Laisa Massarenti Hosoya is a Brazilian lawyer with a Masters in Public Policy and Development from the Federal University of Latin American Integration (UNILA). She’s a specialist in Criminal Law, collaborator of the Observatory on Indigenous Issues in Latin America (OBIAL), and a member of the student outreach committee of The Canadian Association for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS).  Additionally, she’s an interdisciplinary researcher with an interest in the areas of human rights, dam impacts, land rights, Indigenous Peoples, traditional knowledge, gender, and public policies. She recently joined the advisory committee of Dam Watch International to collaborate and support Latin- American alliances and partnerships.

Gary Wockner has been active in environmental protection all of his adult life. Over the past two decades, Gary has spearheaded Save The Poudre, which works to protect and restore the Cache la Poudre River in Fort Collins, CO. In 2010 Gary co-founded and launched the Save The Colorado River Campaign which works to fight dams and support Rights of Nature for Rivers across the Southwest U.S. In the past decade, Gary has traveled extensively around the world supporting and writing about river and water protectors in Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Belize, Spain, Thailand, Peru, Nepal, Ecuador, Hawaii, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Slovenia, Boznia/Herzegovinia, Baja Mexico, Zambia, Guatemala, and Iceland. In 2021, Gary launched “Save The World’s Rivers” a program to fight dams and support Rivers of Nature for Rivers across the planet. Gary is an award-winning international environmental activist and writer — he has been named a “River Hero,” an “Eco-Rockstar Impacting the Planet,” and a “Renowned Environmental Leader” by environmental publications. In 2020, Gary hosted a season of #OvercomingOvershoot on EarthX TV which interviewed global leaders at the cutting edge of environmental advocacy. More info at GaryWockner.com.

Marie-Eve Marleau s’implique depuis les quinze dernières années au sein de luttes sociales contre les projets extractifs et pour la justice écologique. Elle assume la coordination du Comité pour les droits humains en Amérique latine (CDHAL), une organisation de solidarité internationale, basée à Montréal, qui travaille qui travaille à la défense et à la promotion des droits humains en réciprocité avec les mouvements sociaux et les communautés d’Amérique latine dans la lutte en faveur d’une justice sociale, environnementale, économique et culturelle. Les actions du CDHAL contribuent à l’élaboration d’une analyse critique des structures oppressives, de notre société et de la solidarité internationale, ainsi qu’à la sensibilisation et la mobilisation du public québécois.

Roberta Frampton Benefiel lives in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, NL, Canada.  She Co-founded and is the “Riverkeeper” since 2005, for Grand Riverkeeper Labrador, Inc. (GRK), a member of the international organization Waterkeeper Alliance based in New York. She also volunteers on the Standing Committee of a grassroots citizen’s organization called Labrador Land Protectors. (LLP); is a long term member of and on the steering committee of a federal ENGO, The Canadian environmental assessment and planning caucus; is on the steering committee of the Newfoundland and Labrador Environment Network (NLEN);  was a founding member and remains on the steering committee of the North American Megadams Resistance Alliance in the US; and has recently joined and is a member of the advisory committee of  Wa Ni Ska Tan, where she is involved in helping with the creation of a database of relevant documents on various issues to help dam fighters world-wide in their battle against governments and proponents of large dams. While she continues to volunteer for many diverse community projects, she is dedicated to the protection of the Grand (a.k.a. Churchill) river in Labrador, and also works to bring awareness about the fate of the remaining wild rivers throughout Canada and globally where politicians, proponents and misguided environmental groups claim MEGA-HYDROELECTRICITY is the answer to climate change.

Denise Cole is a Two Spirit land protector of mixed Inuit descent from southern Labrador, now living in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada (pronouns: she/her). She is a board member of Grand Riverkeeper Labrador and member of the Labrador Land Protectors. Denise stands in resistance to projects that threaten water, land, lives and cultures. Gifted the name “Spotted Elk”, she is guided to perform sacred ceremonies and walk a spiritual path as an eagle whistle carrier. Denise has been involved in the resistance to the Lower Churchill Project in Labrador since 2011. This includes numerous nonviolent protection events and campaigns,  which has led to her conviction of civil court charges while performing ceremony and peaceful acts of resistance. She enters each day with clean hands and straight eyes and is humbled to be a part of DWI advisory.

Waba Moko is deeply committed to the defense of indigenous culture! She was born and raised in the wolf clan of the Anishnabe-Algonquin Nation. Shannon contributes at various levels to the decolonization and the restoration of the sovereignty of her people. The defense and protection of water, land and languages ​​is a priority for the Anishnabeg. She fights ardently against the challenges stemming from climate change which have cruel repercussions in her nation.

