Elena Bilheimer, EcoNews Journalist
Greta Thunberg recently made the news again for standing in solidarity with the Saami, the Indigenous Peoples of Norway, against government plans to colonize their traditional grazing areas under the premise of building a wind farm. Thunberg, a 20-year-old Swedish environmentalist, is world-renowned for her activism demanding world leaders take climate action. Additionally, she inspired the international movement Fridays for Future, in which students strike from school to draw attention to the current crisis. While Thunberg has accomplished amazing feats, there are many other young activists doing similar work who haven’t gained the same level of attention or accolade.
This is not a coincidence, as Thunberg comes from a Western country and has intersecting privileges — including her race and class — that have contributed to her acclaim. In an article for the Guardian, Chika Unigwe wrote ‘“…other activists are often referred to in the media as the ‘Greta Thunberg’ of their country, or are said to be following in her footsteps, even in cases where they began their public activism long before she started hers – their own identities and work almost completely erased by a western media that rarely recognises progress outside its own part of the world.” In an effort to mitigate this, here are some other young activists to direct your attention towards.
Danielle Rey Frank (she/her)
- Organization: Save California Salmon
Danielle Rey Frank grew up in Hoopa Valley California, fishing for salmon on the Trinity river. When she was seven years old, she attended her first protest with her father advocating for the removal of the dams on the Hoopa Valley Reservation’s Trinity and Klamath rivers. Pollution, rising water temperatures, the recent droughts, and water shortages caused by diversions have greatly impacted the Chinook salmon population and threatened the tribe’s ability to participate in their world-renewing ceremonies, which are meant to balance the good and the bad in the world. The fight to remove these dams has been intergenerational and has lasted several decades.
Including youth in water advocacy has been a big part of Frank’s activism, and with the guidance of several matriarchs in her community she helped develop her Hoopa Valley High School’s Water Protectors Club. She also worked with Save California Salmon to create a curriculum called Water Advocacy in Native California that is currently being taught in about 30 public schools in California. This curriculum includes information about the ongoing threats to salmon, as well as education about how to position youth as leaders in this fight.
‘“I’m able to take the lessons my matriarchs have taught me into my activism and career,”’ said Frank in an article for Vogue. ‘“My long term goals are to see the public education system change, to include the Indigenous perspective. It’s going to take time to change the public education system—it’s rooted in colonization, and full of lies.”’
Frank has also worked on other projects to combat the negative impacts of colonialism, including working a video series highlighting different Indigenous pathways of success and helping organize an Indigenous Youth Education Conference in L.A. ‘“We are a piece of the land, and it’s a piece of us; When it’s hurting, we’re hurting,”’ said Frank in the Vogue article.
Wanjiku Gatheru (she/her)
- Organization: Black Girl Environmentalist
- Social Media: @wawa_gatheru
Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru is a Kenyan-American “climate storyteller” who is the first Black person in history to receive the Rhodes, Truman, and Udall scholarships. She founded the organization Black Girl Environmentalist, a nonprofit that is committed to empowering and including Black girls, women, and non-binary people in the climate conversation and movement.
Gatheru is passionate about making the climate movement more relevant and accessible, especially for those whose experiences and legacies have been excluded from mainstream environmentalism. ‘“The climate crisis in itself is a political issue in understanding the systems that led us to be here,”’ Gatheru said in a recent article for Girls United. ‘“In my work as an environmental justice scholar and activist, I try to connect the dots between how colonialism, systemic racism and patriarchy have led us to the point where we have a climate crisis.”’
Nina Gualinga (she/her)
- Organization: Mujeres Amazones
- Social Media: @ninagualinga, @mujeresamazonicas
Nina Gualinga grew up in the Ecuadorian Amazon, as part of the Kichwa, the Indigenous People of Sarayaku. When she was around eight years old, an Argentine oil company entered their land against their will, initiating a decade-long battle in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). This experience inspired her to campaign against oil, mining and logging exploitation and become a prominent climate activist. In 2013, Gualinga joined dozens of women from six Indigenous nations (the Kichwa, Shuar, Achua, Shiwiar, Sapara and Waorani), to march to the capital city of Quito to protest oil concessions the Ecuadorian government was selling that would threaten protected forest land in the Amazon.
Since then, Gualinga has played a prominent role in the movement, fighting gender-based violence and defending Indigenous land. Gender-based violence increases in areas where mining operations occur, compounding the negative impacts of extraction. ‘“The work I was doing previously, which was strictly environmental, has now expanded to become about sisterhood, about healing, about inclusion, about love — that is really beautiful to me,” Gualinga said in an article for British Vogue. ‘“This network of Indigenous women carrying out the same work has been really empowering.”’
People can donate to the Legal Fund For Indigenous Women, which helps Indigenous women who have been persecuted for their defense of the rainforest pay their legal fees. Also check out Nina’s sister, Helena Gualinga, who co-founded the organization Polluters Out, a global coalition of youth demanding the exclusion of the fossil fuel industry from every aspect of society.
