The long-running global struggle to prevent extinction of the world’s most endangered marine mammal claimed its first human life in Baja California on Jan. 2, in the conflict between illegal fishing and conservation of the vaquita porpoise.

The final rulings of the Supreme Court calendar year favored indigenous causes diametrically opposed to those of incumbent candidate Donald Trump, reaffirming treaty rights and proving the power of recent grassroots mobilizations.

From Anchorage to Acoma, all over the United States and Canada, native women have been mobilizing to procure justice for missing and murdered sisters. In recent years, the mounting grassroots efforts have made hard-won progress to counter gender-related violence in colonized communities.

There are increasing threats to nature, as well as to those who are involved in the defense of natural resources and land rights. In this scenario, the workers of the media whose duty it is to investigate such facts are exposed.

Tribal chairmen decried the newly finished Dakota Access Pipeline when reports surfaced that its first crude oil spill in South Dakota occurred even before the private infrastructure project went into service.

Caceres’ memory must be invoked along with that of dozens of other martyrs for the defense of the sanctity of all living beings, as the cross-boundary struggle builds to reinstate indigenous primacy in the protection of land tenure rights, biological diversity, habitat, food and water security, and the balance of nature.

Like Berta Caceres before her, Maxima Acuña has resisted violence and eviction in championing the protection of natural resources against powerful international corporate exploitation.