Puerto Rican ecofeminist selected for Rockefeller Foundation’s climate fellowship
Mariolga Reyes-Cruz was chosen to advance a regenerative farming project in Puerto Rico as part of the Big Bets Climate Fellows program.
Puerto Rican ecofeminist Mariolga Reyes-Cruz, co-founder and executive director of FiTiCAS Agroecology Commons, was chosen among this year’s Rockefeller Foundation’s first cohort of Big Bets Climate Fellows.
She is the only Puerto Rican on the list and was selected to advance her project, “Show the Caribbean what is possible in regenerative farming through accessible land tenure.”
Leaders from Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Panama were also selected to advance their climate solutions. As part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s billion-dollar climate strategy, the program will provide programming, networking and professional development opportunities to help scale their climate solutions.
“The Climate Fellows embody the big-bet mindset: Large-scale change is possible and the commitment to making that change happen,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, p[resident of The Rockefeller Foundation.
Reyes-Cruz’s project aims to develop and scale a model to support land tenure through agroecology commons for traditionally marginalized BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) farmers in Puerto Rico.
This project protects land in “perpetuity, secures just and equitable land access, and transforms the food systems through long-term land use agreements and governance structures centered on environmentally sound practices,” according to the news release.
In addition to securing the land, the project supports investment into the initial infrastructure farmers need so they can invest the capital they generate directly into their operations.
Reyes-Cruz is also a community psychologist, agroecology promoter and filmmaker. She holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was a Ford Fellow.
Since 2011, she has worked to strengthen the efforts of local agroecologists who are “growing food sovereignty in Puerto Rico and protecting nature,” the release reads.
She has co-produced two series of short documentaries showcasing practices in agroecology, “Agroecología en Puerto Rico” and “Cosecha Hoy,” and an award-winning feature-length documentary, “Serán las dueñas de la tierra” (“Stewards of the Land”), that highlights the daily struggles of three landless farmers as they weather natural and unnatural disasters.
After hurricanes Irma and María devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, Reyes-Cruz began organizing to create FiTiCAS (Community Land Trust for Sustainable Agriculture), the first agrarian Community Land Trust on the island.
Founded in 2019, FiTiCAS protects farmland “in perpetuity as a common to secure just and equitable access” to land for generations of BIPOC farmers, transforming the food systems through long-term land use agreements and governance structures centered on eco-social sustainability,” the release explains.
In 2021, Reyes-Cruz received the Echoing Green Fellowship for her work. In 2023, FiTiCAS received its first land donation, and the farm is transitioning into the first Agroecology Commons protected by FiTiCAS.
Other leaders selected to advance their climate solutions include Xiomara Acevedo, Marcela Ángel, Lina Ascencio and Luisa Fernanda Bacca-Benavides from Colombia. Avriel Díaz from Panama, Elena Martínez from the Dominican Republic, and Rodrigo Pacheco from Ecuador were also selected.
Additionally, Erika Berenguer, Reinhold Gallmetzer, Carlos Magno, Daniela Orofino, Valmir Ortega, Ricardo Politi, Fabiano Thompson and Felipe Villela from Brazil advanced their climate change solutions.
From June to November 2024, fellows will gather in Brazil, at The Bellagio Center in Italy, and at the Rockefeller Foundation headquarters during Climate Week, supported by a custom curriculum designed by IDEO, known for its work on The Earthshot Prize.
“Fellows are making big bets to reverse the climate crisis,” said Sarah Geisenheimer, vice president Convenings & Networks at the Rockefeller Foundation. “We are honored to support them in advancing their local solutions.”
