We Will be Jaguars
Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani, Protecting the Amazon Rainforest
By Water for Life, Censored News, Sept. 21, 2024
2020 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Nemonte Nenquimo, holds up a hand covered in oil (Photo: Mitch Anderson for Amazon Frontlines)
An Indigenous Steward and Leader
Nemonte Nenquimo, 33, is an indigenous Waorani woman who has committed herself to defending her ancestral territory, ecosystem, culture, economy, and way of life. She co-founded the Ceibo Alliance—an indigenous organization—in 2015 in order to fight back against the planned oil concessions, and was elected president of CONCONAWEP, an organization that represents the Waorani of the Pastaza province. Nenquimo has a 4-year-old daughter and lives with her extended family in the village of Nemonpare.
Our friend Nemonte Nenquimo, a leader of the Waorani people of Ecuador, telling stories from her memoir, “We Will Be Jaguars.” The book, written with her husband Mitch Anderson, about the fight to protect the Amazon rainforest, is a must read. The conversation was masterfully guided by actor, author, teacher Peter Coyote.
Nemonte and Mitch have more readings coming up in San Francisco and Corte Madera later this week. New York City is next week!
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'We Will Be Jaguars' By Abrams Books, publisher From a fearless, internationally acclaimed activist comes an impassioned memoir about an indigenous childhood, a clash of cultures, and the fight to save the Amazon rainforest. We Will Be Jaguars is an astonishing memoir by an equally astonishing woman. Nenquimo is a winner of TIME magazine’s Earth Award, and MS. magazine named this book among the Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024. Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest—one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s—Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing. She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. At age fourteen, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as a spear—honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries. In We Will Be Jaguars, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself. https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/we-will-not-be-saved |
Meet Nemonte Nenquimo
By Goldman Prize
By Goldman Prize
Nemonte Nenquimo led an indigenous campaign and legal action that resulted in a court ruling protecting 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil extraction. Nenquimo’s leadership and the lawsuit set a legal precedent for indigenous rights in Ecuador, and other tribes are following in her footsteps to protect additional tracts of rainforest from oil extraction.
Guardians of the Amazon Rainforest
Despite its relatively small area, Ecuador is one of the 10 most biodiverse countries on Earth. It contains pristine Amazon rainforests with rich wildlife, complex ecosystems, and significant populations of indigenous communities. Long protectors of this territory, the Waorani people are traditional hunter-gatherers organized into small clan settlements. They are among the most recently contacted peoples—reached in 1958 by American missionaries—and number around 5,000 today. Waorani territory overlaps with Yasuni National Park, which, according to the Smithsonian, “may have more species of life than anywhere else in the world.”
Since the 1960s, oil exploration, logging, and road building have had a disastrous impact on Ecuador’s primary rainforests, which now cover less than 15% of the country’s land mass. Extractive industries have increasingly driven deforestation, human rights abuses, public health crises (including spikes in rates of cancer, birth defects, and miscarriages), and negative impacts on indigenous peoples’ territories and cultures. For decades, oil companies have dumped waste into local rivers and contaminated land, while displacing indigenous people from their land.
Today, 80% of the Waorani population currently lives on one-tenth of its original ancestral lands.
In 2018, Ecuador’s Minister of Hydrocarbons announced an auction of 16 new oil concessions, covering seven million acres of primary Amazon forest, in efforts to attract investment by multinational oil companies, including Exxon and Shell. The concessions were located on the titled land of Waorani, Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Shiwiar, Andoa, and Sápara nations—in direct violation of indigenous rights. One area overlaps almost entirely with Waorani territory.
Guardians of the Amazon Rainforest
Despite its relatively small area, Ecuador is one of the 10 most biodiverse countries on Earth. It contains pristine Amazon rainforests with rich wildlife, complex ecosystems, and significant populations of indigenous communities. Long protectors of this territory, the Waorani people are traditional hunter-gatherers organized into small clan settlements. They are among the most recently contacted peoples—reached in 1958 by American missionaries—and number around 5,000 today. Waorani territory overlaps with Yasuni National Park, which, according to the Smithsonian, “may have more species of life than anywhere else in the world.”
Since the 1960s, oil exploration, logging, and road building have had a disastrous impact on Ecuador’s primary rainforests, which now cover less than 15% of the country’s land mass. Extractive industries have increasingly driven deforestation, human rights abuses, public health crises (including spikes in rates of cancer, birth defects, and miscarriages), and negative impacts on indigenous peoples’ territories and cultures. For decades, oil companies have dumped waste into local rivers and contaminated land, while displacing indigenous people from their land.
Today, 80% of the Waorani population currently lives on one-tenth of its original ancestral lands.
In 2018, Ecuador’s Minister of Hydrocarbons announced an auction of 16 new oil concessions, covering seven million acres of primary Amazon forest, in efforts to attract investment by multinational oil companies, including Exxon and Shell. The concessions were located on the titled land of Waorani, Shuar, Achuar, Kichwa, Shiwiar, Andoa, and Sápara nations—in direct violation of indigenous rights. One area overlaps almost entirely with Waorani territory.
2020 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Nemonte Nenquimo, holds up a hand covered in oil (Photo: Mitch Anderson for Amazon Frontlines)An Indigenous Steward and Leader
Nemonte Nenquimo, 33, is an indigenous Waorani woman who has committed herself to defending her ancestral territory, ecosystem, culture, economy, and way of life. She co-founded the Ceibo Alliance—an indigenous organization—in 2015 in order to fight back against the planned oil concessions, and was elected president of CONCONAWEP, an organization that represents the Waorani of the Pastaza province. Nenquimo has a 4-year-old daughter and lives with her extended family in the village of Nemonpare.
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