Dr. Elisabeth Ferrero
Dr. Elisabeth Ferrero, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Ethics at Saint Thomas University in Miami, Florida. She was closely involved with the Earth Charter process since 1998, when she worked on the official Italian translation of Draft II of the Earth Charter and started an Italian Earth Charter National Committee. Along with Dr. Joe Holland, she is the author of The Earth Charter: A Study Book of Reflection For Action [Redwoods Press, 2002], which has been translated into Italian, Portuguese and German. She has held conferences and seminars at various universities.
Among the conferences which she has organized are the ten Spirituality & Sustainability Conferences in Assisi and Rome. These were born in the early 1990s as part of SAFE (Study Abroad For Earth) programs. In Assisi, students learned from scholars such as Tom Berry & Brian Swimme.
SAFE programs received the Rodale Foundation Award in 1992 (out of 1,600 colleges and universities which applied) due to St Thomas University’s most innovative environmental education programs.
International scholars came to the S&S conferences, working side by side with students who continued their studies through the SAFE programs. They learned from one another and transformed their consciousness.
The most recent conference was held in June 2023 in Assisi and Rome.
Rick Clugston
Rick Clugston (United States) was Executive Director of the Center for Respect of Life and Environment in Washington D.C., from 1991-2008. There he directed a variety of initiatives, including the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (1997-2007); the Sustainable Universities Assessment and Evaluation Project (1996-2005); Theological Education to Meet the Environmental Challenge (1992-1999); Earth Charter USA (1996-2006); and the Soul of Agriculture Project (1994-2001).
Dr. Clugston participated in the Earth Charter drafting committee meetings and served on the Earth Charter International Steering Committee where he chaired the fundraising committee. He now serves on the Earth Charter International Council, and the boards of the Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation (Maine, USA) and the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education (Florida, USA). Dr. Clugston is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Education for Sustainable Development (Sage Publications).
He was a co-founder of the Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership. Prior to coming to Washington, Dr. Clugston worked for the University of Minnesota for 11 years, first as a faculty member and later as a strategic planner. He received his doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Minnesota and his master’s in Human Development from the University of Chicago.
SSGN originated from past participants in the ten Spirituality & Sustainability Conferences held in Assisi, Italy, the home of St. Francis and St. Clare who were devoted to all the beautiful creatures of our Creator & beloved Creation. These conferences were organized in Assisi, Italy over the last two decades by Dr. Elisabetta Maria Fererro, Professor Emerita of Ethics at St. Thomas University, and Dr. Rick Clugston.
Ken Kitatani
Ken Kitatani currently serves as the Managing Director of the ICEED. He is former co-chair and current member of the advisory board of the Center for Earth Ethics and serves on the boards of the UN Committee of NGOs, Society for Conservation Biology, and is a Permanent Observer to the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance, and the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the UNFCCC. Ken is an advisor to the Vatican Scholas Occurrentes Foundation, the Loka Initiative of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin, the Unification Fund of ICV Group, and is a senior advisor to General Russel Honore for Indigenous Affairs.
Timothy L. Van Meter
Ph.D., Emory University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Graduate Division of Religion, 2003
M.Div., Emory University, Candler School of Theology, 1996
B.S., Tennessee Technological University, 1985
Areas of expertise
Teaching and research related to the spiritual and vocational aspirations of youth and young adults including youth cultures, popular culture, spiritual practices, ecology, justice and peace movements, communal movements, alternative forms of church and educational theory.
Tom Pliske
For the past fifty years, Thomas Pliske has been a university professor of Biology, primarily at Florida International University in Miami. He is a founding member of FIU’s Environmental Studies Program and has taught undergraduate environmental studies courses such as sustainability, deep ecology, energy resources, ecology of south Florida and environmental education.
