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Currently in San Francisco — March 15th, 2023

By Priya Shukla —

The weather, currently.

Windy, but sunny with clear skies for Wednesday, March 15.

The atmospheric river that bore down on Tuesday moved through the region quicker than expected, with the back end of the storm showing up by late morning. The storm triggered mudslides and flooding along the California coast, chain requirements in the Sierra Nevadas, and delayed flights as winds intensified. River monitors (NOAA provides a map of river flood stage monitors) show that this storm has brought multiple rivers to being above flood stage. With this storm passing through so quickly, hopefully we see no further damage (especially in the Pajaro community where a levee already breached).

—Priya Shukla

What you need to know, currently.

In honor of Women’s History Month, Currently is spotlighting the women and femmes who are—and continue to be—the backbone of the environmental and climate justice movement and pioneered the work to protect communities.

“I want to live, there are many things I still want to do in this world but I have never once considered giving up fighting for our territory, for a life with dignity, because our fight is legitimate.”

Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was an environmental activist and co-founder and coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras.

A member of the Lenca people of Honduras herself, Cáceres dedicated her life to protecting the land and rights of Indigenous peoples. Her large-scale activism started in 1993, when Cáceres  was just a student and founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras to fight against the environmental degradation caused by dams, plantations, and US military bases.

Throughout 2013, Cáceres led COPINH and members of her local community in a year-long protest at a DESA-backed dam’s construction site, preventing the companies from getting to the land. Despite multiple attacks, threats, and the Honduran military opening fire on the protestors, Cáceres persisted.

In 2015, her work with COPINH was recognized, and she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for “a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.” The developers broke international law when they neglected to consult local tribes who were worried that the construction of the dam would interrupt Lenca communities’ access to water, food, and medicine materials.

In 2016, Cáceres was assassinated in her home by armed intruders, after many threats against her life. In the years leading up to her murder, several other land defenders were killed in Honduras, making the country one of the most dangerous places for activists protecting the country’s forests and rivers. After Cáceres’ murder, two more activists were killed within the same month.

Click here to read the statement that COPINH released on the seventh anniversary of her death.

—Aarohi Sheth

What you can do, currently.