About the Show
Bioneers
Bioneers brings bold innovators with break-through solutions to the airwaves with our eighth annual radio series. "Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature" airs in more than 250 cities in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Ireland and is free to all stations, distributed by WFMT Radio Network.
On this episode of Bioneers, Amazon Watch founder Atossa Soltani and visionary political leader Marina Silva, Brazil’s past Minister of the Environment, are supporting local indigenous peoples to protect their lifeways and the fragile Rainforest ecosystem that sustains our planet.
Featured speakers/guests:
Atossa Soltani is the founder of Amazon Watch. Since 1991, Ms. Soltani has been leading international campaigns in defense of the world’s tropical rainforests. Before Amazon Watch, Ms.Soltani directed campaigns at the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) to end logging in endangered ecosystems. Ms.Soltani began her environmental career in the late 1980’s as Conservation Director for the City of Santa Monica where she designed and directed an award-winning resource conservation program. She is fluent in Spanish.
Maria Osmarina Marina Silva Vaz de Lima (born February 8, 1958) is a Brazilian environmentalist and politician. Ms. Silva was a colleague of Chico Mendes, who was assassinated for defending the Amazon environment. She was a member of the Worker’s Party (PT) until August 19, 2009 and served as a senator before becoming environmental minister in 2003. In 1996, Ms. Silva won the Goldman Environmental Prize for South & Central America. In 2007, the United Nations Environment Program named her one of the Champions of the Earth and the 2009 Sophie Prize.Running in the 2010 Brazilian elections for the Green Party (PV), she earned 19.33% of the popular votes.
In 2010, she, along with Cécile Duflot, Monica Frassoni, Elizabeth May and Renate Künast, were named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers,for taking Green mainstream. In 2012 she was one of the eight people chosen to carry the flag into opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games.
