Thị Thêu: Vietnamese Land Defender Standing for Justice, Ancestral Rights, and the Protection of Mother Earth

By:  Dinh Thai Bao Tran

Today I will write about a leader from Vietnam. She is quite well-known in the place where I was born. Her name is Cấn Thị Thêu, a land rights activist from Hanoi. Her bravery in protecting justice for people who lost their land has made her one of the strongest voices for land justice in Vietnam.

Cấn Thị Thêu was born into a farming family who lived by growing rice and working on the same land that her family had cared for over many generations. When the government took her family’s land for a project, she realized that the land was not only a source of life but also a part of her identity, memory, and history. Instead of staying silent, she started to record and speak out against unfair land seizures. She also helped other families who faced the same problem. Even though she was arrested and put in jail many times, she never lost her belief that ordinary people also have the right to speak up.

Her story shows the knowledge of ancestors and cultural traditions. In Vietnamese culture, land is deeply connected to spiritual life, work, and moral values. It is the place where people “settle down and live in peace,” where children honor their ancestors, and where communities grow together. Many families still use land for farming today. When Cấn Thị Thêu protects the land, she is also protecting the tradition of respecting nature, kindness, and unity values passed down from generation to generation.

Her actions also show land and environmental justice. Taking away farmland not only makes people lose their homes, but it also destroys the ecosystem, the water, and the way humans live in harmony with nature. When she stood up to fight, she was not only defending people’s rights but also protecting the strong relationship between humans and Mother Earth.
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For me, her story is a deep source of inspiration. It helps me understand that climate justice cannot exist without land justice. Protecting the Earth is not only about saving forests or water, but also about protecting the people who live close to the land, those who understand nature’s value through their daily lives. Through Cấn Thị Thêu’s story, I see that even an ordinary woman farmer can become a symbol of strength, truth, and courage, a voice from the land that deserves to be heard around the world.