Cristino Panerio is an Agricultural Engineer and Chairman of the Board of MASAI Inc., a consultancy organization in the Philippines servicing grassroots-oriented programs and projects. He also supports MASIPAG in their Asian Peoples’ Exchange Program (APEX) in partnership with PANAP and Misereor, a collaboration that aims to empower NGOs and People’s Organizations in Southeast Asia and South Asia through People-led Development, Agroecology, and Advocacy. Through decades of engagement with Filipino grassroots organizations, Cristino has been key in supporting Agroecology Training and the implementation of Agroecology Plans at the national and regional levels, working towards sustainable agriculture and biodiversity management.

Georgina Catacora-Vargas (Bolivia) is an Agricultural Engineer with a Ph.D. in Agroecology. She is a Professor of Agroecology at the Academic Peasant Unit “Tiahuanacu” of the Bolivian Catholic University and a Research Associate of AGRUCO, Faculty of Agricultural and Livestock Sciences at the University of Mayor de San Simón (UMSS) in Bolivia. She is also the President of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA), a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), and a member of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Farmers’ Rights under the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Her work is transdisciplinary and rooted in participatory-action research, focusing on socio-ecological systems around agroecology, biodiversity, and food systems, with a gender perspective (with emphasis on women) and a human rights approach (with emphasis on farmers’ rights). She has experience drafting and implementing national and multilateral regulations and policies on biodiversity, biosafety of modern biotechnology, and agroecology. She is an advocate for youth rights and art as a transformative research and pedagogical strategy.

Kevin Chang is from Kahalu’u, O’ahu, Hawai’i and serves as the Executive Director of Kuaʻāina Ulu ʻAuamo (KUA) a capacity building and network facilitation and mobilization mechanism founded by and for rural Native Hawaiian community-driven biocultural resource management initiatives. Kevin is of Chinese, Irish and other ancestry and grew up at the convergence of urban and rural life in O’ahu, Hawai’i. He spent the last few decades working on the social, cultural, and environmental justice issues of his community on land and in the ocean, both locally and internationally. He is also an attorney who has worked in litigation, entertainment law, and business. He is married to Alma Siria Vega de Chang of ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico, and is the lead singer and songwriter of the band Kupaʻāina (citizen of the land).

Francisco Chapela-Mendoza is an agronomist. He holds a Ph.D. in natural resources economics and is a rural planner advocate of devolving Indigenous and rural communities their role as stewards of nature. Since 1980, he has been a technical advisor and ally of Indigenous and rural communities and their organizations, helping develop their ideas about how to achieve a Good Life or Buen Vivir. Over the last 20 years, Francisco has led programs to support and enhance the stewardship role of Indigenous and Rural Communities and organizations with international institutions, such as The World Bank, Rainforest Alliance, and the Christensen Fund. He has authored and co-authored more than 50 publications about natural resources management, forest management, institutional design and natural resources management policies. Francisco is a member of Estudios Rurales y Asesoría, the International Association for the Study of the Commons, The Forest Stewardship Council, and the International Society of Tropical Foresters.

Milka Chepkorir is a young Indigenous woman from the Sengwer Indigenous Peoples of Cherang’any Hills, Kenya. For years, she has been working with her community to address communal land tenure issues in their ancestral lands, the Embobut and Kabolet forests. Due to a lack of recognition of her community’s land rights, the community has faced many human rights violations through evictions by the government of Kenya, all in the name of forest conservation. Milka has a special interest in gender issues and has been working with women and elders in her community to ensure women are included in the community’s land rights struggles. Together with the women in Embobut and Kabolet, she helped develop a cultural centre where the community hopes to carry out Indigenous education classes to educate the youth and children about the Sengwer Indigenous knowledge and systems, most of which have been lost or are diminishing. Milka coordinates the “Defending Territories of Life” stream of work, for Africa, at the ICCA Consortium. She was previously the Coordinator of Community Land Action NOW! (CLAN), a Kenyan movement of communities working to register their lands as community lands under the Community Land Act 2016.

Milka has been actively involved in International policy processes involving Indigenous Peoples rights to their lands, resources, clean environment and water.  

Lim Li Ching is a Senior Researcher at Third World Network (TWN). TWN is an independent non-profit international research and advocacy organization involved in bringing about a greater articulation of the needs, aspirations and rights of the peoples in the South and in promoting just, equitable and ecological development. Li Ching coordinates its biodiversity, biosafety and sustainable agriculture work. She is currently Co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) and has contributed to various international publications on sustainable agriculture. She has a B.Sc. in Ecology and an M.Phil. in Development Studies.

Jyoti Fernandes is an agroecological smallholder farmer based in Dorset, UK. She produces a range of products, from blankets and meats to cider, juice, and preserves. The farm is part of a local smallholders’ cooperative that shares collective processing facilities and runs a popular education agroecology school called the Land Skills Hub.

