Executive Committee

Mari Margil – Associate Director
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (www.celdf.org)
United States

Mari Margill conducts campaign and organizational strategy, media and public outreach, and leads the organization’s fundraising efforts. CELDF has assisted over 100 communities across the U.S. to draft and adopt laws banning environmentally destructive corporate activities such as natural gas drilling and factory farming. In 2008, she assisted Ecuador’s constitutional assembly on the re-writing of their constitution to include Rights of Nature.

Prior to joining CELDF, Mari was the director of corporate transformation for Corporate Ethics International. She received her Master’s degree in Public Policy and Urban Planning from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mari is the co-host of the syndicated weekly radio program Democracy Matters. She is a co-author of The Public Health or the Bottom Line published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Cormac Cullinan LLB, LLM – Director
Enact International (www.Enact-International.com)
South Africa

Cormac Cullinan is an author, practising environmental attorney and governance expert who has worked on environmental governance issues in more than 20 countries. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa and is a director of a specialist environmental and green business law firm (www.cullinans.co.za) and of the governance consultancy, EnAct International (www.enact-international.com ).

His groundbreaking book “Wild Law A Manifesto for Earth Justice” has played a significant role in informing and inspiring a growing international movement to recognise rights for Nature. In 2008 he was included in Planet Savers. 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists, a book that profiles environmentalists throughout history. At the invitation of Bolivia, Cormac spoke at the 2009 Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth which was proclaimed on 22 April 2010 by the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Environment in Bolivia. In September 2010 he played a leading role in establishing a Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and currently sits on the Executive Committee of the Alliance.

Natalia Greene, Political Program Coordinator
Fundación Pachamama (www.Pachamama.org.ec)
Ecuador

Natalia is a climate change activist based in Ecuador. Natalia works as the Political Program Coordinator at Fundacion Pachamama. She was actively involved in the recent Constitution process in Ecuador, particularly with the ‘Rights to Nature’ clause and the role of civil society and indigenous people in the process. The Ecuadorian constitution is the first in the world’s history to grant legal rights to nature, and to allow individuals to sue on nature’s behalf in courts.

Natalia collaborates with the environmental and indigenous aspects of the Yasuni-ITT Initiative that the Ecuadorian government promotes to leave the petroleum of the biodiverse Yasuni National Park permanently underground, notably encouraging the participation of indigenous people as the real stakeholders.

Bill Twist, CEO and Co-Founder
The Pachamama Alliance (www.Pachamama.org)
United States

Bill Twist is one of the co-founders of The Pachamama Alliance and serves as its chief executive officer.

Bill has been the president of The Pachamama Alliance since 1996. Prior to The Pachamama Alliance, Bill had an extensive background in business. He worked in management consulting, equipment leasing and financial services industries since 1970. Bill has an undergraduate degree in engineering and a masters degree in business administration.

Vandana Shiva, Founder
Navdanya www.Navdanya.org
India

Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 1978 with the doctoral dissertation “Hidden variables and locality in quantum theory.”

She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as the alter-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices, as is evident from her interview in the book Vedic Ecology (by Ranchor Prime) that draws upon India’s Vedic heritage. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundación IDEAS, Spain’s Socialist Party’s think tank.

She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993.

Michelle Maloney
Australian Wild Law Alliance (www.wildlaw.org.au)
Griffth University
Australia

Michelle Maloney (BA/LLB (Hons) ANU) is an environmental lawyer and activist currently working on international and national cooperative research projects at the Griffith Climate Change Response Program in Queensland, Australia. Michelle is Co-Founder and National Convenor of the Australian Wild Law Alliance (AWLA) and is on the Managing Committee of the Queensland Environmental Defender’s Office. She is a PhD Candidate at the Griffith University’s Socio-Legal Research Centre and her research interests include Earth Jurisprudence, sustainable consumption and environmental justice.