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  • People holding signs that read "Yes, there was Genocide" protest outside Guatemala's Constitutional Court, the highest in the land, demanding the continuation of the landmark genocide trial against former de facto ruler Efrain Rios Montt and his head of Intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez. Both Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Ixil Mayan people during their de facto reign from March 1982 to August 1983. Guatemala City, Guatemala. March 26, 2013.

  • People hold red carnations, symbols of wartime victims, as they get ready to march to the Constitutional Court. Despite the trial's suspension ordered by High Risk Court Judge Carol Flores on the previous day, Judge Jazmin Barrios reconvened the trial on the 21st day to decide on a course of action. Judge Barrios ruled that Judge Flores' annulment is illegal and will be asking the Constitutional Court, Guatemala's highest judicial body, to rule on the fate of the genocide trial. Guatemala, Guatemala. April 19, 2013.

  • Witness Magdalena Marcos De Leon, Ixil Mayan woman from Nebaj, raises her right hand before beginning her sworn testimony during the sixth day of the historic genocide trial against former de facto dictator Efrain Rios Montt and his head of Intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez. Both are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Ixil Mayan people during their de facto reign from March 1982 to August 1983. Ms. Marcos De Leon states: "After the army attacked our village, I saw how they captured my husband and decapitated him. I ran to the mountain with my five children and we remained there for a long time." Guatemala, Guatemala. March 26, 2013.

  • San Jose community members, most cacao growers affiliated to the TCGA, help thatch the roof of TCGA member Catarino Tzub's new home. Toledo Cacao Growers' Association (TCGA), San Jose, Toledo, Belize. January 25, 2013.

  • A resident of La Cerca collects dried laundry from a tin rooftop. Barrick and Goldcorp's Pueblo Viejo open-pit gold mine threatens the cocoa-bean producing community of La Cerca. Cotuí, Sánchez Ramírez, Dominican Republic. April 2012.

  • Detail of a baby's feet. San Juan Sacatepéquez, Guatemala. June 30, 2012.

  • Two US Marines stand on top of car number 1, driven by Dickie Vander Meulen, before the 11th annual Orange Crush Demolition Derby at the 2011 Orange County Fair. The car, adorned with a head of Osama Bin Laden and fake cannons, won people's choice for best presentation. Costa Mesa, California, USA. August 10, 2011.

  • An indigenous man from San Juan Atitán descends a structure as a foreign tourist reads in the ancient Mayan site of Zaculeu during the celebrations marking the end of the Mayan Era known as 13 Baktun. Zaculeu, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. December 21, 2012.

  • Two Tectitec Mayan girls watch over the celebrations in the ancient Mayan site of Zaculeu marking the end of the Mayan Era known as 13 Baktun. Zaculeu, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. December 21, 2012.

  • María Mercedes Escobar, 2012 Departmental Queen of Huehuetenango, dances in Huehuetenango's central park during the celebrations marking the end of the Mayan Era known as 13 Baktun. Huehuetenango, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. December 20, 2012.

  • Mauricio Fallas Mota, member of COOPEDOTA, checks his coffee plants. COOPEDOTA, Santa María de Dota, San José, Costa Rica. September 7, 2012.

  • Traditional day of the dead papel picado for sale at Naucalpan's municipal market. Naucalpan de Juárez, México, México. Oct. 19, 2012.

  • Irma Yolanda Choc Cac stands by the remains of what was once her home. This is where she was gang raped on January 17, 2007, by security personnel from the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), National Police officers and Army soldiers during the forced eviction ordered by Skye Resources, a Canadian nickel mining company and then parent company of CGN. Ms. Cac Choch and ten other women from the Q'eqchi' Mayan community of Lote 8 are currently pursuing a high profile lawsuit in Canada against HudBay Minerals, company that eventually acquired Skye Resources. Lote 8, El Estor, Guatemala. May 31, 2012.

  • Fernando Abrego Pineda, a Ngäbe man and member of COCABO, demonstrates the use of his slingshot. Mr. Abrego primarily uses the weapon for hunting small animals or for protection. COCABO: Junquito, Almirante, Changuinola, Bocas del Toro, Panamá. September 1, 2012.

  • Eduardo Segura Carmona, member of COOPETRABASUR, prepares to harvest a banana cluster. COOPETRABASUR, Corredores, Puntarenas, Costa Rica. August 30, 2012.