He has conducted ecological research in Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guyana, Panama and Ecuador working with local indigenous peoples and published numerous scientific articles and reviews. In the 1980s, he was a project developer and negotiator in Costa Rica and Honduras for the university’s International Affairs Office and was sponsored by UNEP to report the progress of these initiatives at a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. From 2015 to 2018, he taught studies abroad in Costa Rica on the themes of environmental conservation and sustainability.
Recently, he has taken an active role in global environmental issues and currently is an adviser to FIU’s Global Indigenous Forum and Science Adviser to the Spirituality and Sustainability Global Network. He was an invited presenter at the Assisi Spirituality and Sustainability Conferences in Italy 2011 and 2018.
His two recent books, Light, Truth and Nature in 2017 and A Himalayan Hope and a Himalayan Promise in 2019 focus on exploring the role of humanity in global ecosystems from the viewpoints of major spiritual traditions – East, West, and Indigenous. His 2023 fiction book, Sunlight Stories & Moonlight Tales, tells stories and tales of characters who, following their hearts, understand that becoming more is better than having more, and self-giving is more rewarding than self-interest.
Sam King
Sam King is an environmental educator, writer, and activist. He serves as lead mentor for the Yale/Coursera online courses in Religions and Ecology, which he helped develop with Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim. He is also Project Manager for the Emmy Award-winning Journey of the Universe film and multimedia project, hosting the Journey of the Universe: 10 Years Later podcast and editing the monthly newsletter.
Sam received a Master of Arts in Religion and Ecology with a certificate in Educational Leadership and Ministry from Yale Divinity School. He also served as a Teaching Fellow at the Yale School of the Environment. A former Fulbright Scholar in Sri Lanka, Sam taught at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and researched agrarian Buddhist rituals. He has also taught English, Environmental Science, Philosophy, and Religion at The Hotchkiss School and Phillips Academy Andover Summer. He holds a B.A. in Religion and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College. An avid gardener, forager, and outdoorsman, Sam lives on ancestral Quinnipiac land in New Haven, CT.
Amanda Bennett
Amanda Bennett is the Programme Manager of the Youth Programme at the ECI Secretariat and the Center for Education for Sustainable Development at UPEACE. She was born in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, and grew up in South Carolina, United States.
Amanda earned a Bachelor of Arts in Experimental Psychology at the University of South Carolina, and a Master’s in Public Policy at the University of Maryland. While studying in Maryland, Amanda interned at the National Center for Healthy Housing and the Fundred Dollar Bill Project. After graduating, she moved back to Costa Rica and taught English in San José and briefly in Cusco, Peru.
Amanda is currently pursing a Master’s Degree in Environment, Development and Peace at the University for Peace.
Song Li
Song Li serves as a Board member at the Earth Charter International (ECI), and has been involved in the drafting of the Earth Charter since 1998.
She worked with the World Bank as Senior Environmental Specialist in the Middle East and North Africa regions, and served as the Task Team Leader for environmental, agricultural, coastal zone management, and climate change adaptation projects in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. She was also the regional coordinator of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) for the middle east and North Africa, covering projects in the areas of biological diversity, climate change (mitigation and adaptation), waste management and land degradation.
Other contributions she has made include: designing the World Bank first climate change adaptation project in agricultural water management for China; responsible for capacity building projects in the area of climate change and biological diversity for the GEF.
Song Li worked with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Geneva.
She was director, Division of Environmental Law, Legal Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China.
Her academic degrees include: Environmental Law LLM degree from the Law School, George Washington University; International Law Certificate from China Foreign Affairs University. She also studied French Literature in the Sorbonne, the University Paris III and VII, France. She obtained her first college degree of French studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Joe Iannone
Joseph Iannone is the Dean Emeritus of St. Thomas University’s School of Theology and Ministry.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and St. Michael’s College, Dr. Iannone has published a number of articles on family religious education, parish theology issues and peacemaking.
