Leila Salazar-Lopez Keynote Address: The Amazon at a Tipping Point: Can We Turn It Around?
Introduction by Eriel Deranger, Executive Director, Indigenous Climate Action
Unprecedented fires, deliberately set to expand industrial agriculture and other extractive development, are burning across the Amazon, a dangerous escalation of the global climate emergency. Scientists warn that the Amazon is reaching “the tipping point” of ecological collapse, but Indigenous movements across the region are resisting and calling for international solidarity to help them defend their rights and territories. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have protected their sacred ancestral territories. Leila Salazar Lopez, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, urges us to stand with them to protect and restore the bio-cultural intregrity of the Amazon, because our collective future depends on it.
Veterans' Memorial Auditorium (VMA)
October 20th | 9:25 am to 9:50 am
Introduced by
Eriel Deranger
Indigenous Climate Action
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a Denesuline Indigenous activist, member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) of Alberta, Canada, is Executive Director and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), Canada’s premier Indigenous-led climate justice organization. Deranger, who previously spent 6 years building-up the highly successful international Indigenous Tar Sands campaign, has become widely known as one of the world’s most effective organizers and coalition builders to defend Indigenous people’s rights locally, nationally and globally.Keynote
Leila Salazar-López
Executive Director
Amazon Watch
Leila Salazar-López, the Executive Director of Amazon Watch, has worked for 20+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and the climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and Green Corps. She is also a Greenpeace Voting Member and a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America.
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