Nati Garcia is Maya-Mam from Ixtahuacan, Guatemala. She grew up most of her life on traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples – sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations.  Nati is enlivened by opportunities to explore authentic exchange, leadership, world bridging, social justice, advocacy for Indigenous Peoples and defense of land and water. She currently works for Cultural Survival where she hopes to continue on this path in, collaborating, teaching, and learning on an International relation for social justice.

Jonathan González Quiel is an activist and defender of human rights and the environment in western Panama. He is currently a geographer and historian by profession and in the last 10 years has been supporting collective efforts seeking the conservation and protection of territories. Jonathan has also participated in the resistance process against hydroelectric generation companies in the Indigenous communities of Ngäbe, Bugle and Naso TerjDï. In recent years he has been affiliated with the Victoriano Lorenzo Movement (MVL), the National Network in Defense of Water in Panama (RNDA) and to the Movement of Dam Affected Peoples in Latin America (MAR).

Joy, Senior Fellow with Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune, India, has been an activist-researcher for more than 35 years. He was a full-time activist with a rural toilers’ movement in South Maharashtra for about eight years. He coordinates the activities of the national network, “Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India”. His areas of interest include drought, participatory irrigation management, river-basin management, institutions, multi-stakeholder processes, water conflicts, dams and hydropower, renewable energy, water ethics and people’s movements. He was a Fulbright Fellow with the University of California at Berkeley. He was the recipient of TN Khoshoo Memorial Award for 2016. He has published extensively on water-environment-development issues and some of his co-authored/co-edited books include: India’s Water Futures: Emergent Ideas and Pathways; Alternative Futures: India Unshackled; Water Conflicts in Northeast India, Water Conflicts in India: A Million Revolts in the Making; Community-based Natural Resource Management: Issues and Cases from South Asia; Sustainable Technology: Making the Sardar Sarovar Project Viable — A Comprehensive Proposal to Modify the Project for Greater Equity and Ecological Sustainability, Banking on Biomass: A New Strategy for Sustainable Prosperity Based on Renewable Energy and Dispersed Industrialisation.

Websites: www.soppecom.org; www.waterconflictforum.org

Rita Frances Monias is from Pimicikamak Cross Lake, and has a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of General Studies, and a Counselling Certificate. Rooting back from 1993, Rita has been very passionate and dedicated towards environmental justice and human rights. Rita Monias was inspired by her father, who was also supported by her mother, who fully encouraged her to pursue going to education to learn more about how the government and corporations were impacting the environment and rights of the community.

Sheehan is a US-based public interest environmental lawyer with an interest in empowering and supporting communities in taking action to make the world a better place. She serves as the coordinator of the North American Megadam Resistance Alliance.

She served as an Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as a Staff Attorney at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. She holds a B.A. in Economics from Colgate University and J.D. from Boston College Law School.

She specializes in litigation in state and administrative law litigation in the areas of clean water, forests, climate and land protection. She co-founded several grassroots campaigns for the protection for rivers and land and has served on various boards including Earthrise Law Center-Advisory Board, Northeast Wilderness Trust, Wildlands Trust of Southeastern Massachusetts, Jones River Watershed Association and The Nature Conservancy/Massachusetts Chapter. Awards for her work include the Jones River “River Rat,” Cape Cod Bay “Lifesaver”, Briggs Leadership Award from the Wildlands Trust and John O’Connor Grassroots Leadership Award from Clean Water Action.
She enjoys hiking, competitive rowing and knitting.

Carl Wassilie was born and raised in Alaska, rooted deep in salmon culture and Salmon communities. His Yup’ik name is Angut’aq; and has feet in both the Yup’ik and Western worldviews as a Yup’ik Biologist. Since the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Carl has worked on defending salmon ecosystems and the communities and Relations on Mother Earth, that depend on them. As the rapid climate warming in the Arctic has brought natural changes to the marine and terrestrial landscape, Carl has been challenging the military industrial complex expanding North.   Carl has worked with sovereign Tribes, First Nations and other communities across Turtle Island to protect the cultural survival of indigenous cultures by resisting oil, gas and mining companies that attempt to colonize some of the last great ecosystems left on the planet.

Ian Baird is professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also the Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and the coordinator for the Hmong Studies Consortium. His interests include dams in the Mekong River Basin and their impacts on fish and fisheries and Indigeneity in Southeast Asia. He had extensive experience living and working in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. His most recent book is titled, Rise of the Brao: Ethnic Minorities in northeastern Cambodia during Vietnamese Occupation (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020).

Rebecca Kingdon is a recent graduate of the Master of Environment program at the University of Manitoba (Canada), located in the beautiful Treaty 1 territory- the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Ininew, Anishininew, Dene, and Dakota peoples, and the homeland of the Métis nation. She has a background in climate change education and began her Masters as a means of becoming re-educated in genuine solutions that are rooted in community-based efforts and knowledge. Rebecca has been involved with Dam Watch International since its emergence from the Ki Ta Ski Naw conference, and is very honoured to be co-coordinating this work.