To reach contacts listed below, unless otherwise indicated, call Jeff Conant, Global Justice Ecology Project Communications Director: +27 (0)73.623.0619 [to call from outside of South Africa do not dial the (0)] jc@gjep2020.local
Climate Change & Politics
Pablo Solón –Bolivia
Former Ambassador to the United Nations for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. Before becoming Ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solón Romero worked as an activist for many years with different social organizations, indigenous movements, workers’ unions, student associations, human rights and cultural organizations in Bolivia. As Ambassador to the UN, Solón spearheaded successful resolutions on the Human Right to Water, International Mother Earth Day, Harmony with Nature, and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He was the lead climate negotiator for Bolivia at the UNFCCC, and helped organize the World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010.
Expertise: UN climate talks, Rights of Mother Earth, social movements
Affiliations: Civil society member
Languages: Spanish, English
Patrick Bond – South Africa
Patrick Bond is Director of the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society and senior professor of Development Studies, Bond recently authored Politics of Climate Justice and edited Durban’s Climate Gamble. He holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University and was a policy drafter for Nelson Mandela’s government, including authorship of its first White Paper. He mainly works with progressive social and environmental movements.
Expertise: Durban and South African climate politics, climate finance, social movements
Affiliations: Durban Group for Climate Justice
Languages: English
Durban Phone #: +27 (0)83 425 1401 or +27 031 260 3195
REDD / Forests / Plantations / Carbon Offsets and Carbon Markets
Tom B.K. Goldtooth –– Dińe, USA
Tom Goldtooth is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network and a longtime global leader in the environmental justice movement. Tom is one of the founders of the Durban Group for Climate Justice; co-founder of Climate Justice NOW!; and co-founder of the U.S. based Environmental Justice Climate Change initiative. Tom is a policy advisor on environmental protection, mitigation, and adaptation.
Expertise: REDD/REDD+, carbon trading, carbon offsets, climate mitigation and adaptation, Indigenous Peoples rights and climate, FPIC
Affiliations: Indigenous Environmental Network, International Indigenous Forum on Climate Change (Indigenous Caucus within UNFCCC), US-based Grassroots for Global Justice (GGJ) and Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative
Language: English
Anne Petermann – USA
Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and the Coordinator of the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign. She is also the North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition. Anne co-founded the Durban Group for Climate Justice in 2004 and Climate Justice Now! at the COP13 in 2007. Anne speaks on “false solutions” to climate change, with specific focus on genetically engineered (GE) trees and second-generation agrofuels.
Expertise: GE trees, REDD, Timber Plantations, Wood-based bioenergy, Agrofuels
Affiliations: Global Justice Ecology Project; Global Forest Coalition; Climate Justice Now!
Languages: English
Contact: +27 (0)78.632.2801
Simone Lovera – Paraguay; Netherlands
Simone Lovera is the co-founder and managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition. With a degree in international environmental law, she was the coordinator of the legal program of the Netherlands Committee for IUCN; she worked at Sobrevivencia in Paraguay; and she was the coordinator of the Friends of the Earth International Forest Program, Biodiversity Project, and International Campaigns.
Expertise: Carbon offsets, International forest policy; Biodiversity conservation, Indigenous rights; International environmental law, Women and biodiversity; Payments for environmental services; Market-based conservation mechanisms; Agrofuels.
Affiliations: Global Forest Coalition; Sobrevivencia
Languages: English, Dutch, Spanish, German and Portuguese
Contact: +27 (0)72.255.6678
Tamra Gilbertson – Spain
Carbon Trade Watch. By centering its work on bottom-up community-led projects and campaigns, Carbon Trade Watch aims to provide a durable body of research which ensures that a holistic and justice-based analysis of climate change and environmental policies is not forgotten or compromised. As part of our solidarity work, CTW aims to accompany and support movements and communities in their local initiatives and struggles for environmental and social justice. Importantly, the collective gathers and translates work with others in this field to help facilitate broader co-operation and understanding.
