Greta Thunberg is proving advocacy and having an eco-conscious mindset is possible, even at a young age. In August 2018, 16-year-old Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays to go protest outside of the Swedish Parliament, and on Friday, September 20, she led kids and adults from over 150 countries in a global climate strike.
Thunberg has a direct focus on climate change, and there are hundreds of other female advocates from around the world supporting the movement for environmental conservation and sustainability in their own way. Here are five other powerful, influential female environmental advocates creating change:
- Mackenzie Feldman and the Fight Against Campus Herbicides
-
Mackenzie Feldman is a 23-year-old UC Berkeley graduate student and founder of Herbicide-Free Campus. Herbicide-Free Campus is a campaign banning herbicides on college campuses. Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, a “ground zero” for industrial agriculture, Feldman has witnessed the impact herbicides have on people and the land it’s spread on. According to The Bridge For Better Brands, “Feldman hopes to lead us to a toxic-free world, where farm workers, families, children, animals and ecosystems will no longer be exposed to harmful pesticides.”
- Majora Carter
-
Majora Carter, a South Bronx Native, is drawing “a direct connection between ecological, economic and social degradation.” Carter is responsible for bringing a “greenspace” to the South Bronx waterfront, which gave the area an open space and paths for walking and biking. She founded the Majora Carter Group in 2008 to expand her green approach to local community development beyond the Bronx and to neighborhoods and communities across the US.
- Ocean Ramsey
-
Ocean Ramsey, a marine life conservationist and professional freediver local to Hawaii, operates One Ocean Diving with photographer and freediver Juan Oliphant. One Ocean Diving was created to allow divers and snorkelers to get up close and freedive with different shark species. The organization also hosts monthly beach cleanups and brings awareness to shark overfishing, marine life and ocean conservation, and eco-friendly practices.
- Jeanette Sequeria
-
Jeannette Sequeira is a gender program coordinator at the Global Forest Coalition highlighting why the climate-justice movement is in desperate need of feminism. In an article by Teen Vogue, on feminist and climate advocacy, Sequeira said, “I advocate for the rights of forest communities and support local women’s groups to strengthen their own community-based initiatives on forest restoration, sustainable livelihoods, food sovereignty, and women’s land rights.”
- Shannon Lisa
-
Shannon Lisa is the program director of Edison Wetlands Association, a nonprofit investigating the effects of chemical dumping in Indiana. In 2017, Lisa came across numerous cases of children becoming sick with rare forms of cancer in Franklin, Indiana. After pursuing the issue, she discovered poisonous gases were invading people’s homes after she found a local mismanaged industrial site may be the source. Now, Lisa is taking her advocacy and detective work to a national scale.