Eugene weekly., February 19, 2009, Page 21, Image 21

Environmental Heroes
The following grassroots advocates are coming to Eugene next week to participate in the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Environmental Law
Alliance Worldwide. Some of these pioneering attorneys have been active in the ELAW network for many years. Others are newcomers. All of
them have a passion for conserving our natural environment, speaking out for disadvantaged communities, and challenging environmental abuses.
CALVIN SANDBORN
Canada
Calvin drafted Canada’s fi rst
endangered species bill, presented to
Canada’s Parliament
in 1990, and
has successfully
advocated for law
reform, including
British Columbia’s
fi rst farmworker
health and safety
regulations, worker’s compensation
benefi ts, and BC Hydro’s Power Smart
program. For the last fi ve years Calvin
has served as Legal Director of the
Environmental Law Centre Clinic at the
University of Victoria.
MARK HADDOCK
Canada
Mark works at the Environmental
Law Centre at the University of
Victoria where he
conducts research
on environmental
assessment and
environmental
tribunals.
He teaches
environmental law at the University
of British Columbia and Royal Roads
University. He has practiced public
interest environmental law in British
Columbia for 20 years, including
working at West Coast Environmental
Law and the Sierra Legal Defense Fund.
FERNANDO DOUGNAC
Chile
Fernando is famous in Latin America
and around the world for taking on
multinational
exploiters of natural
resources, and
winning. In 1985,
he won Chile’s
fi rst environmental
lawsuit, protecting
a Biosphere Reserve from destruction
by Chile’s military government. In
1998, he founded Fiscalia del Medio
Ambiente (FIMA), Chile’s premier
public interest environmental law
organization. Following a FIMA legal
challenge, Boise Cascade canceled
plans to log Chile’s old-growth forests.
Fernando was the fi rst environmental
lawyer to use Chile’s constitutional
right to a healthy environment to protect
the ancient forests in Tierro del Fuego.
Fernando works to defend the rights
of the Aymara indigenous people of
northern Chile and the Rapa Nui of
Easter Island.
www.elaw.org
ANDRES
PIRAZZOLI
Chile
Andres works
at Chile’s leading
public interest
environmental law
fi rm, Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente,
where he is launching a renewable
energy program. Andres was an ELAW
Fellow in early 2008 and is now
enrolled in the LLM program at the
University of Oregon School of Law.
Andres received his law degree from
the Universidad de Chile, where he
wrote his thesis on renewable energy.
On completing his LLM, he will return
to Chile and work to protect Patagonia’s
wild rivers from ill-advised dam
projects.
WANG CANFA
China
Wang is a folk hero to impoverished
citizens in rural China who have fallen
victim to China’s
economic boom
and now suffer
due to polluting
industries. Time
Magazine named
Wang a “Hero of
the Environment” in 2007 and The New
York Times featured his inspiring work
in the documentary, “China Rises.”
Wang founded the Beijing-based
Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution
Victims in 1999 and set up a hotline so
that pollution victims can get the legal
help they need.
ZHANG JINGJING
China
Zhang grew up next to a state-owned
factory. In a New York Times interview
she said: “Yellow putrid air and red
noxious wastewater
are the memories
of my childhood.
My neighbors
all worked in the
chemical plant,
and my mother,
who is a doctor, served as the director
of the plant’s hospital for 16 years.
This is what motivated me to become
an environmental lawyer.” (“China:
Choking on Growth,” August 29, 2007).
Zhang is legal director of the Center for
Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims
in Beijing. She helped win one of
the biggest environmental settlements
in Chinese history when a court in
China’s Fujian province ordered the
Rongping Lianying Chemical Factory to
compensate more than 1,600 villagers.
MARKETA VISINKOVA
Czech Republic
NETSANET DEMISSIE
Ethiopia
Marketa leads the Environmental
Counseling Program at the Czech
Republic’s foremost
public interest
environmental law
fi rm, Ekologicky
Pravni Servis (EPS),
based in Brno.
Marketa offers free
environmental legal aid to citizens,
non-governmental organizations, and
municipalities. She also coordinates the
work of law student volunteers. This
month she was honored in Paris with
an Yves Rocher Woman of the Earth
Award.
Netsanet made the ultimate sacrifi ce
to defend the rule of law, spending
nearly two and a
half years in an
Ethiopian prison
as a prisoner of
conscience. Netsanet
is the founder and
Executive Director
of the Organisation for Social Justice in
Ethiopia (OSJE). With the passage of
a controversial law in 2005 making it
illegal for civil society organizations to
act as election observers, OSJE, lead by
Netsanet, challenged the law in court,
and won. ELAW fears that it was this
specifi c action and other similar bold
public policy criticisms that led to his
imprisonment. Thousands were arrested
and later released. Netsanet was charged
with crimes and faced the death penalty.
He was released on March 28, 2008.
ELAW brought international attention to
this injustice. After his release, Netsanet
wrote to ELAW: “You guys are amongst
the fi rst persons I would have loved to
meet at the gate of the prison… I extend
my deepest gratitude.”
EUREN CUEVAS
Dominican Republic
Euren is a founding member and
President of the Institute of Lawyers
for the Protection
of the Environment.
He has worked to
conserve “Dunas
de las Calderas,”
a marine protected
area. He has
challenged the illegal dumping of
mineral coal ash waste and installation
of chemical storage tanks on Dominican
beaches. He has also fought the
illegal extraction of aggregates from
Dominican riverbeds.
PABLO FAJARDO MENDOZA
Ecuador
Pablo worked for years as a manual
laborer in the forests and oil fi elds
of Lago Agrio in
the Ecuadorean
Amazon. He
completed his
secondary education
in night school and
earned a law degree
through a correspondence course. He
became a lawyer in 2004 and assumed
the lead in a suit against Chevron-
Texaco. In 2008 Pablo was awarded
the Goldman Prize (the “green” Nobel)
for his work holding oil companies
accountable for decades of polluting the
Ecuadorean Amazon. After receiving
the Goldman Prize he wrote to ELAW
partners around the world: “Our work
in Ecuador is an example of the good
things that can happen when thousands
of people, most without money or
power, can come together in a common
effort to better themselves and the
planet.” (For more about Pablo, see
page 4.)
MICHAEL ZSCHIESCHE
Germany
Michael is the Director of the
Environmental Law Division of the
Independent Institute for Environmental
Concerns (UfU)
in Berlin. Michael
has worked with
grassroots advocates
in Vietnam to
enhance public
participation in
that nation`s environmental decision
making. He is a lawyer and an
economist whose interests include
scientifi c research, projects that support
the understanding and practical use of
public participation in environmental
matters, and building strong
organizations in Germany and abroad.
MARA BOCALETTI
Guatemala
Mara is a co-founder of the
Environmental Law Alliance in
Guatemala,
where she leads
judicial trainings
and provides
environmental law
support to attorneys
and community
organizations. Mara is on the faculty
at Rafael Landivar University and
also teaches environmental law at the
University Del Valle School of Law and
Environmental Sciences.
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