Illustration: adapted from the work of Alejandro Ortiz, shared under CC / Typeface: Bayard by Vocal Type
Meet Team Earth. We invited 9 talented eco-conscious artists to draw 9 amazing climate heroes.
From climate activists, to environmental defenders, to solution providers, from all corners of the world – they have all dedicated their lives to protecting and saving our planet (and us in the process).
This selection of brave, passionate, and brilliant people is to serve as an example of the countless others like them, and to illustrate our common potential – and hope – that we can change climate change.
With #COP27 as a backdrop – the UN climate summit where world leaders decide the future of this planet – this project is a reminder of the types of voices we should be putting center stage and listening closely to.
However, it is a reminder of something else as well: Today, around the world climate activists and environmental defenders are massively oppressed, detained, imprisoned, attacked, and killed for standing up to polluters and profiteers. 200 defenders were murdered last year alone. There can’t be climate justice without human rights or open civic space. To save our planet, we should first defend the people protecting it.
Anyone can be on Team Earth. Any act of care towards the environment is daring. Loving this planet is already an act of resistance. But if you want to make a big difference today – protect the protectors. Stand for the wrongfully imprisoned. Amplify the voices of people governments want to silence.
Not sure where to start? Share these stories. Back the work of any of the people below, or support our partners Global Witness – who work to hold companies and governments accountable for their destruction of the environment, their disregard for the planet, and their failure to protect human rights. Together (but only together), we can win this.
All portraits below are free to download and use. Put them in action to amplify your climate message.
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
Yuli
Velásquez
Colombia
Art by DAVID ESPINOSA - EL DEE
Yuli Velásquez is the President of the Federation of Santander Fishers for Tourism and Environment (FEDEPESAN) – an environmental organization operating in Barrancabermeja, Colombia. FEDEPESAN is a federation of artisanal fishers who seek to protect wetlands, rivers and the right to a healthy environment.
On 5 July 2022, Yuli was the victim of an armed attack – two unknown assailants shot at her, harming her bodyguard. Members of FEDEPESAN have previously suffered other armed attacks and threats. On 31 May 2022, four environmental defenders from FEDESPAN were victims of an attack with firearms by unknown perpetrators as they were traveling in a motor canoe on the Magdalena River to assess environmental damage. Colombia is the deadliest country in the world to defend land, territory and the environment.
“This is a way to silence us for the complaints we have filed.”
Disha
Ravi
India
ART BY VANESSA MUNDLE - MINTTU
Disha Ravi is an Indian environmental and climate change activist. She has helped clean up lakes, plant trees, she’s campaigned against plastic, and for the preservation of the lion-tailed macaque. Disha is also one of the founders of India’s wing of Fridays For Future, a global movement begun by climate change activist Greta Thunberg. She is a strong voice against environmental racism, and for political freedom and social justice as a prerequisite for climate justice.
In 2021, then 22 year-old Disha was arrested – placed in the custody of Delhi police without a lawyer and charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy, after sharing a Google document intended to help farmers protest against new agriculture reform laws in India. Disha's arrest has been condemned in India and abroad. She was eventually released after some days of detention as the judge found that the charges had no ground.
“It’s not a matter of just fighting for our future, it’s also worth fighting for our present.”
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
Hong
Hoang
Vietnam
ART BY PREETI SINGH
Hong Hoang is one of the key people in Vietnam’s climate movement, with the mission to stop coal expansion, mitigate air and plastic pollution, curb wildlife trade, and reduce individual impacts on the climate – while also providing support to the affected communities, and promoting renewable energy.
For 20 years, Hong has mobilized youth leaders to push for environmental preservation. With 350.org, a global climate change organization, she helped build the youth-led climate movements in Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand. She is also the founder and leader of CHANGE, a Vietnamese nonprofit that for the past 10 years has worked tirelessly to address the country’s most critical environmental challenges through strategic communications, community empowerment, and cross-sector partnership. For her vision and dedication, Hong was named an Obama Foundation Scholar.
“There’s no Planet B. Everything we do creates an impact, big or small. This is the only planet we have.”
Ernestine
Leikeki
Sevidzem
Cameroon
ART BY ANINA TAKEFF
Ernestine Leikeki Sevidzem is a founding member of the Cameroon Gender and Environment Watch – and is on a mission to solve the interconnected issues of deforestation, poverty, and gender inequality.
Ernestine works in the Kilum-Ijim Forest region in northwest Cameroon – the largest Afromontane forest left in West Africa and home to vast biodiversity. Led by the conviction that forest conservation can be best managed by the communities themselves, she builds the capacity of women and youth to protect nature – as they suffer most from poverty and unemployment and have historically been excluded from forest-management activities, with men dominating these roles. Ernestine advocates for women’s inclusion and leadership in natural resource management, as well as women's right to education and employment, and promotes entrepreneurship for local women. Her organization has trained more than 2,000 bee farmers, led the planting of 86,000 forest trees, and provided environmental education to more than 50,000 people, 60% of them women. In 2021, Ernestine was recognized in BBC’s ranking 100 Women of the Year.
