This is my message to the western world - your civilisation is killing life on earth
Her blood, she says, is “warrior blood." But Nemonte Nenquimo’s battleground is the courtroom and she fights with facts.
Activist and leader of the Waorani people living in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, Nenquimo’s most famous lawsuit might be the one filed against her own government. In 2019, the Waorani people successfully stopped oil drilling in the Ecuadorian rainforest – protecting 500,000 acres of the Amazon from exploitation, safeguarding lives and livelihoods, and establishing a legal precedent for regional indigenous rights.
“I grew up surrounded by the songs of the wise women of my community who said the green forest that we see today is there because our ancestors protected it,” she says.
Nenquimo is also the co-founder of Ceibo Alliance, uniting indigenous communities to protect land and address to rainforest territories and cultural survival – including the promotion of solar energy and the creation of economic opportunities for women. In 2020, she was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in the world