Safeguarding Heritage against Climate Crisis

Alfred Brownell is a Liberian lawyer and environmental activist with more than two decades of experience in advocating and defending communities in his native Liberia and West Africa. He has helped create conservation policies, educate and empower populations affected by resource exploitation on their rights as citizens to protect their land from deforestation and development by the government and government-controlled industries. Brownell contributed to protecting 513,500 acres of primary forest of Liberia which constitutes one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. He was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2019 on behalf of Africa.

He also co-founded public interest law non-governmental environmental rights organisation, ‘Green Advocates International’, which pioneered a framework for environmental law within Liberia’s legal system and co-organized ‘Public Interest Lawyers Initiative for West Africa’ to combat climate issues in the region. Passionate for empowering rural communities and women, he also co-organized ‘Alliance for Rural Democracy’ ‘Natural Resources Women Platform’ and - ‘the Mano River Union Civil Society Natural Resources Rights and Governance Platform’ one of West Africa’s largest solidarity movements to raise awareness of corporate and governmental accountability of their operations.

Fatemah Alzelzela is a Kuwaiti youth climate leader and the founder of Eco-Star, which is concerned with the efficient collection of recyclable materials. Her organisation has also been involved in building a database, the first recent study in the field of waste collection and treatment for Kuwait. She is committed to fighting waste collection stereotypes, business community scepticism, and prejudice regarding her age and gender in Kuwait and continues to increase awareness and interactions with this issue within Kuwait and internationally. The company has since formed partnerships with schools, teaching children about recycling, threats to the environment and how young people can act for nature.

Alzelzela won first place in the projects and innovation competition We Unite in 2018 and was the youngest sustainability leader in the SEEDS Platform. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) named her a Young Champion of the Earth in 2020.

Ammar Khammash is a Jordanian architect, photographer, designer, and artist. With the conviction that “the site is the architect”, through the work of his studio Khammash Architects he shapes his projects around the concept of understanding the ecosystem of the site. He acknowledges the toll that human intervention can have on nature with a constant attempt to maintain the subtle balance and coherence between the human-made and natural environments.

Khammash was a laureate of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2019. He was recognized for his dedication to interdisciplinary scientific research, as well as his artisanal and artistic approaches to architecture. The international award recognizes five architects each year who have contributed to sustainable development and created innovative and participatory approaches to meet societal needs. Some of Khammash’s projects include the Wild Jordan Center, the Royal Academy for Nature Conservation, as well as archaeological sites such as the Church of the Apostles in Madaba and the hot spring of Al Himmeh in Mukhaibeh.

Bianca Jagger has been a leading figure in the campaign for human rights, social and economic justice and environmental protection throughout the world for over 30 years. Jagger is the founder and chair of The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation (BJHRF), which is dedicated to defending human rights, ending violence against women and girls, addressing the threat of climate change, supporting the rights of indigenous peoples and defending the rights of future generations. It achieves these aims through research and advocacy: campaigning, fact-finding missions, reports, publications, lectures, debates, conferences and public meetings. The BJHRF is also a member of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

Ms Jagger has participated in many fact-finding missions around the world to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, to remote rainforests in Brazil and Ecuador, as well as to Afghanistan, Bosnia, India, Iraq, Kosovo, Pakistan and Zambia. She is also a member of Amnesty International's Director’s Leadership Council. Her work has been recognized through several awards, including the 2004 Right Livelihood Award and the 2006 Office of the Americas Peace and Justice Award. Jagger is also a Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, Member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council of Amnesty International USA and Trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust. In 2004 she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the Fight Against the Death Penalty by the Council of Europe.

Carissa Klein is an Australian Research Council postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. She works in conservation science, notably, land-sea conservation planning, ocean zoning and protected areas design, social equity in conservation, and sustainable seafood. Governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use her work to inform marine conservation and sustainable management decisions. She specializes in integrating social, economic and ecological information to develop solutions that improve outcomes for nature and people. She is particularly passionate about conserving marine and coastal ecosystems.

Klein was awarded the 2013 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE) – an annual award that recognizes young scientists from APEC member states. Klein was selected for her research with the University of Queensland, which addresses the fragile balance between ocean conservation and sustainable livelihoods.

Neeshad Shafi is a climate advocate, and energy and policy expert, living in Doha, Qatar. He is a design engineer in the water and wastewater industry, with a Master’s in environmental engineering. He is focused on environmental and climate change policy in the Gulf and Middle East. His core areas of expertise include analysing global environment, sustainability and climate policies. In March 2019, he was named in the Apolitical List of the 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy 2019.

Małgorzata Górska is a Polish activist and a conservationist with the Polish Society for the Protection of Birds, concerned with the protection of birds and their habitats, mainly those of international importance. Gorska was the European winner of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize, a ‘green Nobel’ that is awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists to honour their achievements and leadership. She fought to stop a controversial highway through the Rospuda Valley in Poland, one of Europe’s last true wilderness areas. This led to a significant legal precedent for environmental protection.

The sites were already protected as national and landscape parks, and were included in the European ecological network, Natura 2000, following Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004. After eight years of campaigning, Gorska and her fellow campaigners were successful in getting the Polish Government to recognize the legal protection of these nature-rich areas and changing the entire Polish section of the Via Baltica expressway to an area that was much less harmful to biodiversity.

Hans Cosmas Ngoteya was among the first group of grantees selected for the National Geographic Young Explorer Leadership and Development Programme in 2016, comprising changemakers from around the world working to protect the wonders of our world. Ngoteya was awarded a grant to promote human and wildlife coexistence in Tanzania.

Ngoteya designed and worked on a capacity-building project called Vijana Mazingira (VIMA), ‘Youths and the Environment’, a youth-focused project providing conservation education and alternative livelihood options to young people in a remote region south of Katavi National Park in western Tanzania.

He is a co-founder of Ngoteya Wild, a Tanzanian conservation and storytelling company, and Landscape and Conservation Mentors Organization (LCMO), which focuses on promoting, supporting and improving community livelihoods through sustainable environmental practices. He is also a founder of Tanzania Wildlife Media Association (TaWiMA), bringing together professional wildlife content creators with the aim of marketing, promoting and educating about Tanzania wildlife resources.