Nemonte Nenquimo Says We Need to Listen to Mother Earth

Nemonte Nenquimo believes that Mom Nature is sending us a message—we simply must hear.

“She’s crying. She’s shouting. She’s screaming. She’s saying that I’m when the tides are rising, the rivers are rising. There are droughts. And that is my language. That is my alarm to you.”

Nenquimo, an Indigenous chief of the Waorani peoples in Ecuador and founding father of the nonprofits Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines, has centered a lot of her activism on preserving the Amazon from deforestation and oil extraction.

The warning indicators of the local weather disaster are a reminder of our collective duty to the Earth, she stated in her TIME Earth Award acceptance speech on Wednesday night, after the glory was introduced to her by Peter Seligmann, CEO of nonprofit Nia Tero and chairman of Conservation Worldwide.

“My individuals are listening so carefully to Mom Earth, they usually know that Mom Earth isn’t asking that a lot from us,” Nenquimo stated. “She’s not asking to be saved. She’s asking one thing quite simple. She’s asking that we respect her.”

In 2019, Nenquimo led a lawsuit towards the Ecuadorian authorities that resulted within the safety of 500,000 acres of the Amazonian rainforest from oil drilling and set a authorized precedent for Indigenous communities throughout the nation. 

She believes that significant motion would require help from everybody—not simply communities on the entrance line of the local weather disaster. “What provides me hope is being right here along with all of you, and understanding that we are able to struggle collectively,” she stated. “I’m not asking you all to attend for Indigenous folks to steer this struggle towards the local weather disaster. What I’m asking is for all of us to hitch collectively and battle the local weather disaster collectively. The water, the earth, the air wants our help.”

TIME Earth Awards was introduced by Impress Local weather Options, Amazon, Deloitte, Delta Air Strains.