His legacy at St. Thomas University includes adding an environmental justice approach to the curriculum, relating it to economic and social/human realities, and establishing the Center for Justice and Peace, which has local, regional and international ramifications. St. Thomas came to offer one of the most extensive curricula in theology and religious studies, language for deaf graduate students, campus ministry and other specializations, a new Master in Divinity and the only Ph. D. in practical theology found at a Catholic university. The School of Theology and Ministry encompasses the Institute for Pastoral Ministries and the Department of Religious Studies. The Department of Religious Studies offers a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and environmental justice. The Institute houses the university’s master’s degree program in pastoral ministries, the doctorate in practical theology, the certificates in spiritual companionship and spirituality studies, the JustFaith program on Catholic social teaching, and the Catholic Biblical Scholarship Series.
Joe was involved with the founding of CETE (Contextually Engaged Theological Education Foundation of South Florida) and is active in its leadership.
Song Li
Song Li serves as a Board member, for Earth Charter International (ECI). She has been involved in and associated with the Earth Charter since 1998. Before, she worked with the World Bank as Senior Environmental Specialist, for Middle East and North Africa regions. She served as the Task Team Leader for environmental, agricultural, coastal zone management, and climate change adaptation projects in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. She was also the coordinator for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in the region, covering projects in the areas of biological diversity, climate change (mitigation and adaptation), waste management, and land degradation.
Other contributions she has made include:
Designing the World Bank's first climate change adaptation project in agricultural water management for China; responsible for capacity-building projects in the area of climate change and biological diversity for GEF.
Working with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity under the United Nations Environment Program in Geneva.
Director, Division of Environmental Law, Legal Department, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China.
She has an Environmental Law LLM degree from George Washington University. She received an international law certificate in China. She also studied at the Universities Paris III and VII, French Literature of the 17th century in France. Additionally, she studied at the Institute of Foreign Languages of Beijing.
César J. Baldelomar
A scholar with wide-ranging interests, César “CJ” Baldelomar is a doctoral candidate in Theology and Education at Boston College. His research blends critical theory (especially postmodernism and poststructuralism) and decolonial thought, exploring how knowledge production (epistemology, theory, and scholarship) and consumption (teaching and learning) inform the formation of identities (ontologies) and communities. His work seeks to find different ways to imagine and talk about the self and about justice in an effort to envision personal, social (including international), and educational ethical paradigms that could serve as possible sites of resistance to visible and invisible forms of oppression.
A sought-after speaker on issues ranging from environmental migration to best practices of learning and teaching (especially in theological education) to cosmologies and identities, CJ has presented at numerous conferences, retreats, and workshops across the United States and around the world. In addition to working on his dissertation, titled “Not Out of the Dark Night,” CJ is also at work on his first book, Fragmented Theological Imaginings, to be published by Convivium Press in late 2024 as part of the New Horizons in Hispanic Catholic Theology series. He currently teaches theology courses at Boston College and is Visiting Lecturer in Religion at Mount Holyoke College.
In July 2024, CJ will begin a tenure-track appointment as Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Mary’s College of California (Moraga, CA, USA).
Jim MacLellan
Jim participated in the 2017 and 2018 Assisi and Rome Spirituality and Sustainability Conferences as well as the 2023 Gathering II at Thomas Berry Place in New York. While working in the UK and Europe in the 1970’s, on his personal time, he was involved with the animal rights movement and formation of the Green Party in England. He contributed to the European Green Parties’ policy platform coordinating committee in Brussels for the European Parliamentary elections.
He worked in the international shipping business since 1970 and retired in 2018. He taught shipping and transportation for the international MBA program at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate Business School. For several years he conducted an annual course on trade and shipping at the Monterey Graduate School of International Policy Studies. He was a Director of the U.S. – Mexico Chamber of Commerce (Southern California), the Foreign Trade Association and the Southern California District Export Council of the U.S. Department of Commerce. He received the Stanley T. Olafson Lifetime Achievement at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce World Trade Week in 2018.