Expertise: Carbon trading, EUETS, CDM, offsets, REDD, photo & video (I will have cameras in Durban and will be doing some interviews and photography)
Languages: English, Spanish
Contact: +34 625 49 8083
Dr. Michael Dorsey — US
Dr. Dorsey is assistant professor at Dartmouth College’s Environmental Studies Program and the Director of the College’s Climate Justice Research Project. He is a co-founding board member of Islands First—a multilateral negotiating capacity building organization for small island developing states facing disproportionate threats from unfolding climate change.
Expertise: Carbon markets, climate justice social movements, clean development mechanisms, green economy, global finance, multilateral development policy, climate finance.
Affiliations: Climate Justice Now!, Sierra Club, Dartmouth College
Languages: English, Spanish
Contact: +27-(0)79 863 8756
Praful Bidwai —India
Praful Bidwai is a writer, activist, analyst and author of the about to be released book “Mortgaging our future: The politics of climate change and the global crisis (Orient Blackswan, December 2011)
Expertise: India climate policy, problems of carbon trading in the Indian experience, role of BASIC countries in climate negotiations, Indian social movements, problems of nuclear, renewable energy
Affiliations: Professor at the Council for Social Development, Delhi, Transnational Institute Fellow,
Language: English
Doreen Stabinsky — US
Doreen Stabinsky is the Professor of Global Environmental Politics at College of the Atlantic.
Expertise: expert on agriculture within the UNFCCC negotiations, soil carbon markets, climate change impacts on African agriculture and agriculture generally
Affiliations: College of the Atlantic, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Languages: English, Spanish, French
Geoengineering/ New Technologies
Silvia Ribeiro – Mexico
Silvia Ribeiro is the Latin America Director for the ETC Group, an international civil society organization that monitors the environmental and social impacts of new technologies, including biotechnology, geoengineering and nanotechnology. ETC Group was key in providing analysis and information that led the UN Convention on Biological Diversity to declare a moratorium on climate manipulation technologies (geoengineering).
In Durban, ETC Group is focusing on issues around technology and agriculture, particularly the dangers of new technologies and the risk of “false solutions” to climate change, such as geoengineering and the proposal to include soils in carbon markets.
Expertise: Geoengineering, Synthetic biology, Corporations and the Green Economy
Affiliations: ETC Group , www.etcgroup.org / silvia@etcgroup.org
Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese
Contact: +27 (0)76.714.6235
Dr. Rachel Smolker–US
Expertise: biofuels, biochar, biomass, agriculture and soils in carbon markets and climate policy.
Affiliation: Biofuelwatch, Global Forest Coalition
Language: English
Contact: rsmolker@riseup.net
Helena Paul–UK
Helena Paul investigates, reports and acts on threats to biodiversity, climate, ecosystems, local and agro-ecological farming systems, food security & sovereignty, health and the interests of indigenous peoples and local communities. A particular focus are new and emerging technologies, their implications and risks.
Expertise: Agriculture and climate change, new and emerging technologies
Affiliations: ETC Group.
Languages: English and Spanish
Contact: +27 (0)7724 711183
Indigenous Peoples’ Issues, Rights and Land Tenure
Fiu Mataese Elisara-La’ulu – Samoa
Fiu Elisara is the Executive Director of Ole Siosiomaga Society Incorporated. He worked for the UNDP from 1993-2001 as the Assistant Resident Representative responsible for the Global Environment Facility in Samoa. He was closely involved with the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) in the implementation of environment programs in Pacific Island nations. Fiu advocates for the rights of Indigenous Peoples under the UNFCCC and CBD.
Expertise: Indigenous Rights; South Pacific / Small Island Nations and Climate Change; Climate Policy; REDD
Affiliations: Ole Siosiomaga Society Incorporated, Global Forest Coalition
Languages: English, Samoan, Polynesian Languages
Contact: +27 (0)78.266.7280
Alberto Saldamando – Chicano/Zapoteca, USA
Alberto Salamando is a lawyer and expert on indigenous and human rights within the United Nations system, working over 19 years in the international arena. He was an active participant in the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as in the formation of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the old Commission on Human Rights resolution creating the mandate for the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. He has filed numerous complaints and communications with the UN’s Treaty Monitoring Bodies and Special Procedures as well as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He works on disseminating information on opportunities for involvement for grassroots Indigenous communities in UN processes, and works to build awareness about Indigenous struggles among non-Indigenous Peoples and organizations
Expertise: UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Indigenous Issues; Human Rights
Affiliations: Indigenous Environmental Network (FCCC COP 17 Durban)
Languages: Bilingual in English and Spanish
Ben Powless – Mohawk, Canada
Ben Powless is a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario and on the staff of Indigenous Environmental Network. He has a degree from Carleton University in Human Rights, Indigenous and Environmental Studies. He has worked in Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua on human rights and development issues. He is a co-founder of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and works with the national Indigenous network Defenders of the Land.