“Nature remains our greatest ally to reach our climate mitigation targets.”
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
Caroline
Cannon
USA
ART BY PATI MATSUSHITA
Caroline Cannon is an Iñupiaq leader and environmentalist from Point Hope, Alaska. She gave her native community an unprecedented voice in a legal battle to keep the Arctic Ocean safe from offshore drilling.
Caroline traveled across Alaska and to Washington, D.C. to attend hundreds of industry meetings and federal summits, representing Point Hope’s concerns about what’s at stake and sharing her deep traditional knowledge of the Arctic marine environment, including whale migration patterns, the walrus’ habitat, and the dynamics of ice floe movements in the region. She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2012 for her fight for protection of marine ecosystems against pollution from the petroleum industry.
“Since time immemorial, we have depended on the Arctic Ocean to sustain us. It is our garden.”
Mohammed
Rezwan
Bangladesh
ART BY VALERIA ARAYA
Mohammed Rezwan is the inventor of the ‘floating education system’ that ensures access to quality education all year round in flood-prone regions – which started in Bangladesh, and is now in operation in multiple countries. Drawing on his architectural expertise, Mohammed designs spaces on boats that successfully accommodate the need of a school, library, or healthcare facility.
Mohammed is the Founding Executive Director of Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha – an organization that aims to transform waterways into pathways for education, while also dealing with mitigating climate change-induced flooding, protecting the environment and people’s rights, and lifting people out of poverty. They operate a fleet of floating schools, libraries, health clinics, playgrounds and training centres with wifi access, serving 159,000 people a year in flood-prone areas. Mohammed has received a number of international awards, including being named Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.
“If the children can’t go to school for lack of transportation, then the schools should go to them.”
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
Farwiza
Farhan
Indonesia
ART BY PEPE SERRA
Farwiza Farhan is a marine biologist and forest conservationist seeking to protect and restore the Leuser Ecosystem in Aceh, Indonesia – a 2.6 million-hectare forest in Sumatra, one of the largest contiguous intact rainforests in Southeast Asia, and the last place on Earth where species like elephants, tigers, orangutans, and rhinoceros coexist.
Farwiza’s work ranges from focusing on ground level species protection to high-level advocacy and campaigning. In addition, she and her team also bring the fight for nature into the courtrooms. Farwiza has deployed a Wildlife Protection Team to destroy snares and intercept poachers, in addition to a Mobile Monitoring Unit that tracks wildlife and forest crime to increase prosecution rates. She also spotlights the challenges women face on the front lines of forest preservation within patriarchal societies. In 2021, Farwiza was selected as a TED Fellow; and in 2022, TIME magazine named her a leader in the Time100 list.
“Women in the communities are the guardians of environmental wisdom, yet they are often an untapped source of knowledge, underappreciated and therefore underresourced.”
Evelyn
Acham
Uganda
ART BY LUISA BRANDO
Evelyn Acham is a young climate justice activist from Uganda. She has organized climate strikes and campaigns with the Rise Up Movement, where she works as a national coordinator.
She is part of Fridays for Future, the international movement of school students striking for bold climate action. She is also an Arctic angel for Global Choices, a youth-led intergenerational action network and part of the Generation Climate Initiative.
Evelyn is a powerful voice that frames the climate crisis as a gender equality issue, as it is worsening the problems that women are already experiencing in society, such as restricted rights and access to financial resources – with girls in periods of crisis often being the first to drop out of school to help their families make money, do domestic chores, or look after their siblings.
“Leaders must understand the intersectionality of climate change. We cannot achieve climate justice when there are still other injustices like gender inequality, and social and racial injustice.”
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
This image is free to download and use. Put it in action to amplify your climate message.
Zahra
Biabani
USA
ART BY ANJA SLIBAR
Zahra Biabani is a Gen Z climate justice activist, sustainable fashion entrepreneur and writer focusing on encouraging environmental trends. She is a member of EcoTok, a climate education collective promoting climate action, with a reach of more than four million people on social media.
Zahra is a powerful voice for climate optimism – a framework based on the idea that despite the bleak projections and the high stakes, we can restore our planet back to health, and in doing so, protect all that inhabits it. Her upcoming book – Climate Optimism: Climate Wins and Creating Systemic Change Around the World, unpacks the cognitive biases that make optimism difficult to cultivate; and explores environmental trends of the last decade, as well as examples of communities in the Global South pioneering unique solutions to the climate crisis.
“Climate optimism is what gives us the energy to continue fighting for our successes.”