Youth Leaders Protecting Biodiversity Share Their Wisdom
Planet Women celebrated International Biodiversity Day 2023 with Isabella Cortes Lara and Roshan Khan, two grant partners Planet Women is proud to support. Below you can find more information and the resources they shared with us!
We are still soaring from the wise and heartfelt words of Roshan Khan and Isabella Cortes Lara. They had so many brilliant lessons to share, but here are a couple highlights:
Do you work from a place of love, for yourself and all living beings, if you’re trying to stay an activist for the long term! Recharge your own heart to keep yourself energized with art, music, martial arts, nature time, whatever you are passionate about - and don’t forget to rest.
Scientists pinpointed 1610 as the start of the Anthropocene Era when humans started drastically impacting the Earth. Can you recall why this date is significant? (Hint: it links climate change to Indigenous justice.) Find out here!
We are used to seeing depictions of a dystopian future—but we must be able to envision a thriving future in order to build one. Solarpunk can provide an inspiring alternative. (See Rosie's resources below!)
Support Planet Women and invest in leaders, like Isabella and Rosie, so they can continue protecting our Earth and all living beings!
Watch the recording from 2023 International Biodiversity Day
Thank you to Isabella Cortes Lara AKA Isavibe for contributing her artwork to the event. See more at isavibe.co.
Looking to learn more? Scroll down to see hand-picked resources from Rosie and Isabella below!
ROSHAN (ROSIE) KHAN
Co-founder of Gen Z for the Trees, Rainforest Partnership
and Board Member, Women for Weapons Trade Transparency
Rosie (she/they) is the co-lead of Gen Z for the Trees, Rainforest Partnership's youth branch, which is shifting the narrative on climate change and researching the drivers of deforestation. She is also a founding board member of Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, a research-advocacy collective working on issues of militarism. Rosie recently graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a quintuple-major in Plan II Honors, Government, Economics, International Relations & Global Studies, and Chinese. Starting this fall, she will be pursuing an international Master of Environmental Policy from Duke University in Kunshan, China, and hopes to work at the intersection of global trade in forest risk commodities and China's environmental policies.
Rosie is interested in building the movement for environmental and social justice by reshaping the narrative around economic development, studying how governments should protect human rights, and calling on creative visions to become our solutions to the climate crisis. Outside of academic and career pursuits, she plays the piano, tends to windowsills full of plants, and teaches martial arts with Texas Wushu.
Rosie’s resources:
Donate to Rainforest Partnership’s urgent campaign to expand and launch projects in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Mapping Corporate Palm Oil: Gen Z for the Trees Uncovers over 300 Unlisted Mills
Rosie spoke on Sheri Hinish's Supply Chain Revolution podcast
Get to know Solarpunk, “a movement that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community.” (Wikipedia)
The Future of Land Use and Climate Action in Latin America: An Initiative 20x20 Webinar, specifically the keynote presentation by Carlos Manuel Rodriguez Echandí, former Minister of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica and recently appointed CEO of the GEF
The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Lewis and Maslin is the book that taught me about the 1610 Orbis Spike.
Learn more about Women for Weapons Trade Transparency and their independently published reports, like “The 1122 Program: An Investigative Analysis”
ISABELLA CORTES LARA
Director of Conservation, Women for Conservation
and
Board Member, Planet Women
Isabella (she/her) is a passionate conservationist, committed feminist, performer and artist of indigenous ancestry born in Popayán, Cauca, Colombia. She is the Director of Conservation for Women for Conservation, a nonprofit that empowers women in rural communities around Key Biodiversity Areas and directs two of their nature reserves in northern Colombia. She’s also a board member for Planet Women.
As a creator, she’s known as ISAVIBE, a prism that refracts her light on what she deeply cares about with a mix of magical realism and psychedelia. Her art appears in murals, galleries, nature reserves and digitally. She uses her creative forces to advocate for endangered species protection, the rights of the LGBTQ community, rights of indigenous communities, reproductive rights, and the conservation of ecosystems. She has a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Management and Conservation Ecology from West Virginia University and is getting an MS in Natural Resource Conservation at University of Kent in England. Isabella also has the great honor of being the namesake for a species of hummingbird (Eriocnemis isabellae) listed on the IUCN Red List as Critically Endangered.
Isabella’s resources:
Check out the Women for Conservation website to learn more about their work!
Follow Women for Conservation on social: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr
Check out ISAVIBE, Isabella’s personal website with her art here.
Listen to her Aguita de Paramo music here.
Isabella’s profile on LinkedIn here.