INTAG VALLEY, Ecuador — In Ecuador’s lush tropical Andes, Silvia Vetancourt multitasks, her hands maneuvering crochet needles with swift precision as she navigates the rocky path to the old town of Plaza Gutierrez. “We like this craft because it’s mobile,” she says, holding out a piece of a small coin purse she’s been working on on the trail. “It makes us free.” Vetancourt is the secretary of Mujer y Medio Ambiente (Women and the Environment), or MYMA, the oldest women’s group in Intag Valley, Ecuador. Founded in 1995, the artisan collective developed an innovative way to dye and stitch fibers from the cabuya plant (Furcraea andina) into products ranging from mats to hats. Silvia Vetancourt holds out a coin purse she is crocheting from cabuya fiber on the path to Plaza Gutierrez, Ecuador. Large, spiky, cabuya planta are seen in the background. Photo by Liz Kimbrough for Mongabay. Members of the group told Mongabay that being part of MYMA has given them confidence, camaraderie, and more control over their choices. It has also kept them organized during Intag Valley’s famed resistance movement, a nearly 30-year struggle to keep mining companies out of their forests. “We have been the first women’s organization and have been in every moment of the resistance,” says Vetancourt, who is also president of Mujeres Intag, which oversees at least a dozen women’s entrepreneurial groups in the region. An agroecological haven Intag Valley sits in the heart of the tropical Andes, the most biodiverse of the world’s…This article was originally published on Mongabay