Alphy Special Report – The Eagle Huntresses of Mongolia, Hunting for Change in the Mountains

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At Alphy, we look at women breaking barriers and making changes on feminist fronts around the globe — including some of the most far-flung places on Earth. This three-part Special Report takes you to Mongolia, a nation of 3 million nomads. More specifically, we go to the country’s western edge and a remote village called Sagsai, near the border of Russia, China and Kazakhstan. There, a handful of girls in a nomadic Muslim community are charting new territory by joining the traditionally male sport of eagle hunting, a form of falconry in which eagles help humans to hunt for food. At the same time, some indigenous women are shedding customary homemaker roles to become guides in the heavily male trekking industry, and to create tourism initiatives that benefit, rather than exploit, their communities.

In Week 2, we introduce you to a dynamo, Marinel de Jesus, a former civil rights attorney whose company, Equity Global Treks, is helping indigenous women in this corner of Mongolia — and other mountain communities around the globe — to find opportunities in the travel industry that are non-exploitative and put them on an equal footing in the heavily male field.

Marinel de Jesus traded uphill battles in the courtroom for steep mountains when she switched from being a civil rights attorney in Washington, D.C. to the founder of a hiking company for women. What she didn’t leave behind was a belief in fairness and justice, one reason her company, Equity Global Treks, is driven by inclusion and opportunity. Her Brown Gal Trekker blog and her Porter Voice Collective also highlights these principles. De Jesus, now headquartered in Peru, works with women, organizing trips led by female guides and porters to help them overcome barriers of sexism and discrimination in the heavily male trekking industry. She also works with indigenous peoples to create community-led tourism initiatives that benefit locals rather than exploit them. The goal is to turn tourists into consumers who use their dollars to create change by choosing trips — anywhere from $1,900 to more than $3,000 per person — that promote workforce equity. Her travel trips take visitors primarily to Peru, Tanzania, and Mongolia. After becoming stranded in Mongolia for 294 days in 2020, thanks to the pandemic, de Jesus and a local teacher later developed Equity Global Trek’s latest effort in social entrepreneurism. This summer, the Khusvegi English & Nomadic Culture Camp brought eight tourists to soak up culture in a village famed for its eagle hunting traditions while also tutoring local Kazakh-speaking children in English and spending time in the homes of local nomads. “There is no longer a boundary between my ideals as a person, versus what I would accomplish as a professional,” the former lawyer says. “I wake up every morning excited.”