Theme: Women’s Leadership
Thursday, November 11th
For millennia Indigenous communities have been guardians of their environments, protecting flora and fauna, using their traditional knowledge and wisdom passed down over generations to live in balance within their ecosystems. Today Indigenous peoples safeguard 80% of the biodiversity left in the world, and protecting those lands and waters is crucial to mitigating the climate crisis, because those biodiverse areas are among the planet’s major carbon sinks. Indigenous peoples are the ancestral owners of nearly half of the intact forest left across the entire Amazon Basin. Nemonte Nenquimo, a leader from the Waorani community in Ecuador and a founding member of Indigenous-led nonprofit organization Ceibo Alliance and its partner, Amazon Frontlines, will discuss why respecting Indigenous people’s internationally recognized rights to decide the future of their territories, cultures and lives is critically urgent for the protection of our world’s most important rainforest, our climate, and life on our planet.
November 11th | 11:15 am to 11:32 am
Keynote
Nemonte Nenquimo
Co-Founder | Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines
Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous activist from the Ecuadorian Amazon, first female president of her tribe (the Waorani of Pastaza Province) and co-founder of the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance and its sister organization Amazon Frontlines, was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people on Earth in 2020 (the only Indigenous woman on the list) and won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize among other major awards, for her struggles against the ravages of oil drilling in her people’s ancestral lands.
A coproduction of WECAN and Bioneers Everywoman’s Leadership program
As the IPCC reports, climate destabilization is happening far faster than even the most pessimistic scientists had anticipated. The chaotic results are now visible to everyone around the globe. The situation is urgent, and failure to take immediate large-scale action would be catastrophic, but extractive industries and corrupt governments are barreling ahead with business as usual, wreaking havoc on our planet’s water, air, lands and living creatures, including people. Women, BIPOC and youth leaders are taking many of the strongest stands and implementing innovative tactics in this, the most important, crucial, existential struggle in history. Join three visionary climate justice leaders as they share their strategic insights. With: Eriel Deranger, Indigenous Climate Action; Leila Salazar-Lopez, Amazon Watch; Osprey Orielle Lake, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). Hosted by Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons.
November 11th | 12:45 pm to 2:00 pm
Panelists
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger
Co-Founder and Executive Director | Indigenous Climate Action
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation), a leading global figure in Indigenous Rights and Climate Justice activism, is the co-founder and Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action and is a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change. She also sits on a number of boards of notable non-profit organizations (including Bioneers) and activist groups. She has organized divest movements, lobbied government officials, led mass mobilizations against the fossil fuel industry, written extensively for a range of publications and been featured in documentary films (including Elemental).
Leila Salazar-López
Executive Director | Amazon Watch
Leila Salazar-López, the Executive Director of Amazon Watch, has worked for 20+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and the climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and Green Corps. She is also a Greenpeace Voting Member and a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America.
Osprey Orielle Lake
Founder and Executive Director | Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International
Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, works with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a democratized energy future. She also serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.
Nina Simons
Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers
Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.
Friday, November 12th
As ecological destruction, climate destabilization, the global pandemic, and all forms of historical and current injustice are converging to initiate a near-death experience for our species, join a group of wise women to discuss why the combination of honoring, respecting and learning from nature, being motivated by a deep quest for justice, and cultivating the leadership of women can provide a potent, three-pronged strategic path for getting us to a world we want. With: Osprey Orielle Lake, founder/Executive Director, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, author of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature; Amisha Ghadiali, a UK-based intuitive therapist, meditation and yoga teacher, host and founder of the podcast and community, The Future Is Beautiful, and author of Intuition; Naelyn Pike, renowned young Chiricahua Apache activist. Hosted by: Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers.
November 12th | 12:45 pm to 2:00 pm
Panelists
Amisha Ghadiali
Podcast Host | The Future Is Beautiful
Amisha Ghadiali, a facilitator, speaker and writer with extensive backgrounds in sustainable fashion, socially conscious entrepreneurship, activism, meditation and yoga, is host of the globally-acclaimed podcast The Future Is Beautiful. She has led many retreats, workshops and rituals around the world, and designed programs such as: The Heart of Transformation, Wild Grace, and a residential fellowship in community facilitation leadership. She also hosts an online membership community—Presence: for Creative, Connected and Courageous Living; and works one-to-one in her Presence Leadership Mentoring program.
Osprey Orielle Lake
Founder and Executive Director | Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International
Osprey Orielle Lake, founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, works with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a democratized energy future. She also serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is the author of the award-winning book, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature.
Naelyn Pike
Activist and Fighter for Indigenous Rights | Apache Stronghold
Naelyn Pike, 22, is a renowned young Chiricahua Apache activist and lifelong fighter for Indigenous Rights who follows in the footsteps of her grandfather who founded the Apache Stronghold to protect their people’s sacred sites and rights. At age 13 Pike was the youngest Indigenous girl to testify before Congress. Today she continues to battle corporations and political leaders whose actions damage the Earth as she fights for environmental sustainability and Indigenous rights at the local, state, and national levels.