Jyoti coordinates the Policy, Lobbying and Campaigning work of the Landworkers Alliance, a small farmers union in the UK and a member of La Via Campesina. She participated actively in advocating for agroecology as climate adaptation in the COP processes.

Alibek Otambekov was born and raised in Pamir Mountains of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous region, Tajikistan. He has MS degree in environmental engineering and 17 years of experience in working with local farmers, grassroots organizations, and communities of Tajikistan, as well as working on the regional level in Central Asia and globally. Most recently, as an Associate Program Officer of the Christensen Fund, Alibek has supported Central Asian peasants—Dehkans; their innovations and practices that sustain agrobiodiversity of fruits, nuts, and cereals and their wild relatives; medicinal and wild food plants and herbs as well as the associated agroecosystems and cultural land management practices and livelihoods necessary to sustain this diversity. The work is set in the high-altitude agricultural valleys of Eastern Tajikistan and Southern fruit and nut forests of Kyrgyzstan. Alibek was instrumental in setting up the International Network of Mountain Indigenous People (INMIP), where he is currently the country coordinator. He is a musician and passionate advocate of the culture of his people and building partnership of local, national and global institutions.

Sridhar Radhakrishnan is a Steering Committee member of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA-Kisan Swaraj) and a board member of GRAIN. He serves as Director of Thirunelly Agri Producer Company (TAPCo) in Kerala and Consultant with Asar Social Impact Advisors. He also advises the Agroecology Fund and its regional initiative, the Bharat Agroecology Fund. An engineer turned environmentalist, Sridhar focuses on sustainable agriculture, agroecology, food sovereignty, environmental policy, ecosystems, land use, and the climate crisis.

An advocate for biosafety and against genetic modification in agriculture, Sridhar played a leading role in the Coalition for a GM-Free India. He also conducted research under the Kerala Research Programme on Local Level Development (KRPLLD) at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram.

He lives with his wife and son in a mud and bamboo home designed by COSTFORD, with a small food garden, in Karakulam, near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Dr. Annie Shattuck is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Indiana University. Her research engages agroecology, pesticides, environmental health, food politics, and agrarian studies. She has been active in organizations working to build sustainable food systems for twenty years.

John Wilson is a free range facilitator and activist in East and Southern Africa, with strong links to West Africa. He has worked with many different organizations at different levels — from community-based organisations to regional and continental networks, to help facilitate a stronger food sovereignty movement in Africa. Increasingly, he is focused on helping to catalyze and support collaborative and strategic work on agroecology and food sovereignty. In recent years, he has also become a strong proponent and facilitator for a principles-based approach to development work. Working with very complex situations requires a way of decision-making and assessment based on guidance rather than goals; Principles Focused Evaluation has been a strong source of inspiration and experience for his practice.

Through her academic research and collaboration with civil society organizations, Jeanne has been involved in environmental protection in West Africa – and specifically biodiversity conservation – for several decades. Her work has included the assessment and regulation of GMOs in French-speaking African countries, and the last Ph.D. thesis she supervised was on the sexual reproduction of yams in Benin’s agroecological zones. Jeanne is a founding member of JINUKUN (a local network for the sustainable use of biodiversity in Benin active since 2003), and COPAGEN (Coalition for the Protection of African Genetic Heritage), launched in 2004, which includes the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Bissau Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Benin) and Guinea. In 2022, Jeanne resigned from JINUKUN, but remained a member of the Federation of AgroEcologists of Benin (FAEB) until January 2025. Currently, she is continuing her activities in West Africa as an independent scientist.

In 2023, she published the results of more than three decades of scientific research on the genetic resources of african yams in a book titled “YAM, WORTHY PLANT WITH PLURAL FUTURE”. This book was launched on June 7th 2024 at the University of Abomey-Calavi (Benin), and was presented on June 28th 2024 at the University of Nangui Abrogoua (Côte d’Ivoire), as well as to key farmers and civil society organizations in Benin.

Glorene A. Das is the Executive Director of Tenaganita Women’s Force, a human rights organization dedicated to helping and protecting migrants, refugees, women, and children from exploitation, discrimination, slavery, and human trafficking. Tenaganita works to amplify the voices of marginalized and vulnerable individuals in a globalized world.

Glorene transitioned from a decade in the corporate sector to join Tenaganita in 1999 as a Program Officer, equipped with a background in Human Rights, Gender, and Social Science. Over the years, she has tackled issues of human rights, migration, displacement, gender, and
human trafficking. In 2010, she became the Program Director and a board member, overseeing the organization’s programs. In 2014, Glorene assumed the role of Executive Director, leading Tenaganita with a vision for a just, free, and democratic society where all individuals are equal and dignified.