In-person 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 - 16.30
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) :
How recognizing Ecocide as a law can help to secure the protection of the Amazon
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.
Speakers:
Journalist, author and activist. President of the King Leopold III Fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation, and chair of Friendship Belgium.
Founder and president of Planète Amazone. Executive committee member of the Alliance of Mother Nature's Guardians and film director.
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).
Moderator:
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.
Dana May Dolezsar
Dana May Dolezsar is an artist, activist, speaker and film maker living and working on unceded Coast Salish Territories in what we now call Vancouver, BC. She has a particular fondness for working on Indigenous Canadian films and has had the pleasure of working as a Property Master for writer/director Marie Clements on the award winning films Red Snow, The Road Forward and most recently Bones of Crows. Dana is also an activist fighting for climate justice and believes strongly in non-violent direct action. She is currently working with Stop Ecocide Canada in pursuit of an international law criminalizing ecocide. She has been witness to the devastating effects of old growth logging at Adai'tsk (Fairy Creek) and also supports the Tsleil-Waututh Nation is their fight against the TransMountain pipeline Expansion.