Nina Simons
Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers
Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.
Saturday, November 13th
Bioneers brings together a very diverse, discerning, engaged and reflective community, and the curated conversations around crucial topics we’ve been hosting recently (“Community Conversations”) have proven highly popular and stimulating. Each session begins with a very brief presentation by a noted thought leader as a “conversation starter” to frame the topic, followed by structured group discussion. At the end, a talented spoken word artist “harvests” the essence of what was said in a poetic synthesis and performs it for the group.
Global Warming Woman is a totem for our changing world—a fierce, protective warrior, deeply connected to Earth Mother, seeking balance on the Hoop of Life. Right now, she’s on fire, kindling the injustices of the past, demanding respect and blazing a passionate path for the future. Join us to look at the collective and generational history of suppression and misuse of power, and how it impacts our bodies, our health, our relations, and our Earth.
Together, we’ll explore strategies and practices for cooling the fire within, for conflict resolution, for addressing addictions, for safe anger release, and for reconciliation. With conversation-starter Ruby Gibson, Th.D. (Lakota, Ojibway, Mestiza), co-founder and Executive Director of Freedom Lodge and author of My Body, My Earth: The Practice of Somatic Archaeology. Facilitated by: Amy Lenzo, weDialogue and the World Café Community Foundation; David Shaw, Santa Cruz Permaculture and UCSC Right Livelihood College. Harvester: Jahan Khalighi, spoken word poet, youth educator and community arts organizer.
November 13th | 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Panelists
Ruby Gibson
Executive Director | Freedom Lodge
Ruby Gibson, Th.D., of Lakota, Ojibwe, Mestizo and Mediterranean descent, is an educator, researcher, author and leading practitioner of Somatics, as well as a traditional healer. Executive Director of the non-profit, Freedom Lodge, which provides historical trauma healing to Indigenous populations internationally, she has done groundbreaking work bridging bodywork, Transpersonal Psychology, traditional healing and spirituality for 35 years. Author of My Body My Earth, The Practice of Somatic Archaeology, she has developed two new healing modalities: Somatic Archaeology© and Generational Brainspotting™.
Jahan Khalighi
Programs & Volunteer Manager | Chapter 510
Jahan Khalighi, a spoken word poet, youth educator and community arts organizer, leads creative writing workshops for personal and collective transformation in a wide range of settings, from juvenile detention centers to classrooms, from community centers to boardrooms. He currently manages programs at Chapter 510, a youth creative writing and publishing program in Oakland, CA. Jahan has performed widely, including at: TEDxSonoma, YBCA, Mission Cultural Center, Bioneers and Esalen; and some of his work has been published in Whoa Nelly Press.
Amy Lenzo
| weDialogue and the World Café Community Foundation
Amy Lenzo, who pioneered the World Cafe online process and has hosted hundreds of online World Cafes with people from all over the world since then, has been hosting conscious online engagement for over a decade and has been a cutting-edge leader in creating distinctly human interactive online spaces that help us connect with ourselves, each other and the natural world.
David Shaw
Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture and UCSC Right Livelihood College
David Shaw, a whole systems designer, facilitator, educator, and musician, founded Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College, a partnership with the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” He supports communities locally and globally to transform their shared future through strategic dialogue and collective action.
Although we’ve all been taught that “being professional” means suppressing our honest emotions while we’re at work, research shows that this actually leads to a loss in productivity, diminished creativity, and crushing job dissatisfaction. The workplace kicked out the emotions more than a century ago, and as a result has built unhealthy and dysfunctional environments ever since. Because of this, most of us have only worked in “unintentional communities” in which our social and emotional needs are not respected, as well as our needs for basic respect and self-determination. As we all grapple with our pandemic and post-pandemic reality, it’s high time to welcome the genius of the emotions back into the workplace so that we can create respectful, naturally motivating and emotionally well-regulated environments where people and projects can thrive. With: Karla McLaren, M.Ed., social science researcher, founder/CEO of Emotion Dynamics LLC award-winning author of several books, including: The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace.
November 13th | 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm
Panelists
Karla McLaren
Founder and CEO | Emotion Dynamics LLC
Karla McLaren, M.Ed., an award-winning author and social science researcher, is a leading figure in the study of healthy empathy and the revaluing of “negative” emotions to help people open new pathways of self-awareness, deep healing, and effective communication. Founder and CEO of Emotion Dynamics LLC and developer of the Empathy Academy online learning site, she is the author of: The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing the Vital Intelligence in Your Workplace; Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of this Vital Emotion; The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill; The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You; and many other titles and courses.
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