Latin Climate Activists We Should Listen To
Climate change is a major issue everywhere, but Latin activists have understood and felt its social justice impacts in a more pressing way than the global North. Giving a platform for the voices to be heard of those experiencing the most immediate effects of climate change is key to strengthen the movement and work together to grow in the right direction. That being said, here are some of the Latin Climate Activists We Should Listen To.
Xiye Bastida (she/her)
New York, New York
Xiye Bastida is a 20-year-old climate activist from Atlacomulco, Mexico. Her family moved to New York City after her community was devastated by drought and flooding. Xiye is a lead organizer of the Fridays For Future youth climate strikes, where she fights to keep Indigenous peoples at the front of climate conversations. She was recently featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and was a voice fo climate activism at the Met Gala and Harper’s Bazaar 2022 Icons Awards, where she spoke out about fossil fuels on the red carpet. She currently attends the University of Pennsylvania majoring in environmental studies.
Follow her on Twitter @xiyebastida or Instagram @xiyebeara.
Jamie Sarai Margolin (she /her)
Seattle, Washington
Jamie Margolin is the 20-year-old founder of the organization Zero Hour, an intersectional movement of youth climate activists. She acted as co-executive director until stepping down in September 2020. A Jewish daughter of a Colombian immigrant, she gave a TED talk about how climate change can be combatted by addressing social injustices. In 2020 she published Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It, a guide to change-making and sustaining longterm action. Jamie’s writing has been featured in HuffPost, Teen Ink and CNN and she was part of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 class of 2018 when she was also named as one of People Magazine’s 25 Women Changing the World.
Follow her on Twitter @Jamie_Margolin or Instagram @jamie_s_margolin.
Isaias Hernandez (he/they)
Los Angeles, California (Tongva Land)
Isaias Hernandez is a Mexican-American environmentalist and eco-educator.
“Living in Section 8 affordable housing, using food stamps growing up, and witnessing pollution affect my body. I turned my anger and sadness to becoming an environmental educator. I had the opportunity to earn my B.S. in Environmental Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My work is centered on environmental justice with a lens of localization. I believe that the climate crisis is an educational crisis and we need different forms of educators exist outside of institutions. I no longer want to see other low-income students struggle in learning about concepts they never had the opportunity to learn about which is why I use my educational platform as a foundation for people to learn about environmentalism.”
Follow them on Instagram @queerbrownvegan, Twitter @queerbrownvegan, or TikTok @queerbrownvegan.
Helena Gualinga
Sarayaku, Ecuador
Helena Gualinga is a 20-year-old human rights and environmental activist from an Indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest. She stands up for the protection of Indigenous lands from oil companies. Helena spoke at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in December 2019, criticizing world leaders for their inaction on climate issues. After the inadequacies of COP25, Gualinga founded Polluters Out, a movement aimed at fossil fuel industries, with Isabella Fallahi and Ayisha Siddiqa.
Follow her on Instagram @helenagualinga.
Christiana Figueres
San José, Costa Rica
Christiana Figueres is the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She was one of chief architects of the Paris Climate Agreement and played a major role in its adoption. Originally from Costa Rica, she has worked in the fields of climate change, sustainable development, energy, and land use, and she currently co-hosts a climate change podcast called Outrage + Optimism, which promotes “stubborn optimism” as the way to tackle the climate crisis.
Follow her on Twitter @CFigueres or Instagram @cfigueres.
Words from Clean Choice Energy
Alexandra Villaseñor (She/Her)
New York, New YorK
Alexandria Villaseñor is a 17-year-old climate activist and second generation Mexican-American. She is the founder and executive director of the organization Earth Uprising, which educates and mobilizes young climate activists. She is a petitioner in Children vs Climate Crisis, a legal petition filed to the UN by 16 young climate activists to hold countries accountable for their role in the climate crisis, and an essayist in All We Can Save, a collection of uplifting essays from women in the climate movement.
Follow her on Twitter @AlexandriaV2005 or Instagram @alexandriav2005.
Words from Clean Choice Energy
Alex Silva (he/him)
Las Vegas, Nevada
Alex Silva is a Mexican-Colombian college student studying environmental science who uses TikTok to encourage optimism about the climate crisis and inspire people to take action. In 2020 he launched EcoTok, a collective of 19 TikTok creators who promote sustainability and climate action through their content.
Follow Alex on TikTok @EcoFreako, Instagram @earthrebranded, or Twitter @earth_rebranded, and follow the EcoTok collective on TikTok @EcoTok.
Words from Clean Choice Energy
Yessenia Funes (She/Her)
Queens, New York
Yessenia Funes is a Salvadoran-American journalist who writes about the intersection of race and the climate crisis. In her writing for Earther, she brought attention to prevalent issues such as Colorlines for those fighting climate crises. Recently, she has been centering on protecting the ocean and natural preserves.
