Indigenous Resistance and International Solidarity for the Amazon
The Amazon rainforest and its peoples are facing the worst attacks in decades under Brazil’s new far-right government, which is promoting massive deforestation for mining and agribusiness. Indigenous movements in Brazil are resisting, calling for international solidarity to defend their rights and territories. Join us in a lunchtime presentation and call to action to protect rainforests, rights and the climate. With: Leila Salazar-López (Chicana) Executive Director of Amazon Watch; Atossa Soltani, Global Strategist with the Sacred Headwaters Initiative; Maria Xiomára Dorsey (Colombia), Brasil Solidarity Network and Idle No More SF; Brus Rubio (Muruy/Huitoto, Bora) Indigenous painter from the Peruvian Amazon.
Indigenous Forum
October 20th | 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Panelists
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.Brus Rubio
Artist
Brus Rubio, of Huitoto and Bora ancestry, is a self-taught painter from the Peruvian Amazon, whose encounter with the anthropologist Jürg Gasché, who was conducting cultural studies in Brus’ community, led to exposure to a wider world and his evolution as an artist whose stunning work always draws from his cultural traditions but has now been able to reach a broader international audience beyond the Amazon.Atossa Soltani
Director of Global Strategy
Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative
Atossa Soltani is the founder and board president of Amazon Watch and served as the organization's first Executive Director for 18 years. Currently Atossa is the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, working to protect one of the most biodiverse rainforests on Earth in an alliance with Amazonian indigenous nations of Ecuador and Peru.Maria Xiomára Dorsey
Co-Founder
Brasil Solidarity Network
María Xiomara Dorsey is a cofounder of the Brasil Solidarity Network, a member of Idle No More SF Bay, and a signatory of the Indigenous Women of the America’s Defending Mother Earth Treaty. Born in Colombia, with her Ancestors from the Caribbean shores and the Sierras, María is working to see the Eagle and Condor prophecy come true. She is standing for a healthy, beautiful, free future for all people where we can drink out of every river and live in balance with the sacred system of life. She lives in occupied Ohlone Territory, village of Huichin.
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