  • Catarina Toma Toma, member of the Wartime Women's Victims Committee, claims her home has been damaged by the heavy traffic from the construction of the nearby Palo Viejo hydroelectric project. The controversial Palo Viejo project, currently under construction by Israeli-owned Solel Boneh and operated by Italian utility giant ENEL, has sparked tensions and conflicts in the war-torn region since 2007. San Felipe Chenlá, San Juan Cotzal, Quiché, Guatemala. August 2012.

  • Elian Vargas Arias, small-scale sugar cane producer affiliated to the San Ramon Sugar Co-operative, cuts sugar cane from his family-owned fields. COOPECAÑERA, San Ramón, Alajuela, Costa Rica. August 21, 2012.

  • María (left) and her sister Margarita, Ixil Mayan girls from the town of Juá, stand outside their home. In the background, a poster of Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina's Partido Patriota, or Patriot Party (PP), adorns a wall. Otto Pérez Molina, a former general during the Internal Armed Conflict (1960-1996) in the Ixil region that includes Chajul, is accused of carrying out atrocities against the local Ixil Mayan population. The town of Juá sits a few hundred meters from the controversial Xacbal hydroelectric dam, a Honduran venture ran by Fredy Nasser's Grupo Terra. San Gaspar Chajul, Quiché, Guatemala. August 2012.

  • A girl sits while her mother works on a salt mine in Uyuni. Since 2010, Bolivian state-run mining company Comibol has been exploring lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. The Salar de Uyuni sits at 3,600 meters above sea level and has a total surface area of 10,582 square kilometers.

  • "Emil Bustamante Lives! ". After 9 days and 212 kilometers, the Indigenous, Campesino and Popular March for the defense of Mother Earth, against evictions, criminalization, and in favor of Integrated Rural Development, arrived to the Capital City. According to members of the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC), it is estimated that about 15,000 people participated in the ninth and final day of the march.

  • Ducks for sale at the Rabinal market. Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. May 2012.

  • Yoli Oquely Veliz, from San José del Golfo, declares: "We just want the mine to leave through peaceful means." Since March 2nd, 2012, local neighbors from San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc have blocked the entrance to Canadian Radius Gold's local subsidiary EXMINGUA gold mine. Residents from the communities claim the industrial activity in their territories as illegal since they were not appropriately consulted before the mine began operating. On June 13th, 2012, after a month of receiving death threats due to her involvement in the anti-mining movement, Ms. Oquely Veliz was shot three times by unknown men on a motorcycle as she left the resistance blockade. She is currently in stable but serious condition.

  • Gustavo García sells images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and FC Barcelona during the annual veneration of the Virgin. According to Roman Catholic tradition, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared for the fourth and last time to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on December 12th, 1531, on the Tepeyac Hill in modern day Mexico City. Guatemalan faithful flock to Guatemala City's Guadalupe Sanctuary every year on the aforementioned date to venerate the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  • An older woman from San Pedro Ayampuc serves food to those protesting outside the entrance gate to the EXMINGUA gold mine. Since March 2nd, 2012, local neighbors from San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc have taken turns to block the entrance to Canadian Radius Gold's local subsidiary EXMINGUA mine. Residents from the communities claim the industrial activity in their territories as illegal since they were not appropriately consulted before the mine began operating.

  • Local anti-mining activists and sympathizers, led by Elida Lopez Tojil, prepare for celebratory events related to the inauguration of Delfino Tema Bautista as Municipal Mayor of Sipacapa. Tema's Sipakapa Civic Committee, formed and integrated by Sipakapan Mayans who oppose the operation of Goldcorps Marlin gold mine in their territory, won a historic election on September 2007.

  • Dozens gather to commemorate the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Rio Negro Massacre at Pak'oxom Peak. On March 13, 1982, the Guatemalan army and civil patrolmen from neighboring Xococ rounded up residents of Rio Negro, marched them uphill to Pak'oxom, and brutally raped and massacred 177 women and children. Nearly 400 community members of Rio Negro were killed in four separate massacres in the early 1980's due to the community's resistance to give up their lands and make way for the Chixoy hydroelectric project. Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. March, 2009.

  • Habana Vieja, 2009.

  • Children from El Pedernal in Honduras' Siria Valley bathe in a stream adjacent to Goldcorp's San Martin Gold Mine. Women and children are particularly prone to illnesses due to water contamination. Hundreds of residents from the communities in the Siria Valley suffer from skin diseases as rivers and streams have been found to contain elevated levels of heavy metals.

