Cassandra Smithies
For over 20 years, Cassandra has served as a resource person and interpreter for Indigenous Peoples in UN negotiations on the environment and human rights. Currently based in New York, she has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations and testified as an expert before the Tribunal on the Rights of Nature. Her other publications include Indigenous Peoples’ Guide to False Solutions to Climate Change and REDD = Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity. In addition, Cassandra sculpts altars and monuments and paints mobile murals for social movements. Her art explores how memory is the thread that guides us through the labyrinth of identity. www.cassandraproductions.net
Anabela Lemos
Anabela is an environmental justice activist and founding member of Livaningo, Mozambique’s first environmental organization (1998). She was the Vice-Director of Livaningo and coordinated several initiatives. She left Livaningo to start JA in 2004. Anabela won the Mozambican National Environmental Prize in 2004.She has always undertaken her activities, at both JA and Livaningo as a volunteer. She has been working on environmental justice issues over 18 years. Beyond JA, she is also involved in a number of other NGOs. She is one of the founder members of GAIA (an alliance between individuals, NGOs, community-based organizations, academics and other parties, that work together to stop incineration all over the world) where she is currently on the Steering committee, and she is also on the Advisory Board for the Southern Africa Global Greengrants Fund. From the creation of JA, she has been on the Board of Directors, responsible for JA’s strategy, governance, fundraising, co-coordinating of the Mphanda Nkuwa campaign and is involved in research , campaigns, including fieldwork. She sits on the editorial lcouncil of JA’s newsletter.
Nnimmo Bassey
Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian environmental justice activist, architect, essayist and poet. He is the director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and coordinator of Oilwatch International. He was the chair of Friends of the Earth International (the largest grassroots environmental organisation in the world) from 2008-2012 as well as the co-founder and executive director of Environmental Rights Action (1993-2013) which is based in Nigeria (in Benin city, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Yenagoa). He was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize.’ In 2012 he received the Rafto Human Rights Award. In 2014 he was awarded Nigeria’s national honour as a Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) in recognition of his environmental activism. Nnimmo Bassey is the author of the highly acclaimed book, To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa (Pambazuka Press) and, in Portuguese, Cozinhar Um Continente: A Extração Destrutiva e a Crise Climática na África (Daraja Press) which detail the destructive impacts of the extractive industries and the climate crises in Africa. He is also co-author, with the No REDD in Africa Network, of Stop the Continent Grab and the REDD-ification of Africa (Daraja Press). He has also authored books on architecture. His poetry focuses on environmental justice. We thought it was oil but it was blood and I will not dance to your beat are two of his most widely known books of poems.