“There’s also an inherent racism in the things that drive climate change, like greenhouse gas emissions that come from these power plants—these pollutants that are detrimental to human health, and the people who are most likely to live near these power plants—people of color, poor people—this is something that research has shown and so we’re seeing these communities face this injustice.”
Bertha Zuñiga
Puerto Cortes, Honduras
Bertha Zuñiga is a Latin American environmental activist who advocates for Indigenous rights in Honduras. She is the daughter of award-winning environmentalist Berta Cáceres who was tragically assassinated for her activism.
Zuñiga is now the leader of an organization in Honduras fighting for civil rights and indigenous equality. They’re working hard to defend the culture, health, educational, and environmental rights of the Lenca people. Bertha’s organization COPINH has stopped 50+ logging projects and hydroelectric dams.
“If I could tell my mother anything now, it would be, ‘Don’t worry: your fight lives on in me, in my brothers and sisters, and in our community.’”
Words from Spanish Academy
Elizabeth Yeampierre
Elizabeth Yeampierre is a Puerto Rican climate justice leader. She is the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and the Executive Director of UPROSE, a Latin community-based organization in Brooklyn that promotes sustainability and climate justice. She was the first Latina chair appointed to the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and was also selected as the opening speaker at President Obama’s first White House Forum on Environmental Justice.
Follow her on Twitter @yeampierre.
Words from Clean Choice Energy
Maxima Acuña de Chaupe
Cajamarca, peru
Maxima Acuña de Chaupe joined the world of environmentalism by chance. Acuña stood against the Peruvian government that was looking to mine two lakes for copper and gold and to drain two more lakes to use as dumps.
Máxima experienced death threats, intimidation, court proceedings, and alleged beatings for doing this, but she refused to sell her plot of land.
In spite of all the challenges Máxima faced, she refused to give up on her land even when corporations sued her and tried to kick her out. She was sentenced to prison, but Acuña was eventually able to prove that the land they wanted did in fact belong to her family.
“I will never give up my land.”
Words from Spanish Academy
Samarys Seguinot-Medina
San Sebastián, Puerto Rico
Samarys Seguinot-Medina is a Latin American activist who has implemented the environmental health program for the Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT). Samarys is from Puerto Rico and founded the Sierra Club to bring awareness about the environment to the community.
She has planned and implemented ACAT’s community-based field research institutes and works as a researcher in collaboration with the local communities in St. Lawrence Island. Seguinot-Medina is a world traveler who continues to further her education on climate change and the environment.
Words from Spanish Academy
Vanessa Huac
Vanessa Hauc is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who uses her platform to educate people on environmental issues. As a Telemundo reporter, she started 5-minute story segments called Alerta Verde (or “green alert'') to share stories about environmental issues. She is also the co-founder of Sachamama, a nonprofit organization that works to educate and empower the Latino community on climate issues and the importance of preserving our planet.
Follow her on Twitter @vanessahauc or Instagram @vanessahauc.
Words from Clean Choice Energy
Latinas for Climate
Latinas for Climate is an international network of young Latin American environmental activists, which emerged in 2020 to raise awareness about the climate crisis with a gender, human rights and Latin American perspective, in order to educate girls, young women and women in the region on this issue, empowering them to take action for a better future. It is a space that amplifies the voices of Latinas who are already making history, to strengthen their work and inspire others to do the same. They are currently a team of more than 100 women between the ages of 15 and 25 from 15 countries in the region (Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil, El Salvador, Cuba, Panama, Mexico and Venezuela), working every day virtually, and increasingly in person, on different projects to achieve this.
Last year they were able to attend COP26, and this year they are planning on going to COP27 in Egypt, but need to find funding. That's why they planned a GoFundMe campaign to cover the expenses of sending a Latinas for Climate delegation to the conference. These are the young climate activists they plan to send:
Naomi Flores, México
Naomi Flores is a 24-year-old speaker, climate consultant, intersectional feminist and climate activist. She was a Youth Delegate representing CEMERG A.C. in two editions of the Paris Peace Forum (2020-2021) with the project “Alliance for the United Nations we need,” a Climate Policy Officer at the Center for United Nations Constitutional Research CUNCR, where she is also Focal Point of the Youth Climate Ambassadors Program, representing the organization at COP26 in 2021. She is communications Coordinator of Latinas For Climate. Flores is an expert in climate democracy, governance and public policy in sustainability, she has participated in different webinars and conferences as youth leader, delegate at LCOY Mexico 2020 and COY16 Glasgow 2021 and member of the project management team of LCOY Mexico 2022.
Melissa Cáceres, Honduras
Melissa Cáceres Rodas, is a 19-year-old finance student and climate activist with a special focus on the climate crisis from a gender perspective. In 2020 she started working to achieve climate justice after being named Climate Reality Leader by the Climate Reality Project. After that she started to get involved in local organizations such as Sustenta Honduras where she was logistics and community coordinator. She is currently capacity building and development coordinator at Sustenta Honduras, gender and education coordinator at Latinas for Climate; spokesperson for Fridays For Future Honduras, and Honduras ambassador for Unite 2030. The young activist is the country coordinator for LCOY 2022 and was a delegate in Costa Rica for RCOY 2022.