Expertise: Indigenous Issues; Human Rights
Affiliations: Indigenous Environmental Network
Languages: English, Spanish
Contact: powless@gmail.com
Daniel T’seleie K’asho Got’ine First Nation, Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories — Canada.
Daniel T’seleie is a Canadian Youth Delegate for Durban COP17 and coalition member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. He is a 2010 Jane Glassco Arctic Fellow, lives in Yellowknife, NWT, Canada and works as Director of Lands and Environment with the Dene Nation. His previous experience has included work on climate change mitigation and adaptation with territorial and national NGOs, a photojournalist with work in Yellowknife and Iqaluit, and held policy positions with the Government of the Northwest Territories. Daniel participated in previous UNFCCC COP meetings.
Contact: danieltseleie@hotmail.com
François Paulette, Dene Suline, Alberta, Canada.
François Paulette is a member of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 Dene First Nation and lives 200 miles downstream from the tar sands industry site in Alberta, Canada. François was previously chief and vice-chief of the Dene Nation and is currently a commissioner with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), a national organization representing 630 First Nations across Canada. ‘As both a father and grandfather, François believes that the way of life for many people living in First Nation lands in Canada is quickly changing, leaving many people uncertain about the future. The drastic drop in water levels in the Athabasca River system and a lack of fresh water for drinking are the biggest concerns for aboriginal communities living downstream from the tar sands development in northern Alberta, Canada.’ François participated in previous UNFCCC COP meetings.
Contact: francois.paulette@yahoo.ca
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance Delegation
For Interviews with GGJ Delegates Contact: Jen Soriano, GGJ Communications Coordinator jen@ggjalliance.org, skype: jensori +27 (0)79.219.0670
Teresa Almaguer — US
Expertise: Community development of green space in urban areas, environmental justice, community organizing.
Affiliations: People Organized to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), San Francisco, CA, http://www.podersf.org/ Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English, Spanish
Treston Davis-Faulkner — US
Expertise: Climate jobs, U.S. trade unions, links between climate justice and economic justice
Affiliations: Jobs with Justice (JwJ), Washington DC, http://www.jwj.org/ Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Rosalinda Guillen — US
Expertise: Food soveriegnty, farmworkers’ movements, connections between immigration, labor, trade and climate disruption
Affiliations: Community to Community Development, Bellingham, WA. http://foodjustice.org/, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English, Spanish
Jill Johnston — US
Expertise: Energy conservation and clean energy, environmental science and engineering, community-based energy policy and sustainable food systems
Affiliations: Southwest Workers Union (SWU), San Antonio, Texas,
http://www.swunion.org/
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Ahmina S. Maxey
Expertise: Environmental Justice, Clean air initiatives, Community organizing for alternatives to incineration
Affiliations: East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), Detroit, MI, http://www.emeac.org/
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Kandi Lea Marie Mossett (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara)
Expertise: Renewable energy, carbon emission reduction, indige- nous people’s rights, natural resource and park management, earth systems science and policy,
Affiliations: Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), North Dakota,
http://www.ienearth.org/ Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Francisca Porchas — US
Expertise: Mass transit and pollution reduction, US public transportation policy, community organizing for environmental justice
Affiliations: Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union, Los Angeles CA, http://www.thestrategycenter.org/ Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Michael Leon Guerrero — US
Expertise: US environmental justice movement and connections to global justice and climate justice movements, US militarism and climate disruption
Affiliations: National Coordinator, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Beaumont, CA, http://www.ggjalliance.org
Languages: English
Youth
Kari Fulton – USA
Kari Fulton is an award winning youth climate and environmental justice organizer with the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative. In April of 2009 she co-founded Checktheweather.net a national online community and web platform to support and amplify the voice of young people of color in the US fighting for environmental justice. In February 2010, Fulton was named one of a 100 African American History Makers in the Making by NBC and thegrio.com.