Maddie Long
Maddie Long runs a one-woman creative agency specializing in brand personality and web design for small businesses and non-profit organizations. She’s also a writer, communicator, photographer, and stylist (among other things), crafting distinct and whimsical experiences that take the viewer, reader, or listener someplace wonderful - the present. Maddie believes that we all have unique character, but sometimes it takes someone else to put that to words.
Inspired by natural history museums, greenhouses, comic strips, and good conversation, she thinks in color and creates systems that connect people to ideas and each other. Making very personal work takes a lot of listening. Maddie is a listener.
You can connect with her via Instagram, email, or her website.
Paquita Holland
Paquita Holland, a native of Puerto Rico, received her B.A. degree in Biology from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and her M.A. degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from the University of the District of Columbia. She was involved in education in Puerto Rico, Chile, and the United States, served as a management executive with the Federal Government in Bilingual Education, was a member of the Transition Team that created the U.S. Department of Education, and personally briefed several U.S. Presidents on bilingual education. She later served as principal of an internationally renowned Washington DC bilingual public school and provided leadership for constructing a new 11-million-dollar school building by a public-private partnership funded exclusively with private funds. The Washington Post featured her leadership in a full-page article on "A Strong Principal." She has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Smithsonian's Friends of the National Zoo and President of a foundation in Honduras dedicated to providing personal formation and high-school and university scholarships for impoverished students to become future leaders.
Sr. Kathleen Deignan
Kathleen Deignan, C.N.D., a sister of the Congregation of Notre Dame, is a teaching theologian, psalmist, and composer of more than 200 songs for liturgy and prayer produced by Schola Ministries. She received her master’s degree in spirituality studies and her doctorate in historical theology from Fordham University in New York, where she studied with her mentor, the late geologian Fr. Thomas Berry, in whose honor she and three other Berry students founded The Thomas Berry Forum for Ecological Dialogue at Iona.
Deignan is a professor of religious studies at Iona College, where she founded and directs the Iona Spirituality Institute, a project for the celebration and study of the spiritual life. The institute has sponsored her work in interfaith dialogue, peace and justice studies, and spiritual animation in the United States and abroad, particularly in Ireland where she has worked to foster the legacy of Thomas Merton. In 2009, she received Fordham’s Sapientia et Doctrina Award for her work in spirituality and, in 2014, an honorary degree from her alma mater, Sacred Heart University.
An editor of five books, including A Book of Hours (Sorin Books, 2007), Deignan has also written many articles that have appeared in The Way, Review for Religious, Sisters Today, The Merton Seasonal, The Merton Annual, Cross Currents, Franciscan Review, Diakonia, Sacred Journey and Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin. Deignan is a GreenFaith Fellow, and former president of the International Thomas Merton Society. She sits on the boards of The American Teilhard Association, The International Thomas Merton Society, GreenFaith, and The Giuliani Foundation for Religion and the Arts.
Anthony Cortese
Dr. Cortese is Co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Crane Institute of Sustainability and the Intentional Endowments Network. He has been actively engaged in public policy and educational transformation on climate change and other large system sustainability challenges for 40 years. He founded Second Nature, the Boston-based advocacy organization committed to promoting sustainability through higher education, along with U.S. Senator John Kerry, Teresa Heinz Kerry and Bruce Droste. He served as Second Nature’s president from March 1993-August 2012.
He was the organizer of the Presidents' Climate Leadership Commitment and co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and the Higher Education Association Sustainability Consortium.
He is Principal of Sustainable Visions, LLC a frequent consultant to higher education, industry and non-profit organizations on institutionalization of sustainability principles and programs.
Dr. Cortese was one of the founding employees of the US EPA and the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. He was the first Dean of Environmental Programs at Tufts University and founded the award-winning Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute in 1989 that helped integrate environmental and sustainability perspectives in over 175 courses. He also organized the effort that resulted in the internationally acclaimed Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future in 1990 now signed by over 350 presidents and chancellors in over 50 countries.
