Nina Gualinga

Nina Gualinga (born June 1993)[1] is an Ecuadorian environmental and indigenous rights activist. She is part of the Kichwa-speaking community and has spent most part of her life advocating for better environmental protection of the Ecuadorian Amazon and the inhabitant wildlife as well as the people who are dependent on this environment.[2][3]

Nina Gualinga
Born1993 (age 27–28)
Sarayaku, Ecuador
NationalityEcuadorian
Alma materLund University
OccupationClimate Activist and indigenous rights Defender
Known forEnvironmental activism
Awards2018 WWF International President’s Youth award

Life and activism

Gualinga was born and raised in her mother's Kichwa-speaking community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon.[3][4] Since the age of seven, she has advocated for climate justice and indigenous rights.[3][5][6] She gained her knowledge of the forest through her parents and grandparents.[2] Gualinga’s sister, Helena Gualinga, and mother, Noemí Gualinga are also environmental activists and active members in the Kichwa Sarayaku community's fight against the exploitation of the Amazon rainforest by companies and the Ecuadorian government. Gualinga's advocacy for indigenous and territorial rights started when an oil company with the help of Ecuadorian government military troops violently started exploiting her community's indigenous land.[4] This intrusion led to a legal battle between the Ecuadorian government and Sarayaku community before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which eventually resulted to a victory for the Sarayaku community.[2][7][8] At the age of 18, Gualinga represented the youth of Sarayaku at the final hearing of the case.[3][2][5]

She studies at the Human Rights department of the Lund University.[9][10][4]

Gualinga had an indigenous fellowship at Amazon Watch where she developed the proposal for her own non-governmental organization aimed at empowering indigenous Sarayaku’s youth and women, and to protect the Southern Ecuadorian Amazon.[5] Her organization Hakhu Amazon Design sells handmade artisanal jewelry and accessories.[3][5][11] She demands the Ecuadorian government to acknowledge the Amazon forest itself as an asset and for the government to end its contract deals with major oil and mining companies.[2]

She is also active as an indigenous rights activist on an international level, with a focus on protecting homes and land against corporate interests.[7][4] She was part of a global call to stop fossil fuel extraction at the 2014 People’s Climate March.[10][12] She was also among the delegates advocating for “Living Forests” protection at the global climate conferences COP20 and COP21 in Lima and Paris respectively.[10][5] In the course of COP21, she drew attention to her people’s demands by sailing down the river Seine in Paris in a canoe from her village.[13] She was a member of indigenous women that marched in 2016 to unify and defend rights and territories of women of 7 nationalities.[11][5] Gualinga shed more light on the effects of climate change on the Kichwa people at the COP22 in Marrakech and encouraged the government to prioritize climate actions to reduce carbon emissions for the indigenous people.[7][6] She was part of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), Amazon Watch and Sarayaku Delegation to COP23 in Bonn and a speaker at the event.[14][15] Nina was also part of the WECAN delegation at the COP25 climate negotiations in Madrid in 2019.[16] At the event, she mentioned that the way out of climate crisis is to listen to the indigenous people who have been custodian of the land for thousands of years for solutions.[11] She gave a lecture on Indigenous People of the Amazon: The Guardians of Our Future at IAAC Auditorium, Barcelona on 25th of February 2020.[17][18]

Awards
  • 2018 WWF International President’s Youth award[3]

References
  1. "Nina Gualinga, la luchadora ambiental que batalla contra la violencia de género". El Universo (in Spanish). 2020-07-04. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  2. "Activist Nina Gualinga on protecting the Amazon". World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  3. Cartagena (2018-05-08). "Environmental and indigenous rights activist to receive WWF's top youth conservation award". World Wide Fund For Nature. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  4. "Nina Gualinga > IAAC Lecture Series". IAAC. 2020-02-18. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  5. "Nina Sicha Siren Gualinga | SDLAC". sdlac.yale.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  6. "Climate justice day at COP22 considers climate impacts on indigenous people - Business & Human Rights Resource Centre". www.business-humanrights.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  7. "OHCHR | Spotlight on indigenous rights at COP22 climate talks". www.ohchr.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  8. "Climate justice day at COP22 considers climate impacts on indigenous people - Business & Human Rights Resource Centre". www.business-humanrights.org. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  9. "Indigenous Environmental Activism in the Amazon: Nina Gualinga". Never Apart. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  10. Amazon Watch (2014-12-12). "Indigenous Voices: A Call to Keep the Oil in the Ground". HuffPost. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  11. International, WECAN (2019-12-21). "People Power Rises for Climate Justice at COP25: WECAN International Analysis & Reflection". WECAN International. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  12. "Indigenous Voices: A Call to Keep the Oil in the Ground". Amazon Watch. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  13. "8 women who are changing the world without you even realising". LifeGate. 2016-03-07. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  14. "Women's Voices for Climate Justice". Women's Voices for Climate Justice. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  15. "Amazon Watch and Sarayaku Delegation to COP 23". Amazon Watch. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  16. "Advocacy at UN Climate Forums". WECAN International. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  17. Cm | (2020-02-24). "Nina Gualinga Lecture". Architecture Walks and Tours in Barcelona. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
  18. "Nina Gualinga > IAAC Lecture Series". IAAC. 2020-02-18. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
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