Expertise: Environmental Justice; New Media
Affiliations: Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative; Checktheweather.net; Youth 4 Climate Justice
Languages: English
Contact: +27 (0)84.691.2691
Keith Brunner – USA
Expertise: Youth perspective on climate talks, carbon bubble/trading/offsets, climate finance and GCF, climate debt
Affiliations: Global Economic Accountability Research, Global Justice Ecology Project, Occupy Burlington
Language: English
Contact: keith.f.brunner@gmail.com
Ravany Naido – South Africa
Affiliations: Volunteers for the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA)
Language: English
Contact: +27 (0)76 3855 861
Thandokuhle Manzi – South Africa
Thandokuhle Manzi is a Durban young man working with communities who are angry over bio-digestor projects being placed in their homes. He as a very critical perspective on the COP.
Languages: Zulu and English
Contact: +27 (0)74 7048645
Tasha Peters — Canada
Tasha Peters focuses on tar sands, climate finance, intersection of occupy/social movements in Durban, corporate influence on COP and is part of Canadian youth delegation.
Language: English
Contact: +27 (0)720908779
Lindsey Gillies — US
Lindsey Gillies, 23, is the project coordinator and founder of the Global Economic Accountability Research (GEAR) Youth Media Project which will monitor the development of climate “solutions” rooted in neoliberalism, agribusiness, and international finance and provide critical analysis during the talks in Durban. She also works with the World Bank Out of Climate Finance coalition and as a researcher with Global Justice Ecology Project. She has been involved in the recent Occupy movements in the USA. Gillies attended COP16 where she worked with the Youth consistency and co-managed a blog on youth perspectives and policy analysis. Currently, Lindsey also works as an apprentice midwife in Burlington, Vermont and uses this work as a platform to speak out on the importance of creating a just and sustainable world for future generations.
Expertise: Youth Issues, World Bank, Climate Finance
Affiliations: Global Economic Accountability Research (GEAR) Youth Media Project, Global Justice Ecology Project
Language: English
Contact: +27 (0)73.070.0030
World Bank and Climate Finance
Maria Theresa Lauron — Philippines
Expertise: climate financing; structural causes; indigenous peoples issues
Affiliations: Peoples Movement on Climate Change; Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network
Language: English
Contact: tlauron@iboninternational.org
Ivan Torafing — Phillipines
Expertise: climate financing; structural causes; indigenous peoples issues
Affiliations: Peoples Movement on Climate Change; Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network
Language: English
Nicola Bullard – France
Nicola Bullard is the Senior Associate with Focus on the Global South, an NGO based in Bangkok. She works on research, analysis and capacity building on critical issues related to climate justice. She has worked extensively on issues related to international trade and development, global governance issues, women’s issues, human rights and labor. She is a founding member of Climate Justice Now!
Expertise: Trade and Finance, Global Governance and the UN
Affiliations: Focus on the Global South; Climate Justice Now!
Languages: English, French
Contact: n.bullard@focusweb.org
Janet Redman – US
Janet Redman is the Co-Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she provides analysis of the international financial institutions’ energy investment and carbon finance activities. Her major studies on the World Bank’s climate activities include World Bank: Climate Profiteer, and Dirty is the New Clean: A critique of the World Bank’s strategic framework for development and climate change. She has appeared on Al Jazeera, CSPAN and other broadcast media and has been featured in local, regional and national print outlets. Janet is a founding participant of the global Climate Justice Now! network.
Expertise: Global Climate Fund; Climate Finance; World Bank; Financial Transaction Tax; US Climate Policy;
Affiliations: Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies; Climate Justice Now!; Board member, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Languages: English
Contact: +27 (0)73.186.1216
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury—Bangladesh
Rezaul Karim Chowdhury works with the Equity and Justice Working Group in Bangladesh (EquityBD) and has participated in the UNFCCC climate COPs in Bali, Copnehagen and Cancun.
Affiliations: EquityBD, Climate Justice Now!
Murray Worthy–United Kingdom
Murray Worthy is the Policy officer at the World Development Movement in the UK, researching international climate finance, focusing on the role of the World Bank and the failure of “fast start” finance to deliver for developing countries.
