Emmanuela Shinta

Emmanuela Shinta, a young Indigenous activist from the Dayak group and founder of the Ranu Welum Foundation, opened a plenary on REDD+ – a U.N. program on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation – on a personal note. In a moving story, she shared how her native landscape in the Indonesian Borneo went from being a biodiversity hotspot and life-giving sanctuary for her ancestors to being dubbed one of the world’s most polluted places in recent years