Speakers

Luisa Fernanda Bacca: Colombian lawyer who holds a master's degree in Human Rights and Cultural Diversity from Essex University, UK. Her professional career has been dedicated to the defense of human rights, guided by the perspective of strengthening the capacities of civil organizations and local governments. She has worked within the United Nations system for over seven years, developing strategies to prevent internal displacement and land dispossession of indigenous peoples. Over the last four years, she has been actively engaged in the formulation and implementation of public policies for the protection of indigenous people’s territories and rights in national, regional and international agendas related to sustained development, climate change and biodiversity. Currently, as the Coordinator of Advocacy and Strategic Communications in Gaia Amazonas, she is leading the design and implementation of advocacy strategies and campaigns to influence and inform policy-makers and global environmental agendas on the importance of crafting conservation strategies with direct participation of Amazonian indigenous peoples. In her role as a researcher, she promotes an intercultural interpretation of law to position indigenous own laws and traditional knowledge as an academic and political device to question the colonial matrix by which the discourse of international human rights law has overshadowed indigenous peoples’ own understanding of their territorial rights.