Expertise: Climate finance; World Bank
Affiliations: World Development Movement, Climate Justice Now!
Language: English
Energy/ Resource Extraction
Maxime Combes — France
Maxime Combes is involved in the French Climate Justice Coalition, which links local struggles (against airport, shale gas, etc.), concrete alternatives (energy transition…) and global fights.
Expertise: Responsibilities of North Country – Market-based mechanisms in Europe – Energy transition – Struggles against shale gas and shale oil in France and Europe – Etc.
Affiliations: Aitec and Attac France
Languages: French, Spanish, English
Contact: maxime.combes@gmail.com
Ivonne Yanez–Ecuador
Ivonne Yanez is part of the keep the oil underground and Yasuni/itt. She is a campaign member of OilWatch International
Expertise: Social and ecological impacts of oil
Affilliations: OilWatch International, Durban Group for Climate Justice
Languages: Spanish, English, French
Contact: +27 (0)728192911
Corporate Globalization/ Green Economy
Susan George – France
Susan George is a writer, activist and analyst. She is the author of fifteen books, most recently “Whose Crisis, Whose Future” (Polity 2010)
Expertise: European Union, Corporate Power, Food Security, Green New Deal, Alternatives to Corporate Globalisation, Who the 1% are and their responsibility for economic/social/environmental crises.
Affiliations: Transnational Institute Fellow, honorary president of ATTAC-France [Association for Taxation of Financial Transaction to Aid Citizens]
Languages: English, French
Edgardo Lander —Venezuela
Academic, activist
Expertise: Critiques of “Green Economy”, Latin American alternative models to growth -“Living Well”, Venezuelan politics, Trade policy
Affiliations: Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, TNI Fellow
Languages: English, Spanish
Tom Kucharz — Spain
Expertise: Climate Justice Movement in Spain, fighting for energy and other resource reductions (economic degrowth, against nuclear power and energy transition model for Spain 2020), agriculture and climate change, financialization of natural resources and commons, Green Climate Fund + World Bank out of climate campaign, trade and climate (fighting free trade), working against climate criminals (campaigns against transnational corporations), ecological debt and financial system.
Affiliations. Ecologistas en Acción, Climate Justice Now!
Languages: Spanish, English, German
Contact: +34 619 94 90 53
Lucia Ortiz –Brazil
Geologist, MSc. in Geosciences, Coordinator of FoE Brazil, FoEI Climate Justice and Energy Regional Program Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Latin America and Caribbean.
Expertise: climate justice, energy, Rio+20 and green capitalism
Affiliations: Friends of the Earth Brazil / Friends of the Earth International
Languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish
Contact: skype lucia_natbrasil
Mitigation, Adaptation & Water Issues
Mary Galvin, Dudu Khumalo, Numphilo waManzi—South Africa
We are working in four poor communities in the wider Durban on a climate change and water adaptation CCAA project with York University (focusing on Durban, Maputo and Nairobi). Communities have used participatory methods to detail their cc-related water issues as part of an action research plan. Our overall advocacy aim is to show how mitigation is critical, but that adaptation can not be ignored as cc impacts are already affecting people on the ground. We have formulated 10 positions on CC and Water that is being circulated widely as a possible basis for civil society’s strategic planning around what it can do about cc and water issues.
Expertise: action research on water and climate change, community based water adaptation, highlighting water’s centrality to CC impacts
Affiliation: Climate Justice Now!
Languages: English and isiZulu
Contact: +27 (0)72 463 8854
Tony Clarke – Canada
Executive director, Polaris Institute
Expertise: climate justice policies; tar sands in Canada; climate & water issues; corporations and the UN; collapse of Kyoto; the road to Rio+20.
Language: English
Contact: tclarke@polarisinstitute.org
Anne Wanjiku Maina — Kenya
Anne Wanjiku Maina is the Advocacy Coordinator for African Biodiversity Network (ABN). The ABN is a network comprising 36 members and partners ranging from small community-based organisations (CBOs) to large coalitions of CBOs and non-government organisations (NGOs), drawn from twelve African countries. ABN supports Africans to voice their views on biodiversity related issues such as genetic engineering, agrofuels, environmental protection, and the rights of small farmers, and to harness the capacity of local communities and civil society to deal with these issues, from the community level upwards.
