Coolest lady ever

I had the privilege of meeting Georgita Ruiz yesterday at Drexel. She met my old advisor JS a while ago when they were studying temperature dependent sex determination in turtles in Costa Rica. Since then she's worked as a law enforcer in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Law enforcement there is a bit different than what we think of here. To me, law enforcement is police. But in Oaxaca, Georgita spent her time applying the environmental laws to help protect the environment. This included informing the indigenous people of the federal laws, inspecting areas for any violations of the laws like turtle egg poaching, bird trafficking, illegal lumbering, and illegal hunting.

But along with this job came great dilemmas. How do you tell an indigenous person who traditionally eats iguanas during Holy Week that it is illegal to kill iguanas and he has to go to jail? What do you tell the man who is cutting down a cedar tree that his father planted for him, gave it to him as a wedding gift, and told him to cut it down? Where do you draw the line between applying the black letter law and enforcing justice, fairness, and the spirit of the law?

The stories Georgita told were amazing. She's shut down an entire national oil company because it violated the law, she's been held in "community retention," she's helped educate indigenous people on how to manage their natural resources. The list goes on. And what strikes me as most admirable is that she stands her ground. She does the right thing and refuses to compromise her values for a job. That's impressive.