Waorani Woman Wins Goldman Environmental Prize

Indigenous Amazon leader Nemonte Nenquimo has won the world’s foremost award for grassroots environmental activism. The award was a consequence of her organizing work to save Ecuador’s rainforests. Nemonte’s leadership was awarded with the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the ‘Green Nobel’.

Nenquimo chaired an indigenous-led campaign and legal action that resulted in a court ruling, that will protect 500,000 acres of Waorani territory in the Amazon rainforest from the encroaching oil companies. Nenquimo’s leadership and the lawsuit set an important legal precedent for indigenous rights in Ecuador, and other tribes are following in her footsteps to protect additional tracts of rainforest from oil extraction. Hopefully, this trend will spill over to tribes and peoples living in neighboring countries that also share in the wealth of the Amazon, and protect the invaluable rainforest even further.

The Waorani people, 5,000 in numbers today, are traditional hunter-gatherers in this pristine rainforest that overlaps with Yasuni National Park. Since the 1960s, oil exploration, logging, and road building have already made a serious impact on Ecuador’s rainforests and indigenous people living there, as well as their culture and way of life. Oil companies have dumped waste into local rivers and contaminated land, leading to spikes in disease and miscarriage. Back in 2018, Ecuador’s Minister of Hydrocarbons announced an auction of up to 16 new oil contracts located on the titled lands, belonging to the indigenous nations. A decision, which is in direct violation of their rights.

Image source: www.bbc.com

The 33-year-old Nenquimo co-founded the Ceibo Alliance in order to fight back against the planned oil concessions. Proud mother of a 4-year-old daughter organized Waorani communities, held regionwide assemblies, and launched a digital campaign targeting potential investors with the slogan “Our Rainforest is Not for Sale.” At the same time, Nenquimo proactively helped communities maintain their independence from oil company bribes by installing rainwater harvesting systems and solar panels, supported a woman-led organic cacao and chocolate production business, and secured training for Waorani youth to be filmmakers and document the activists, publishing powerful images for the campaign, including aerial drone footage of the Waorani rainforests.

Ultimately, she served as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the government and in April 2019. Fortunately, Ecuador’s courts ruled in the Waorani’s favor—a ruling which was upheld in the court of appeals. She deftly bridged the worlds of indigenous people and Western society, bringing together elders and youth, and uniting distinct indigenous tribes that were once divided—and continues to fight for the rights of indigenous communities today.

We wish Nenquimo strength and will to continue her good fight, so that peoples of the Amazon can be free of the lobbies and corporations that continually assert them selves in this, and many other of the world’s most environmentally vulnerable areas.