. But beneath that earth lies our identity."
Interview, The Guardian, 2016
Quotes on Resistance, Courage, and Solidarity
Cáceres's simple statement that she acted because her "conscience tells me it is right" belies the extraordinary courage required to resist powerful corporate and state interests in Honduras, where the 2009 military coup had opened the floodgates to extractive industry projects on indigenous land. Following the coup, the Honduran government granted hundreds of mining, hydroelectric, and logging concessions without consulting affected indigenous communities — a violation of the International Labour Organization's Convention 169 on indigenous peoples' rights. Cáceres organized road blockades, community assemblies, and international advocacy campaigns, building solidarity networks that stretched from La Esperanza to Brussels. After her assassination, a Honduran court convicted seven men, including a former military intelligence officer and employees of DESA, the company behind the Agua Zarca dam, confirming what her family had always alleged: that her killing was orchestrated by corporate interests with state complicity. Her legacy lives on through COPINH and the global movement for environmental defenders' protection.
"I have been threatened many times. I do what I have to do because my conscience tells me it is right."
Interview, BBC, 2015
"The struggle is not just about defending the rivers. It is about defending life itself."
COPINH rally, 2015
"In our worldviews, we are beings who have come from the Earth, from the water, and from corn. The Lenca people are the guardians of these gifts."
Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech, 2015
"When they kill a leader, they think the movement dies. But movements are not one person — they are the people."
COPINH address, 2014
"We must build solidarity across borders, because the forces that threaten us do not respect borders."
International solidarity forum, 2015
"Let us come together and remain hopeful as we defend and care for the blood of this Earth and its spirits."
Goldman Environmental Prize acceptance speech, 2015
"A woman who fights for her community is not a criminal. She is a guardian of life."
COPINH community address, 2015
"The governments and corporations tell us that development means progress. But progress that kills is not progress — it is violence."
Speech at Latin American indigenous rights conference, 2014
"Our ancestors fought for this land with their lives. We will not dishonor their memory by surrendering it."
COPINH rally, 2013
"The voice of the people cannot be silenced. You may silence one of us, but thousands more will rise."
Press statement, 2015
"Women have always been at the forefront of defending our territories. It is our duty and our right."
International Women's Day address, 2015
"The seeds of resistance have been planted. They will grow long after we are gone."
COPINH assembly, 2015
Frequently Asked Questions About Berta Caceres
Who was Berta Caceres?
A Honduran indigenous Lenca activist (1971-2016) who co-founded COPINH to defend indigenous land and environmental rights. She won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her campaign against the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River, sacred to the Lenca people.
Why was she assassinated?
Shot in her home on March 2, 2016, by gunmen linked to the company building the Agua Zarca dam. She had received death threats for years. Seven people were convicted in 2018, including a former military intelligence officer and company executives.
What is her legacy?
Her murder made her a global symbol of the dangers environmental activists face. Her cry 'They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them' inspired indigenous rights movements worldwide. Honduras remains one of the deadliest countries for environmental defenders.
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