Joan Carling has made it her life’s mission to fight for the rights of her fellow Indigenous peoples. She has led anti-mining campaigns in the Philippines and faced death threats. Her work has since expanded to a global scale, where she now connects with and convenes Indigenous rights organizations while helping raise funds for their grassroots campaigns. In early October, Carling won the Right Livelihood Award for raising Indigenous voices in the face of global ecological breakdown, and her leadership in defending people, lands and culture.” She became the first Indigenous Filipino to win the award, which is often referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize. Joan Carling with Indigenous women from Cambodia. Image courtesy of IPRI. Carling is from the Kankanaey tribe of the Philippines’ Mountain Province, which is part of the landlocked and mountainous Cordillera administrative region in the country’s north. Cordillera, known for its rich mineral deposits, has attracted the interests of mining corporations. The region’s lush forests and water resources also continuously face threats of deforestation and destruction due to logging and development projects such as large dams. It was the Cordilleran people’s fight against the construction of several megadams that served as Carling’s political awakening. For more than three decades, she’s led local and international campaigns to address discrimination and challenges faced by Indigenous groups. Currently, she’s executive director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI) and chair of the board at the Right Energy Partnership with Indigenous Peoples and the Indigenous Peoples of Asia Solidarity…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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