Agua y Vida: Mujeres, Derechos y Ambiente (Agua y Vida) is a women-led organization founded in 2009 to promote ecofeminism across Chiapas and throughout Mexico. Their work centers on women’s rights and the environment because they acknowledge women face more risks from the social, economic and climate crises. Agua y Vida works on acknowledging the connection between women’s bodies and extractivism, strengthening the concept of territorio cuerpo-tierra, which simultaneously considers the body as a territory and the territory as a body, existing in an interdependent relationship, and both suffer from the harms perpetuated by patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. Their work is organized into four programs: defense of territory, women rights, environmental and climate justice, and domestic and care work. This work is done through popular education, advocacy, communications, direct action, research, publishings and campaigns, all through an ecofeminist lens.

Agua y Vida advocates for food sovereignty, the right to water, land, and decent work. They advocate against megaprojects such as mining, hydrocarbon extraction, and agribusinesses, especially the palm oil monoculture system in Chiapas. They run the ecofeminist school Escuela Ecofeminista Mujeres Defendiendo el Territorio Cuerpo-Tierra, where women collectively reflect on their territorial contexts and where they set communal and territorial strategies as frontline defenders. The school and the bonds created through the school provide a safety network to women defending the territories that have been taken over by drug trafficking, militarization, and extractive projects.

Since 2016, Agua y Vida has trained nearly 200 women through their school and through alliances with other organizations. Most of the women who participate in their projects are Indigenous, rural and racialized urban women, including girls and adults. Agua y Vida accompanies community organizing processes, territorial defense processes against extractive policies, agroecology initiatives, feminist community water management, and personal and collective security of women defenders.

Over the years, Agua y Vida has published books and magazines about women in relation to climate justice, telling their life stories, struggles, ways of organizing, and resilience. They also use publications to share knowledge on medicinal plants and agroecology.