Elizabeth Wathuti (she/her)
- Organization: Green Generation Initiative
- Social Media: @lizwathuti
Wathuti grew up in one of the most forested regions in Kenya, where she had the opportunity to spend time in nature with the animals, trees, bushes and clean streams that were close to her home. Over the course of her life, Wathuti watched the environment around her change, prompting her to become involved in activism to fight deforestation and the negative impacts of climate change.
Deforestation destroys nearly 3 million hectares of Africa’s forest every year, and climate change-induced disasters like droughts and floods are greatly impacting harvests and agriculture. These crises have resulted in 2 million Kenyans currently facing climate related starvation. In 2016, Wathuti created the Green Generation Initiative, which initially focused on planting trees in schools to help children develop a relationship with nature and become climate aware. The non-profit has since expanded its efforts to create food forests in schools in order to address food insecurity and provide environmental education. Planting trees and food forests provides important ecological benefits, in addition to reinstating food sovereignty for communities.
At COP26, Wathuti spoke about many of the issues Kenyans are facing as a result of wealthy countries and corporations, urging world leaders to fully listen to the experiences of those most impacted. “Please open your hearts,” said Wathuti in her speech. “If you allow yourself to feel it, the heartbreak and the injustice is hard to bear. Sub Saharan Africans are responsible for just half a percent of historical emissions. The children are responsible for none but they are bearing the brunt. We are the adults on this earth right now. And it is our responsibility to ensure that the children have food and water.”
To learn more: www.un.org/en/climatechange/voices-of-change-elizabeth-wathuti
Ellen Miles (she/her)
- Organization: Nature is a Human Right and Dream Green
- Social Media: @octaviachill
Miles is a public speaker, environmental justice activist and guerrilla gardener from London. In an interview with Shado Magazine, Miles described guerrilla gardening as “‘grassroots planting in a public place with a purpose.”’ During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Miles began guerilla gardening after she noticed the disparity in access to nature between different neighborhoods and communities. She began a campaign called Nature is a Human Right, with the guiding belief that access to green space is a universal right, not a luxury. After many unsuccessful attempts to pursue legal avenues of making cities greener, Miles realized that nothing was going to be done if she didn’t do it herself.
Miles began documenting her local efforts to grow plants in her neighborhood online, and soon developed a large following. She has since edited the anthology Nature is a Human Right: Why We’re Fighting For Green in a Grey World (DK 2022), and written the book Get Guerrilla Gardening (DK 2023). She also founded Dream Green, a social enterprise that educates and empowers people to become guerrilla gardeners in their own neighborhoods.
For Miles, guerilla gardening serves many purposes. It increases biodiversity in cities, leading to cleaner air, and also contributes to community building and better mental health for those who live in cities. Nature deprivation has serious consequences, and the impacts of that are felt most by marginalized communities. Land justice and guerilla gardening have a long history, originating in the 1600s when The Diggers — a group of Protestant radicals — illegally cultivated common land to grow food and fight land privatization.
‘“This idea of ownership of land is so ridiculous,”’ said Miles in her interview for Shado Magazine. ‘“Guerrilla gardening is just about taking back what is ours, and using space in ways which are productive, fair and beneficial to the people and the planet, rather than being just low maintenance areas for councils to neglect.”’
Varsha Yajman (she/her)
- Organization: Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity
- Social Media: @varsha.yajman
Varsha Yajman is an Indian-Australian speaker, podcaster and advocate for climate justice and mental health awareness. Yajman began her activism as a teenager as an organizer for School Strike for Climate and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. Varsha is now a coordinator at Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity Network and a paralegal for a firm that conducts climate change litigation. She also co-hosts a podcast called Not to be Controversial, which aspires to create a community for young South Asians to feel represented.
After many experiences in the climate justice movement where she was the only person of color, Yajman’s activism has become more focused on promoting intersectionality and elevating marginalized voices and stories. Becoming involved with the organization Sapna was a turning point for Yajman, as she was able to talk about her own experience as a woman of color and incorporate it into her activism.
“‘It was through Sapna that I understood what it meant to decolonise the environmental movement and work towards justice,”’ said Yajman in an article for Assembly. “‘I realised that the current environment movement is created by and for the privileged. It does not acknowledge or amplify the voices of people of colour, Indigenous people, Black people or those on the front lines of climate change — and that needs to change.”’
Yajman believes that one of the ways this can be remediated is through education. ‘“We need our curriculum to go beyond talking about the effects of plastic pollution and carbon emissions but educate students on the legacy of colonisation and its role in the climate crisis to this day,”’ said Yajman.
Resources
- www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/climate-activists-earth-day
- www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/feature-story/2022/03/five-young-women-on-the-forefront-of-climate-action-across-europe-and-central-asia
- www.greenpeace.org/international/story/53055/10-women-from-the-asia-pacific-region-steering-the-climate-conversation/