ABN members and partners are working to pioneer and develop methodologies to nurture local solutions to African challenges, and receive support from the network to develop this work in their own countries as well as replicate them in other countries or regions. Examples include the rehabilitation of degraded areas, the formation of community governance institutions to protect and sustainably manage territory, and the revival of traditional practices that enhance seed diversity, food sovereignty and biodiversity protection.
Languages: English and Kiswahili
Contact: +27 (0)84.928.0367
Labor Issues and Climate Change
Donald Lafleur–Canada
Affiliations: Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW – STTP); Member of Canadian Labour Congress’ Environment Committee
Languages: French and English
Roger Rashi–Canada
Roger Roshi is the Campaigns Coordinator at Alternatives in Montreal, Canada, and a frequent lecturer at union and community meetings in Quebec.
Expertise: climate justice, international relations and global justice issues.
Languages: French and English
Recycling/ Waste Pickers/ Anti-Incineration
Mariel Vilella is the contact person for all of the people listed in this category: +27 (0)72.389.2522
Mariel Vilella is the Climate Policy campaigner for GAIA, the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, and works in coordination with the global wastepickers movement. For the last 10 years she has specialised in environmental justice research and campaign coordination, notably in genetics, food sovereignty, and climate justice and European carbon trading. At the moment, GAIA’s campaign on climate and waste issues is focused on stopping the Clean Development Mechanism’ support to waste-to-energy projects and ensuring appropriate support for waste pickers communities.
Expertise: Environmental justice, climate justice, GMOs, waste management, CDM
Affiliations: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternative (GAIA), Global Alliance of Wastepickers and Allies
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalan
Ms. Suman More — India
Suman More is a leader of a 6000-member waste pickers’ union (KKPKP) in Pune, India. They have been fighting against “waste-to-energy” projects which are billed as renewable energy and supported by the CDM; these projects burn waste which the waste pickers were previously recycling, aggravating their poverty and increasing emissions. KKPKP has also set up alternative waste management methods that reduce emissions and generate more employment.
Expertise: Waste management in developing countries, waste pickers
Affiliations: Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Marathi, Hindi (translation to English available)
Ms. Sushila Sable — India
Sushila Sable is a leader of Stree Mukti Sanghatana, a women’s rights organization working with wastepickers in Mumbai, India. They have successfully implemented a separate collection and waste management system which uses biogas to generate energy from organics while maximizing recycling.
Expertise: Recycling, biogas, waste pickers
Affiliations: Stree Mukti Sanghatana, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Marathi, Hindi (translation to English available)
Eduardo (Dudu) Ferreira — Brazil
Eduardo Ferreira is the national president of the national recyclers (catadores) movement in Brazil, with 850,000 members. The movement has been fighting against CDM-backed waste-to-energy projects which take away their livelihoods and burn recyclable materials.
Expertise: Recycling, organizing, mass movements, waste pickers
Affiliations: Movimento Nacional dos Catadores de Materiais Reciclaveis, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Portuguese (translation to English available)
Marlén Chacón — Costa Rica
Marlén Chacón is a national leader of the recyclers of Costa Rica and has been instrumental in organizing the continent-wide grouping of Latin American Recyclers. She has been actively following the climate change negotiations for several years and is currently engaged in a battle to stop Costa Rica’s first waste incinerator, which would increase GHG emissions and toxic pollution while reducing recycling rates.
Expertise: Recycling, organizing, mass movements, waste pickers
Affiliations: Red Latinoamericana de Recicladores, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Spanish (translation to English available)
Mr. Aliou Faye — Senegal
Aliou Faye is a leader of the waste pickers at M’beussbeuss, Senegal’s largest dumpsite. They are being threatened with displacement by a World Bank/CDM project which aims to reclaim gas from the dump, but would leave them homeless and without work.
Expertise: Recycling, waste pickers
Affiliations: Bokk Diomm, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Wolof, French (translation to English available)
Mr. Harouna Niasse — Senegal
Harouna Niasse has worked with the waste pickers of M’beussbeuss for many years, helping them organize, improve their working and living conditions and providing them information about the plans of the government, the World Bank and the CDM.
