LEO CERDA West Coast Speaking Tour: Oil, Indigenous Rights and Creating Just Sustainable Societies

LEO CERDA West Coast Speaking Tour: Oil, Indigenous Rights and Creating Just Sustainable Societies

When: Friday, November 21st @ 4:00 pm
Where: Portland State University
Smith Bldg. Rm 338
1825 SW Broadway

For information on the other dates and places of the tour please visit Rising Tide North America's website @ www.risingtidenorthamerica.com

Leonardo Cerda is an Ecuadorian youth climate, energy and sustainability activist studying International Relations and Political Sciences at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador.

Leo's been involved in resistance movements against the oil industry in Ecuador since he was fourteen years old. He and others in his community starting doing workshops around the Amazon at that time, in different indigenous villages, discussing the causes and the future consequences of the oil industry, it's relationship to climate change and the many other devastating consequences to people and the environment.

Leo's been working on issues related to environmental protection, people's sovereignty over land, coal mining, indigenous resistance, organic products cooperative and others ever since. Currently Leo is part of an organization called FAOICIN that is running a campaign to promote sustainable projects as an alternative for communities, associations, and other indigenous social actors to promote the recovery of ancestral customs. He's also in charge of the human rights club at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito!

He'll be discussing his communities work in Ecuador, the damage done by the oil industry, and efforts to build a more just, sustainable society in Ecuador.

Hope to see you there. Peace!