  • The municipality from the mining town of Bonanza uses empty cyanide barrels as public trash cans. Bonanza is one of three boom towns in the so-called Mining Triangle in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), Nicaragua.

  • One year after residents of Barrio La Unión suffered two violent evictions at the hands of Canadian-owned Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN) on January 2007, the Q'eqchi' Mayan community members continue their non-violent resistance on the land they claim as ancestral territory.

  • Thousands march through downtown Los Angeles in support of Occupy Together's Global Day of Action.

  • As Catholic traditions prevail in Guatemala, each town carries out its largest annual festival on its patron saint day. The municipality of Todos Santos (Spanish for all saints) celebrates its yearly fair on November 1st, All-Saints Day. It is customary in Guatemala to commemorate the deceased on that date by visiting cemeteries and placing offerings to those who have passed on. Here in Todos Santos Cuchumatán, a unique horse race is also carried out as part of the celebrations.

  • Residents of Cedros Ejido celebrate a wedding. Since the 2005 establishment of Goldcorp's Peñasquito mine in the arid semi-desert municipality of Mazapil, Mexico, local communities have complained that Latin America's largest gold producing mine has drastically diminished the scarce water sources available and enticed land disputes.

  • A few blocks from downtown San Salvador, Lazaro has established a makeshift electronics shop along the sidewalk in order to make a living.

  • Thousands march through downtown Los Angeles in support of Occupy Together's Global Day of Action.

  • A local woman cooks dinner in the kitchen of the abandoned home of the former owners of the Cuchil landholding. After the global coffee crisis in the early 2000's, dozens of landowners, mostly of European descent, abandoned their coffee landholdings in the Polochic River valley. In San Miguel Tucurú, several local Q'eqchi' and Pocomchí Mayan communities, often considered slave labor and part of the property's goods, took over the abandoned landholdings and began a process of legalization while attempting to continue coffee production and surviving on sustainable agriculture methods.

  • Doña Elena gazes out of her gated porch. High levels of violent crime and minimal percentages of judicial investigations have driven Salvadorians to lock themselves up in homes wrapped in gates and barbed wire.

  • A girl brushes her doll's hair from a balcony. Zacatecas, Mexico.

  • Local anti-mining activists and sympathizers prepare for celebratory events related to the inauguration of Delfino Tema Bautista as Municipal Mayor of Sipacapa. Tema's Sipakapa Civic Committee, formed and integrated by Sipakapan Mayans who oppose the operation of Goldcorp's Marlin gold mine in their territory, won a historic election on September 2007.

  • Boy carries beanstalks using a traditional mecapal. After the global coffee crisis in the early 2000's, dozens of landowners, mostly of European descent, abandoned their coffee landholdings in the Polochic River valley. In San Miguel Tucurú, several local Q'eqchi' and Pocomchí Mayan communities, often considered slave labor and part of the property's goods, took over the abandoned landholdings and began a process of legalization while attempting to continue coffee production and surviving on sustainable agriculture methods.

  • Sunset over La Habana, 2009.

  • A vegetable merchant feeds her pet parrots while awaiting patrons in San Salvador's central market.

  • Local men fish at dawn over the former San Lucas Toliman pier. Water levels rose to unprecedented levels during the 2010 rainy season.

  • As Catholic traditions prevail in Guatemala, each town carries out its largest annual festival on its patron saint day. The municipality of Todos Santos (Spanish for all saints) celebrates its yearly fair on November 1st, All-Saints Day. It is customary in Guatemala to commemorate the deceased on that date by visiting cemeteries and placing offerings to those who have passed on. Due to large-scale migration to the United States and Canada, many graves in the Guatemalan highlands display the influx of remittance money.

  • Easter celebrations in Guatemala City's historic center provide a much-needed income earning opportunity for the thousands of Guatemalans who depend on the informal economic sector to survive.

  • Numerous locks seal the entrrance to a street-side jewelry store. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 2007.

  • One of the region's most unique and perplexing expressions of Mayan-Catholic syncretism involves the worship of Maximón or Saint Simon. Every October 28th, catholic feast day for Saint Simon, thousands of pilgrims from all over Guatemala and neighboring countries flock to San Andres Itzapa, Chimaltenango, to worship the effigy lovingly known as Monchito. Once inside, devotees can profess their faith in any way they chose to or even hire a curandera who will carry out spiritual limpias, or cleansings in front of the effigy.