Dr. Cortese is a trustee of Green Mountain College and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as a trustee of Tufts University and was a founding member of the board of directors of The Natural Step US and of the Environmental Business Council of New England. He has been a consultant to UNEP, a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board, President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development's Education Task Force and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow for Higher Education.
Dr. Cortese is a frequent presenter to a wide variety of professional audiences. His writing can be found in a wide spectrum of publications. His essays on Education for Sustainability serve as foundational reading for transforming the process, content and practice of higher education.
Dr. Cortese has B.S. and M.S. Degrees from Tufts University in civil and environmental engineering, a Doctor of Science in Environmental Health Sciences from the Harvard School of Public Health, an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Allegheny College and the University of Maine Presque Isle and an Honorary Doctor of Science from State University of New York Oswego.
Arthur Kane
Arthur “Art” Kane is a former Jesuit priest who served in Jamaica before coming to Florida.
He became a vice president of a major cruise line and subsequently the owner of a consumer
service consulting firm and part-time professor at St. Thomas University. Altogether Art spent
20 years as full or part-time professor of philosophy at STU and as the founding director of the
STU Center for Ethics that co-sponsored the 2017 and 2018 Spirituality and Sustainability
conferences in Assisi, Italy.
Joe Holland
AN ECO-SOCIAL PHILOSOPHER & CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN, Joe explores the intertwined ecological, societal, and spiritual breakdowns of Modern Western Industrial-Colonial Civilization and the need for a Global Ecological-Spiritual Renaissance. That Renaissance, he argues, needs to promote a Postmodern Global Ecological-Humanistic Civilization and a Postmodern Global Ecological-Mystical Spirituality.
Joe holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in the field of Ethics & Society, which was structured as an interdisciplinary dialogue among Theology, Philosophy, and Social Science. At Chicago, he studied Theology with David Tracy, Philosophy with Paul Ricoeur, and Social Science with Gibson Winter. He was also a Fulbright Scholar in Sociology at the Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile during the last year of the democratic-socialist presidency of Salvador Allende, which was violently overthrown by the brutal military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in collaboration with military and intelligence agencies of the United States Government.
Joe is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy & Religion at Saint Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida, where he taught for 25 years, and he is a still-active Adjunct Professor in its School of Law. In addition, he is Permanent Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, Peru; President of Pax Romana / Catholic Movement for Intellectual & Cultural Affairs USA and Editor of its Pacem in Terris Press, with both based in Washington DC; Vice-Chair of Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, based in Boston, Massachusetts; a founding board member of the Spirituality & Sustainability Global Network, based in Virginia; and a member of the International Association for Catholic Social Thought, based at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
Earlier, Joe served for 15 years as Research Associate at the Washington DC Center of Concern, created jointly by the international Jesuits and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to work with the United Nations on major global issues. Later, he taught at New York Theological Seminary in New York City, Drew University School of Theology in Madison, New Jersey, and the Florida Center for Theological Studies in Miami, Florida. Also, he has served as Pax Romana's NGO representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations at its international headquarters in New York City.
In addition, Joe served as Research Coordinator for the 1976 Theology in the Americas Conference. He also founded the American Catholic Lay Network and served as founding executive director of the Pallottine Institute for Lay Leadership & Research at Seton Hall University. In addition, he co-founded the National Conference on Religion & Labor, co-sponsored by the AFL-CIO, and Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice.
Joe has published 19 books and many articles. His book with Peter Henriot SJ, Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice, has approximately 100,000 copies in print, including 2 US editions, 5 foreign-language editions and 2 foreign English editions. He was also ghost-writer for the 1975 document This Land is Home to Me: A Pastoral Letter on Powerlessness in Appalachia by the Catholic Bishops of the Region, and for the 1995 20th anniversary sequel document from the Catholic Bishops of Appalachia At Home in the Web of Life: A Pastoral Message on Sustainable Communities (with lots of help for both from visionary figures in the Catholic Committee for Appalachia). Two of his recent books are Postmodern Ecological Spirituality and Roman Catholic Clericalism. Two books on which he is presently working are titled The Ecological Failure of Modern Philosophy and Deep Reform of Catholic Christianity.
