Bertha Zúniga is grateful, but not surprised, that hundreds of people from around the world gathered in Honduras this month to commemorate a decade since her mother, Berta Cáceres, was killed.

“Her words continue to resonate. People are still outraged by the murder and continue to denounce it and demand justice,” Ms. Zúniga told America.

On March 2, 2016, Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in La Esperanza in western Honduras by gunmen linked to the Desarrollos Energéticos Corporation S.A., known as Desa, at the height of the Lenca Indigenous community’s battle to keep the company from building the Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River. The project was a threat to the community’s land, fresh water supply and access to the river.

To commemorate the 10-year anniversary, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, known by its Spanish initials as Copinh, organized a series of spiritual, political and cultural events with participants drawn from as far as Zimbabwe, Kurdistan and Brazil. Cáceres co-founded Copinh more than 30 years ago, and it is now led by Ms. Zúniga.

“Berta Cáceres is a guardian of the waters, a guardian of the forests, of nature and of everything that humanity should identify as the basis of life,” Renata Adrianna, of the Landless Worker’s Movement of Brazil, said outside a packed auditorium at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, where Copinh and Cáceres’s family were invited to speak about the slain activist’s legacy.

“Our struggles are related,” Ms. Adrianna said. “They bring together the struggle for the land and social transformation.”

In 2018, seven men—including the Desa community relations manager and the company’s former head of security, who was a Honduran military officer, along with another Honduran army officer and four hired gunmen—were convicted of Cáceres’s murder. In a subsequent trial in 2021, David Castillo, a U.S.-trained military intelligence officer turned Desa president, was also convicted because of his role in the crime.

The convictions marked a historic moment for the Honduran justice system, a rare example of justice served to the powerful, but broad impunity for such crimes continues for the country’s elite. Daniel Atala Midence, Desa’s chief finance officer and a member of the powerful Atala Zablah family, remains at large since a warrant for his arrest was issued more than two years ago in connection to his role in the assassination of Cáceres.

“It seems that there are powerful groups who are preventing justice from prevailing,” Bishop Jenry Ruiz, who leads the Diocese of Trujillo, told America at the celebration of life for Cáceres at Utopia, Copinh’s friendship and learning center, on March 1.

“This puts human rights defenders in even greater danger,” Bishop Ruiz said. Of Cáceres’s example, he added, “Berta calls us to not abandon communities, to be there with the [Indigenous peoples] who defend their territories.”

Bishop Ruiz worked closely with Juan López, like Cáceres a high-profile environmental activist and devout Catholic. López was murdered in the city of Tocoa in northeastern Honduras as he left Mass in September 2024. Soon after his murder, three alleged hitmen were arrested who will face trial in June. But despite national and international calls for justice, there has been little progress in the case since then, pointing to the structural impunity that persists for crimes involving human rights and ecological defenders.

“State structures are not sufficiently capable of protecting people or conducting effective investigations,” Bishop Ruiz said.

In February, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts reported that funds disbursed to Desa by regional and international development banks were irregularly handled. The researchers discovered evidence showing Desa employees cashed checks from these loans to pay the hit squad that murdered Cáceres.

“Even though we knew where the crime came from, it has been very shocking to see how these powers came together, up to the international level, and to see how much they put into to trying to silence the voice of a woman who is still very alive,” said Ms. Zuniga, pointing out that it was her mother who called out the injustice behind the dam project. “We have only continued and deepened our understanding. Her voice continues to fight today.”

Rosalina Dominguez, a Lenca leader from the community of Rio Blanco, worked alongside Cáceres for three years before her killing. She traveled first to La Esperanza and then to Tegucigalpa to be part of the week of action.

“It’s not easy to lose a great comrade like Berta,” Ms. Dominguez said. “She gave her life for us. But I feel happy knowing that the river is flowing free. We have our land thanks to Berta’s struggle.”

The weeklong event concluded with the presentation of the documentary “Water for Life,” attracting more than 300 viewers who packed every seat and the steps of the movie theater in a Tegucigalpa mall. The film surveys the struggle for water protection in the Americas, including the work of Cáceres and Copinh.

“When we started the fight against Agua Zarca,” Cáceres said, looking into the camera, “I knew how hard it was going to be. But I also knew we were going to win. The river told me so.”

Copinh activists and the Cáceres family vow to continue their struggle for integral justice in Honduras. “Hope is what we have left as [Indigenous people], and hope is what keeps us going,” Ms. Zuniga said, “because although we know about all their powers, all their interests, their weapons, their money, we also know about our strength and our capacity for resistance.”

Jackie McVicar has accompanied human rights social movements and land protectors in Central America for more than 10 years.