Karin Nansen, coordinator of REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay, has been chosen as the chair of the world´s largest grassroots environmental federation for the next two years.
Ms Nansen was a founding member of REDES/Friends of the Earth Uruguay in 1988, and has worked side by side with peasant women on agroecological processes and the defense of native seeds in Uruguay and different Latin American countries.
In addition, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC), as well as the Executive Committee of Friends of the Earth International, and so has many years of involvement with socio-environmental struggles across the world. As part of the Friends of the Earth family, Ms Nansen has dedicated her entire life to the struggle in defense of the rights of people and for environmental and social justice.
Karin Nansen said “I feel honoured to be chosen as a chair of FoEI. It means a lot to me since this federation is committed to environmental, social and gender justice and system change, which implies understanding the structural causes of environmental problems and to demand and build real solutions to realize people’s rights.”
“The top priority for the next 2 years will be to mobilize people in all corners of the world for a radical change in our food and energy systems, as well as to collectively defend forest and biodiversity and challenge corporate power and the neoliberal architecture of free trade and investments agreements.”
The Uruguayan activist becomes chair of Friends of the Earth International at a very important moment, with key challenges ahead. The Friends of the Earth International federation has started a system change process, which focuses on analysing and challenging the power and privilege granted by capitalism and patriarchy to global elites that endanger life on the planet as we know it.
It is also undeniable that the situation of territory and human rights defenders is going through one of the most critical moments in history, with a serious worsening of the attacks against their most basic rights, and the processes of criminalization against them, mainly in the Global South. The persecutions, threats and murder of social leaders are now, unfortunately, daily news.
In this time of crisis and with the challenges ahead, Friends of the Earth Europe (which unites the 33 members of Friends of the Earth International in the European region) is delighted that Karin Nansen has been chosen as chair of Friends of the Earth International, and looks forward to the Uruguayan activist’s political leadership of the federation.
