Casey Camp-Horinek
Native rights activist, environmentalist and actress
Casey Camp-Horinek (Ponca) is a long-time Native rights activist, environmentalist and actress. As traditional Drumkeeper for the Ponca Pa-tha-ta, Woman’s Scalp Dance Society, Camp-Horinek helps maintain the cultural identity of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma for herself, her family and her community. She has been at the forefront of grassroots community efforts to educate and empower both Native and non-Native community members on environmental and civil rights issues. In April of 2008 Camp-Horinek, as a delegate of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), was chosen to speak to the United Nations Permanent Forum on indigenous Issues and present IEN’s global platform regarding the environment and Native rights.
Kandi Mossett
(Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara – North Dakota) has emerged as a leading voice in the fight to bring visibility to the impacts that climate change and environmental injustice are having on Indigenous communities across North America. She currently serves as the Indigenous Environmental Network’s Lead Organizer on the Extreme Energy & Just Transition Campaign, focusing at present on creating awareness about the environmentally & socially devastating effects of hydraulic fracturing on tribal lands. Her local work is complemented by international advocacy work, including participation in several UN Forums and a testimony before the U.S. Congress on the climate issue and its links to issues of health, identity, and well being on tribal lands.
Pennie Opal Plant
I come from a long line of strong women that include Yaqui, Mexican, Choctaw, Cherokee, Algonquin and European grandmothers. Working on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty has been extremely important to me. I believe that the Treaty has the capacity to inspire millions of women around the world to pray with us on each new moon for wisdom and guidance in moving forward in the best way to protect and defend Mother Earth and her sacred system of life. And, as it states in the Treaty, to nonviolently rise up on each Solstice and Equinox wherever the Mother Earth’s system is being violated. My vision is that soon there will be millions of women joining us at these times around the world.
As women, we have a responsibility for those who are unborn. It is important that we protect the clean air, water, soil and intelligent forces of nature. I believe we are here at this time for a reason. Maybe that reason is for all of us to remember that the naturals laws supersede those of humans, that Mother Earth does not negotiate, and that it is our responsibility to ensure a safe, healthy and vibrant future. It is validating to know that I have Treaty sisters and we stand together!
Patricia Gualinga
Kichwa
International Relations Director for the globally celebrated indigenous community of Sarayaku in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Her wisdom and expertise are based in years of activism and a strong, democratic community process that has directly resulted in ground-breaking victories in defense of their ancestral territories. She is an eloquent spokeswoman for grassroots, indigenous-led solutions to climate change, including keeping oil in the ground, the “Living Forest” (Selva Viviente) conservation concept, and “Plentiful Living” (Buen Vivir). She has been a tremendous and effective force for indigenous rights, advocating tirelessly before multinational oil company CEOs, judges at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Ecuadorian congress, and many other high-level decision-making spaces.
Gloria Hilda Ushigua Santi
Sapara
I am a Sapara woman from Ecuador, I live my life in different way, with healthy, uncontaminated food in the Sapara territory. We do not accept the expoltation of Block 74, within this block is my community of Llanchama Cocha. We ask for our right to our territory, and respect for human rights without descrimination. Soy mujer Sapara del Ecuador, vivo a mi forma de vida diferente ,con comida sano, no contaminado en territorio Sapara y no aceptaremos que exploten el Bloque 74 en este bloque es mi comunidad Llanchama Cocha y pido mi derecho a mi territorio respeto a la vida humana y sin descriminacion.
Melina Laboucan-Massimo
Melina Laboucan-Massimo is from Northern Alberta and a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation. She works as an advocate for Indigenous rights, and for the past 8 years she has worked against unabated tar sands extraction and expansion as a Climate and Energy campaigner with Greenpeace in Alberta, as well as with the Indigenous Environmental Network internationally.
Blanca Chancoso
“They’ll have to evict us,” said Quechua leader Blanca Chancoso. The indigenous organization was at the forefront of various uprisings since June 1990, paralyzing the country in order to place indigenous demands at the center of the political agenda. The CONAIE groups more than 5,000 mountain, jungle and coastal indigenous communities together, and played an outstanding role in toppling the governments of Abdalá Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in January 2000, ousted in the middle of massive demonstrations.