Karin Watson, Chile
Karin Watson Ferrer is a 25-year-old designer recently graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile/EINA Barcelona and a human rights activist working especially at the intersection of climate justice and gender equality. She was a founding member and now Alumni of Amnesty International's Global Youth Collective, part of the Women Deliver Young Leaders Program, member of the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group of CIVICUS Alliance, promoter of Escazú Ahora Chile, youth leader of Climate Reality Project, member of the Global Youth Climate Challenges programme of the Government of South Korea and co-founder of Re-earth Initiative and Latinas for Climate –where she is one of the general coordinators and in charge of design and communications– among other projects in the areas of human rights, education, mental health and sexual and reproductive rights. karin-watson.com
Catalina Santelices, Chile
Catalina Santelices Brunel is a 19-year-old ecofeminist activist and law student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and co-founder of Latinas for Climate. She has been part of COP26, COP1 of the Escazú Agreement, the Youth Task Force for Stockholm+50, Fridays for Future, and the Tremendas Foundation, among other events and volunteering that in more than 3 years of experience have led her to lead various national and international campaigns for intersectional climate justice, especially with a feminist and Human Rights perspective.
Diana Corrales, Honduras
Diana Corrales Sánchez is an 18-year-old studying history at the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) and an environmental activist. Her fight is for climate justice, gender violence, and the protection of human rights. She has learned and taught about these issues through his participation in the LatinasforClimate (L4C) network, volunteers, such as Tus Manos son Mis Manos Hn, and participated in the ReforestArte project of Fridays for Future Honduras. At L4C, She is the coordinator of the Art and Culture teams and the translation team of L4C. She is currently studying for the diploma "Ciclo de gestión de datos sobre la violencia contra las mujeres, niñas y feminicidios" (VCMN+F) developed by UNAH in strategic alliance with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Spotlight Project.
Allyson Castillo, Chile
Allyson Castillo is a 21-year-old journalism student at Diego Portales University and an activist who has been working for animal rights since the age of 11 and in human rights organisations since the age of 16 when she joined Amnesty International. She is currently a youth leader of Amnesty International's Global Youth Collective and a board member of Amnesty Chile. Her work has focused on sexual and reproductive rights, as well as climate justice as a member of Latinas for Climate and also attending COP26 and the signing of the Escazú agreement in Chile, she is also currently working with the United Nations as a member of Women @Dior with Unesco and UNOAC's Young Peacebuilders programme.
Mariana Chaverri, Costa Rica
Mariana Chaverri is a 22-year-old internationalist, feminist and environmental activist, currently a student of the Licentiate Degree on International Politics at the National University of Costa Rica. She is a coordinator at Latinas for Climate, and an Agent for Change of the 2022 generation at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation. She participated in the Regional Conference of Latin American Youth (RCOY), and has experience in design, facilitation and implementation of projects related to future scenarios and Human Rights with Defense for Children International in Costa Rica, and Avina Foundation’s Pulsante project.
Melissa Hernández, México
Melissa Hernández is a 23-year-old International Relations student and ecofeminist and environmental justice activist. Since 2016 he has participated in various activations of youth representation, nature preservation and local impact. In 2021, she presented the Initiative for Comprehensive and Sustainable Menstrual Health in the Women's Parliament of the Congress of Mexico City. She has attended international events as a representative of Mexico for UN Youth, SDSN Youth and Women Deliver. Also, she has participated on multiple occasions in political opinion television programs. She is currently co-director of Cambio Colectivo MX, a youth initiative for the conservation of biological and environmental diversity, gender coordinator at Latinas For Climate, and Latin American regional leader of Earth School TEDx of the United Nations Environment Program.
Sofía Larraguibel, Chile
Sofía Larraguibel is a student representative since 2020 to date, driven by the struggles of the independent world in the university context, such as intersectional feminism, human rights, intergenerational encounters and mental health. Advisor to conventional constituent, parliamentary and municipal candidacies in Chile, focused on strategies and digital communication. She promoted the creation of the Direction and the Gender Chair at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Studies of the UC. She participated in the 2nd LCOY Chile in Valparaiso, the Extraordinary Meeting for the XV Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the declaration of the healthy environment as a Human Right at ECLAC headquarters. She is currently part of the Tremendas Foundation, Amnesty International Chile and Latinas For Climate.
How To Donate
The GoFundMe will become live on Thursday, September 29th, and you can find it through the @latinasforclimate page or at latinasforclimate.org at that time.
Note: The GoFundMe also aims to fund the participation of another delegation to the Regional Conference of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will take place in November of this year in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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