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Nina Gualinga

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Nina Gualinga
Born1993 (age 30–31)
Sarayaku, Ecuador
Alma materLund University
Occupation(s)Climate Activist and indigenous rights Defender
Known forEnvironmental activism
RelativesHelena Gualinga (sister)

Patricia Gualinga (aunt)

Noemí Gualinga (mother)
Awards2018 WWF International President's Youth award

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 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]

Personal life

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Gualinga was born and raised in her mother's Kichwa-speaking community of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon,[3][4] in Puyo, Pastaza.[5] Her father is Anders Sirén, a Swedish-speaking Finnish[6][7] professor of biology[5] in the department of geography and geology at the University of Turku.[8]

Her involvement in advocating for climate justice and indigenous rights[3][9][10] was inspired by her experience at the age of eight, when a representative of an oil company came to her village and offered them 10,000 dollars in exchange for drilling oil from their territory.[11][12] She witnessed how the women of her village turned down the offer, advocating for the preservation of nature.[12] At the age of eight, as the military had set their plan to invade the indigenous territory for oil exploration, she moved to Sweden.[11] She studied at Sigtunaskolan Humanistiska Läroverket,[13] a boarding school in Sigtuna, returning to Sarayaku during school holidays.[11]

She gained her knowledge of the forest through her parents and grandparents.[2] She is a granddaughter of Cristina Gualinga,[14] and Gualinga's sister, Helena Gualinga, and mother, Noemí Gualinga are also environmental activists.[4] Her aunt Patricia is also a land defender, and her uncle Eriberto is a filmmaker who documents the Sarayaku resistance.[15]

She is currently studying human rights at Lund University.[16][17][4]

Activism

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Her family was active 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][18][10] At the age of 18, Gualinga represented the youth of Sarayaku at the final hearing of the case.[3][2][9]

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.[9] Her organization, Hakhu Amazon Design, sells handmade artisanal jewelry and accessories.[3][9][19] She demands that the Ecuadorian government acknowledge the Amazon forest itself as an asset and for the government to end its contracts 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.[18][4] She was part of a global call to stop fossil fuel extraction at the 2014 People's Climate March.[17][20] She was also among the delegates advocating for "Living Forests" protection at the global climate conferences COP20 and COP21, in Lima and Paris respectively.[17][9] 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.[21] In 2016, she was among a group of indigenous women from 7 nationalities that united to march in defense of indigenous rights and territories.[19][9] 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.[18][10] 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.[22][23] Nina was also part of the WECAN delegation at the COP25 climate negotiations in Madrid in 2019.[24] At the event, she called for the world to refrain from extracting fossil fuels and to listen to indigenous peoples, who have protected their lands for millennia, for solutions to the climate crisis: "If we don't listen to indigenous peoples, if we don't listen to indigenous women we are not going to get out of this crisis."[19] She gave a lecture on Indigenous People of the Amazon: The Guardians of Our Future at IAAC Auditorium, Barcelona on 25 February 2020.[25][4]

Awards

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  • 2018 WWF International President's Youth award[3]

References

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  1. ^ "Nina Gualinga, la luchadora ambiental que batalla contra la violencia de género". El Universo (in Spanish). 4 July 2020. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Activist Nina Gualinga on protecting the Amazon". World Wildlife Magazine. World Wildlife Fund. Winter 2018. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Environmental and indigenous rights activist to receive WWF's top youth conservation award". World Wide Fund For Nature (Press release). Cartagena. 8 May 2018. Archived from the original on 28 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Nina Gualinga > IAAC Lecture Series". Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. 18 February 2020. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  5. ^ a b Castro, Mayuri (13 December 2020). "'She goes and helps': Noemí Gualinga, Ecuador's mother of the jungle". Mongabay. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
  6. ^ Suominen, Annina (5 March 2020). "Reporterklassen: Klimataktivisten Helena Sirén Gualinga har många järn i elden". Åbo Underrättelser (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 10 November 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021. pappa är finlandssvensk
  7. ^ Ahokas, Kukka-Maria (10 April 2020). "Suomalaisaktivisti maailmalla – Helena Sirén Gualinga puolustaa alkuperäiskansojen oikeuksia". Kansan Uutiset (in Finnish). Archived from the original on 10 November 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2021. isänsä puolelta suomenruotsalainen
  8. ^ "Helena Gualinga: Who is the young voice against climate change?". Ecuador Times. 13 December 2019. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "Nina Sicha Siren Gualinga | SDLAC". Sustainable Development in Latin America & the Caribbean. 2018. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  10. ^ a b c "Climate justice day at COP22 considers climate impacts on indigenous people - Business & Human Rights Resource Centre". Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. 17 November 2016. Archived from the original on 2 April 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  11. ^ a b c "Nina Gualinga, hija del primer levantamiento". www.expreso.ec. 12 February 2018. Archived from the original on 8 December 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  12. ^ a b "Mujeres Guardianas de la Selva". TEDxQuito. 10 October 2018. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  13. ^ "Presentationens avskrift, Zonta Stipendier 2012 – 2014 Zonta International". slideplayer.se. 9 December 2022. Archived from the original on 8 December 2022. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  14. ^ Carlos Fresneda, Puerto (2020). Ecohéroes: 100 voces por la salud del planeta. RBA Libros. ISBN 9788491877172. En la Amazonia, las guardianas de la Pachamama (Madre Tierra) han sido secularmente las mujeres. Nina Gualinga (nacida en 1994) es la heredera de una largea tradición que viene de su abuela Cristina, de su madre Noemí y de su tía Patricia, amenazada de muerte por defender su tierra frente al hostigamiento de las grandes corporaciones petroleras, mineras or madereras.
  15. ^ León, José María (23 April 2019). "Tierra de resistentes | Consejo de Redacción". Tierra De Resistentes. Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2021.
  16. ^ "Indigenous Environmental Activism in the Amazon: Nina Gualinga". Never Apart. Archived from the original on 3 December 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Gualinga, Nina (12 December 2014). "Indigenous Voices: A Call to Keep the Oil in the Ground". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 16 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  18. ^ a b c "OHCHR | Spotlight on indigenous rights at COP22 climate talks". www.ohchr.org. 17 November 2016. Archived from the original on 10 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  19. ^ a b c "People Power Rises for Climate Justice at COP25: WECAN International Analysis & Reflection". WECAN International. 21 December 2019. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  20. ^ "Indigenous Voices: A Call to Keep the Oil in the Ground". Amazon Watch. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  21. ^ "8 women who are changing the world without you even realising". LifeGate. 7 March 2016. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  22. ^ "Women's Voices for Climate Justice". Women's Voices for Climate Justice. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  23. ^ "Amazon Watch and Sarayaku Delegation to COP 23". Amazon Watch. Archived from the original on 13 January 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  24. ^ "Advocacy at UN Climate Forums". WECAN International. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  25. ^ Cm | (24 February 2020). "Nina Gualinga Lecture". Architecture Walks and Tours in Barcelona. Archived from the original on 19 October 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
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