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Instituto Raoni: Mayalú Kokometi Waurá Txucarramãe

Mayalú is the first woman to be Executive Coordinator at Instituto Raoni, an organization of Mẽbêngôkre (Kayapó), Trumai, Tapayuna, and Panará peoples defending their rights and territories and strengthening their capacity to protect their autonomy, food systems, economies, and cultures.

She comes from a long line of Kayapó and Waurá warriors in the Xingu River Basin of the Brazilian Amazon whose movements led to the titling of the largest mosaic of Indigenous and protected areas on Earth. She is the daughter of Kayapó Chief Megaron Txucarramãe and grandniece of legendary Chief Raoni Metuktire, who founded the Institute.

Since 2005, she has coordinated Indigenous education and cultural preservation programs for Mẽbêngôkre Kayapó youth, organized critical community health strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has advocated in international spaces for Indigenous land rights, free-flowing rivers, and climate action.

Amazon Watch works alongside Instituto Raoni in the Enough Soy Alliance (ESA), which we helped catalyze in 2025 in the lead-up to the UN’s COP30 conference in the Brazilian Amazon. Thanks to the participation of Mayalú and other Indigenous leaders, the ESA has become a growing force for a transition from industrial agriculture to ecologically sound food systems in Brazil.

As the peoples of the Xingu and Tapajós River Basins continue to resist disastrous industrial projects, the expansion of the agribusiness frontier, and destructive mining, Mayalú is at the helm of her generation’s fight to defend their future, rich cultural traditions, and ancestral food systems that sustain communities and the Amazon rainforest.

Rainforest Action Network: Ginger Cassady

Ginger is the Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network, an organization that preserves forests, protects the climate, and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice.

She has more than two decades of experience building transformational change for people and the planet through global grassroots campaigns and strengthening local movements to protect Earth’s rainforests.

Ginger has been at the forefront of some of RAN’s most significant achievements, and has been a close partner of Amazon Watch in key campaigns, including the largest legal victory ever secured against an oil company when Chevron was found liable for polluting Indigenous territories in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

She is a principled international ally and passionate advocate for Amazon Watch’s work, channeling support and strategic vision to Indigenous movements, and accompanying Amazonian women on the front lines.