In a sector in which nearly ninety percent are men, it is difficult for a woman to make her way to managerial positions or positions of greater responsibility. It seems, in view of hackneyed prejudices sheltered in the collective imagination, even more herculean to break these invisible barriers in the world of hunting, as Lorena Martínez has done.
This Valencian, a forestry engineer and only 32 years old on her tactical backpack, has been in charge of breaking, rifle in hand, the glass ceiling by becoming the first female president of a hunting federation in Spain and in the rest of Europe. In addition, her appointment comes in a scenario of “great social and political questioning” of hunting activity, which aims to “revolutionize” from professionalization and a profound change in stigmas.
“The scarce presence of women is a structural deficit and inherited customs, as happens in other areas of our society,” she tells ABC, In fact, according to a study by the Spanish Sports Association, only three percent of women people who occupy the presidency of a sports federation are women.
Lorena Martínez thus manages to break down at the same time the stereotypes that are presupposed of gender and age of a group, that of the hunters, which constitutes the second power in number of federated in Spain, only behind football. In this case, the Hunting Federation of the Valencian Community brings together around 40,000 associates, being “the greatest territorial and traditional roots of the entire autonomy”.
“I grew up in a rural environment, where hunting is not an option, but a necessity, and I was proud to turn the passion of my ancestors into my profession,” he explains. From his new managerial position, he yearns and pursues to achieve a “more neutral” image of hunting and flee from the “politicization” that the actors involved try to practice for their own benefit.
“The extreme right says that it has become the standard bearer of the sector while the hunters feel abandoned by the leftist parties, but the hunting sector is neither one nor the other, since it is thousands of years old,” asserts the new president of the federation Valencian.
In addition, it states that “there is a great distance between certain policies and ideologies of urban bias and the rural and hunting reality.” “Only a technical, ethical, objective and analytical perspective can suture a wound opened by hatred not only towards hunting, but towards those of us who live in the countryside and take care of it,” Martínez emphasizes.
Through her image, Lorena intends to attract attention so that Spain “realizes that hunting is not what you see or the image that they have sold of an older and closed man with a feather hat and brown vest.” Moreover, she advocates involving more women who are already part of said association, coming from multiple and varied sectors such as agriculture or health.
Within the organizational charts of sports federations it is easy to spot managerial positions coming from other companies without having previously climbed in the organization itself. This is not the case of Lorena Martínez, who joined the Hunting Federation of the Valencian Community seven years ago through a training contract with the university where she was studying a forestry engineering degree.
“It gives a lot of respect how this has happened and how I got here. Before working for the federation as an intern, I cooked cupcakes in Navarrés (Valencia) for a well-known supermarket chain, but I have always been clear that I wanted to focus my professional and personal life on nature », she explains to this newspaper.
Between shots of melancholy and satisfaction, he explains the arduous path of going through all the hunting clubs located in towns in the Valencian Community to publicize and break down his ambitious project. In addition, during this journey, she was appointed director of the Federation’s School of Hunting and Nature, in which she taught numerous training courses for associates and young people.
«I had it in my head but it has not been sought. Still, opportunities like this must be taken advantage of and I’m sure that with the people around me it won’t go too badly,” he predicts between jokes about the figure of Kylian Mbappé, who believes that “he’s going to overshadow his story in the media.” and the pornographic film actor Nacho Vidal, a native of his town (Enguera).
Another of the open fronts that Lorena glimpses through her sights is the tense relationship with groups made up of environmentalists and animal rights activists, opposed to the hunting industry. For the directive, hunters “are the first animalists that exist.”
«I would like those who define themselves as animalists and ecologists and who say that a hunter is not one, would tell me what it means to be one for them and where they give the title, because if they are people who care about protecting the environment, the balance and animals perfectly hunters can enter into that conception, “he clarifies.
From there, if these groups manage to put aside their hatred towards the hunter, they see it possible to find “common ground”, but for this the “continuous attacks” that they suffer, to a greater extent, through social networks must end. social.
In another order, the president of the federated hunters of the Valencian Community is contrary to the anti-hunting policies by the Spanish Government, which intends to approve a new Law for the Protection, Rights and Welfare of Animals, still in the process of parliamentary approval, which would affect hunting and herding dogs.
“Even veterinarians have defined it as contradictory, lacking in rigor and not looking out for the welfare of the animals. On a professional level it is clear that we do not support it either », he explains to this newspaper. In this regard, he clarifies that hunters “are not against the prohibition of certain issues if they are proven and based on scientific rigor.”
Among them, he has named some attacks by the Government towards the hunting sector such as the intention to declare the quail as an endangered species, as well as the prohibition of breeding by private individuals and compulsory castration, which would affect small game with dogs. However, the regional regulations do seem “assumable, technical and agreed with the experts”, while the state “gives the feeling of being a law made from ideology and ignorance.”