Expertise: Waste pickers, World Bank, CDM, landfill gas
Affiliations: ENDA, Global Alliance of Waste Pickers
Languages: Wolof, French
Neil Tangri — US
Neil Tangri works on GAIA’s waste and climate change campaign. A founding member of GAIA and formerly with Essential Action, he has also worked as a community organizer; as a media advocate, training grassroots activists in press relations; as a researcher, documenting urban environmental problems and their causes in India. He is based in GAIA’s Berkeley, U.S. office.
Expertise: waste issues, climate justice, Clean Development Mechanism, Green Climate Fund and climate finance.
Affiliations: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternative (GAIA), Global Alliance of Wastepickers and Allies
Languages: English, Hindi, Spanish
La Via Campesina Small Farmers & Peasants Movement
To arrange interviews with members of the La Via Campesina delegation, contact: Boaventura Monjane +27 (0)73 650 9229
Additional New Speakers:
Clemente G. Bautista Jr
National Coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, a national alliance of environmental and sectoral organizations in the Philippines. He is the current regional coordinator of OilWatch Southeast Asia a regional network of Asian organizations opposing extraction and exploitation of fossil fuel resources n Southeast Asia.
Expertise: social movements, mining and fossil fuel extraction, Philippine environment issues
Affiliation: OilWatch Southeast Asia, People’s Action on Climate Change (PACC), Mines and Communities (MAC), International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS), Climate Justice Now
Language: English
Contact: +27 (0)792870936
Jacqui Patterson–USA
Jacqui Patterson is the Director of Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP, Jacqui Patterson, MSW, MPH, has served as a trainer, organizer, researcher, program manager, and policy analyst on international and domestic issues and social justice movements with organizations including Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Baltimore City Healthy Start, IMA World Health, United for a Fair Economy, ActionAid, Health GAP, and the organization she co-founded, Women of Color United. She also currently serves on the Board of Directors for the US Climate Action Network and the Institute of the Black World and on Steering Committees for the ATHENA Network and the Grandmothers Project International.
Expertise: Racial Justice, Gender Justice, Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Environmental and Climate Justice, Economic Justice
Affiliations: Civil society member
Languages: English
Durban Phone # 27 81 515 9697
Dale Wen – China
Dr. Dale Jiajun Wen has focused on sustainable development issues for more than a decade. She received her PhD at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has worked closely with organisations such as Third World Network, South Center and the International Forum on Globalization, and is currently based in Germany. In 2005, she published a short book “China Copes with Globalization: a Mixed Review”, which examined the environmental and social impacts of China’s breakneck industrialization and surveyed alternative voices in the Chinese scene, including the environmental movement, rural reconstruction movement and the new left. Her current research focus includes sustainable agriculture, climate change, trade and other globalization related issues. She was a coordinate lead author for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), called by some the IPCC of agriculture.
Over the last few years Dr Wen has followed the international climate negotiations closely, and has substantial insights to the Chinese government’s reasoning and policy making as well as to what is happening on the ground in China – both in terms of climate action as well as the effects of the current development trajectory. Through her independent position Dr Wen is well placed to pursue a nuanced and well-informed analysis of both merits and problems with the current Chinese policies on climate and development. She has also done work on the US vs. China dynamics in both climate and trade issues.
Expertise: China, sustainable agriculture, climate change, social movements and alternative voices in China, US vs China relation
Affiliations: Civil society member
Languages: English, Chinese
Durban Phone # 785517515 0785517515
Kjell Kühne – Germany
Expertise: REDD+, Zero Emissions Plans, Leaving Fossil Fuels in the Ground, Children and Youth Climate Movements, Climate Literacy
Affiliations: Plant-for-the-Planet
Languages: German, English, Spanish, Portuguese
Contact: +27 (0)79-3726067
susann scherbarth, FoEI from FoE Europe.
Expertise: EU and KP.
Contact: +27 727826539
Assad Rehman, Friends of the Earth
Expertise: big picture – KP and EU
Contact: 004477201 47280
Teresa Anderson
Expertise: soil carbon issues
Contact: 0741 838 955 <teresa@gaianet.org>