In the United States, Joe has lectured at Georgetown, Harvard, Notre Dame, Princeton, and other universities. Internationally, he has lectured at Institut Catholique in Paris, France; Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan; the Pontifical Catholic University in São Paulo, Brazil; the Pontifical Catholic University in Porto Alegre, Brazil; the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz, Bolivia; and the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, Peru.
In 1986, Joe received the Boston Paulist Center's Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice; in 2002, the Athena Medal of Excellence from the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Peru; in 2012 the Premio Federico II per La Pace in Milan, Italy; in 2013, the Irish Echo's Labor Award for contribution to the US labor movement; and in 2021 the first annual Thomas Berry Award from the Thomas Berry Institute for Ecumenical Dialogue at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York.
Joe is married to Francisca "Paquita" Biascoechea-Martinez Holland, a native of Puerto Rico, and they have two grown children and four young grandchildren. His and Paquita's too infrequent hobby is sailing, especially in the beautiful green waters of the Caribbean Sea.
Claudia Herrera-Montero
Dr. Herrera is a Catholic practical theologian and educator. She holds a Ph.D. in Practical Theology (2017) and an M.A. in Pastoral Ministries (2010) from St. Thomas University in Miami, FL. She earned a B.A. in Political Sciences and a B.A. in International Relations from Universidad de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Bogotá, Colombia). Her doctoral dissertation, “Understanding Contemporary Practical Latino/a Theology Through the Lenses of College-Age Latinas in Their 20’s: A New Marianismo?” has expanded her participatory-action research on the faith identity, spirituality and access in higher education among first-generation young Hispanic-Latinx and their families in South Florida. Her research has also enabled her to better engage underrepresented communities in both Catholic higher education and the Church.
Dr. Herrera has experience in Catholic Higher education since 2008. She was appointed and served as the first Lay Director of Campus Ministry and started teaching Theology at St. Thomas University since 2014 to 2020. Before her administration and faculty experience, she served as campus minister of the Archdiocese of Miami for both St. Thomas University and Florida International University-Biscayne Bay Campus. In addition, she has taught for the past years in the M.A. program in Pastoral Ministries for Hispanics at the Southeast Pastoral Institute for Hispanic Ministry (Instituto Pastoral para el Sureste Hispano). She currently serves as the Secretary of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS).
She has published and presented at national and international academic and ministerial engagements. As a practical theologian, she draws from the spiritual and cultural wells of both the U.S. Latinx Catholic experience and the Latin American experience, all the while connecting to the larger realities of Catholicism in the United States and around the world.
"My experience as a lay pastoral minister and educator in Catholic higher education has informed my scholarship and teaching pedagogy. I am deeply committed to incorporating a practical ministerial component in theological education. I utilize participatory action research in the classroom and ministerial settings, encouraging students to create a deeper reflection and affirmation of their social location and lived experience as active participants in the classroom, their communities of faith (including their families) and their local communities."
Atsuko Egawa
Atsuko Egawa is a researcher on the sustainable economy, focusing on femininity and masculinity. As was taught in ancient Asian philosophy, the dynamic interaction of these two forces is the nature of life, the ecosystem, and the entire universe. Harmonious integration of these two forces is the way towards prosperity.
Her work experience encompasses non-profit organizations (including the United Nations), investment banking, global organizations, and small companies, involving the richest countries and the poorest countries. This combination of career experiences and responsibilities as a housewife has enabled her to see the world from diverse perspectives.
Ms. Egawa speaks at universities and seminars and organizes workshops in order to raise public awareness of the ecological crisis and to mobilize grassroots movements.
She received an M.A. in Human Security at the University of Tokyo, Japan.