AMAZONIA, JOINING FORCES TO PROTECT OUR COMMON FUTURE
Wednesday 14 December 2022
14.30 - 16.30
Film and Discussion Event
Co-hosts: Planète Amazone, Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians, Esmeralda de Belgique
Venue: Hôtel ZERO 1, 1 René-Lévesque Est, Montréal, QC H2X 3Z5
Time: 14:30
PANELISTES
The future of the Amazon and its Indigenous peoples is more threaten than ever. Even though the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has brought hope, the challenges remain enormous in a deeply polarized country. But it’s not all up to Brazil. The fate of the Amazon rainforest is a concern for the entire world and will require support from global citizens if we want to stop the catastrophic loss of biodiversity. The new administration has pledge to urgently demarcate and protect all indigenous territories. This will only be achieved if Western countries cooperate and if Ecocide is recognize as an international crime.
Two panels (1 hour each) :
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How recognizing Ecocide as a law can help to secure the protection of the Amazon
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Mobilizing at a global scale to help finalizing the demarcation of Indigenous territories
Each panel will start with an exclusive 5 minutes presentation of the forthcoming documentary film ‘Amazonia, the Heart of Mother Earth’, directed and produced by Gert-Peter Bruch and Esmeralda de Belgique.
HRH Princess Esmeralda of Belgium
Esmeralda of Belgium is a journalist, author and keynote speaker. She has also co-produced three documentaries and written books about her family, environmental issues and female Nobel Peace Prize winners. Daughter of King Leopold, who visited the Xingu with the Vilas Boas in 1964, she is the President of Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation created by her late father in 1972. A campaigner for the environment and human rights, particularly for the rights of Indigenous Peoples, she is an ambassador for WWF UK and Stop Ecocide International. Making this film gave her the opportunity to follow in his father's footsteps into the lands of the Kayapo peoples, nearly 60 years after him.
Gert-Peter Bruch
Gert-Peter Bruch is a director and keynote speaker on environmental issues. After the success of his first documentary film “Terra Libre” on the topic of the Amazon forests and the strong detailed impression it gave on the topic for professional eye, he decided to direct this film to a wider audience.. Gert-Peter Bruch has been committed to the protection of the Amazonian forest for over 30 years, and supported the first international campaign with chief Raoni. He has organized numerous field and awareness campaigns, including three international tours of chief Raoni.
Jojo Mehta
Chair, Stop Ecocide Foundation, Convenor of the Expert panel for the legal definition of ecocide.
Jojo Mehta co-founded Stop Ecocide in 2017, alongside legal pioneer the late Polly Higgins, to support making severe harm to nature an international crime.
As key spokesperson and Executive Director of Stop Ecocide International, Jojo has overseen the remarkable growth of the global movement while coordinating legal developments, diplomatic traction and public narrative. She is also Chair of the charitable Stop Ecocide Foundation and convenor of the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide chaired by Philippe Sands QC and Dior Fall Sow
Puyr Tembe
Puyr Tembe is an indigenous leader from the Tembe people in Brazil. She is president of the State Federation of Indigenous Peoples of Pará, a member of the executive branch of the Union of Indigenous Women of the Brazilian Amazon and the co-founder of Anmiga (National Association of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality). She dedicates her time to campaigning and negotiating on behalf of the Tembe and other indigenous tribes with the government in Brasilia, making her one of the most senior women in the tribe.
Severn Suzuki
Executive Director, David Suzuki Foundation
Severn has been an activist for intergenerational justice her whole life. In Grade 5, her deep concern for the environment compelled her and some friends to start the Environmental Children's Organization, culminating in a speech she gave to the UN Earth Summit in 1992 at age 12. It’s still making the rounds today as “the girl who silenced the world for five minutes.”
Today Severn’s focus is the nexus of decline in diversity of biodiversity, world views, economies, language, traditional knowledge and identity. She holds an M.Sc. in ethnoecology from the University of Victoria, and is currently a Vanier and Public scholar PhD candidate studying endangered language revitalization.
In September 2021, Severn became executive director of the David Suzuki Foundation, where she and the team work to protect nature’s diversity and the well-being of all life, now and for the future.
Severn lives in Vancouver, B.C. (the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations), with her husband Judson Brown and their two sons.
Sophie Dembinski
Global Head of Public Policy & UK, Ecosia
Sophie is Ecosia's Global Head of Public Policy & UK where she leads on tech and climate policy for one of the worlds largest reforestation organisations and nonprofit tech companies. She is an experienced international policy and regulatory expert, has authored a number of articles and op-eds and is a psychological therapist and leadership coach. She is an Advisory Board Member of Stop Ecocide Foundation, an Ambassador for the social mobility charity Debate Mate and the UK coordinator for the eminent transatlantic leadership programme, the Marshall Memorial Fellowship (MMF).
MODERATEURS.RICES
Lino Paoletti
Lino Paoletti is a UN Youth Delegate on Biodiversity and is thus representing the French-speaking youth from Belgium on those matters. During his mandate, he made a focus on Transformative Education as a lot of other young people across the world thanks to the Global Youth Biodiversity Network.
As a living, he is building a non lucrative organization which aims at making sustainable food accessible to everybody, even in the poor neighborhoods.
