The Heart of the Planet

I had the privilege of meeting Atossa Soltani at a recent event in New York City. If Atossa’s environmental advocacy isn’t on your radar yet, it should be — she’s extraordinary.

Through her work with Amazon Watch and over three decades of environmental advocacy, Atossa has helped protect millions of acres of Amazon rainforest — preserving critical ecosystems, biodiversity, and the territories of Indigenous communities.

Atossa has dedicated her career to protecting the Amazon because, she argues, this is not merely a regional issue but a planetary one. The health of the Amazon is directly tied to the health of the Earth and to human survival.

The Amazon is often called the “lungs of the Earth” — and for good reason.

Its trees absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide, helping to regulate the global climate, while producing oxygen and influencing weather patterns across the Americas and beyond. The Amazon’s rivers, wetlands, and soils are vital for biodiversity, supporting countless species that exist nowhere else on Earth.

Between 1991 and 1996, Atossa directed environmental campaigns at the Rainforest Action Network that achieved significant victories —ending clear-cut logging practices in old-growth Canadian rainforests and forcing Hollywood studios to stop using rainforest wood to build movie sets.

In 1996, Atossa left the Rainforest Action Network to launch Amazon Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the rainforest and advancing the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin.

She served as the organization’s executive director for 18 years, building it from a small NGO into one of the most effective environmental advocacy organizations in the world.

Under Atossa’s leadership, Amazon Watch has been successful in:

• Defending Indigenous Lands: Atossa co-led Amazon Watch in its mission to protect Indigenous territories in the Amazon, supporting communities in asserting legal rights and resisting environmentally destructive projects.

• Holding Corporations Accountable: Under Atossa’s leadership, Amazon Watch brought global attention to environmental and human rights violations by major oil and mining companies, including Chevron, pressuring them to address the consequences of their operations.

• Integrating Science and Activism: Atossa has always prioritized data-driven advocacy, ensuring Amazon Watch’s campaigns are grounded in scientific research.

Perhaps no campaign better illustrates Atossa’s relentless determination to protect the Amazon than the decades-long fight to hold Chevron accountable for massive pollution in Ecuador.

The legal battle began in 1993, when Ecuadorian plaintiffs sued Texaco in federal court in New York. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, and the case was later refiled in Ecuador.

Atossa and Amazon Watch worked closely with the claimants in Ecuador, providing strategic support, mobilizing international advocacy, and keeping global attention on Chevron’s toxic legacy in the region. During the trial, Atossa appeared on Democracy Now!, wrote open letters to Chevron’s CEOs, and testified in court.

In 2011, an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion in damages. The historic judgment has since been subject to years of legal and enforcement battles.

Alongside her work with Amazon Watch, Atossa is also deeply involved with the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, a movement working to establish legal rights for ecosystems themselves — the right of a river to flow, the right of a forest to exist, the right of nature to regenerate and thrive.

In 2014, Atossa served as one of the ten judges in the world’s first ethics Tribunal on Rights of Nature in Quito, Ecuador — the first country to recognize rights of nature in its constitution.

Atossa’s work has earned widespread recognition. She was named the Hillary Institute’s 2013 Global Laureate for Climate Leadership and jointly received the Hillary Step Prize in 2015. Today, she serves as director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance and remains the founder and board president of Amazon Watch. She previously served as a trustee of the Christensen Fund from 2008 to 2017, including several years as board chair.

But awards and titles only tell part of the story.

The true measure of Atossa’s impact lies in the millions of acres of rainforest protected, the Indigenous communities empowered to defend their territories, the precedents set for corporate accountability, and the growing global movement to protect the Amazon.

After more than 30 years of activism, Atossa shows no signs of slowing down. The threats to the Amazon have only intensified — climate change, extractive industries, illegal logging, agricultural expansion, infrastructure projects cutting through pristine forest.

Atossa continues to fight with the same passion she had decades ago, but with far more experience, connections, and strategic sophistication.

For thirty years, she’s been a fierce defender of the Amazon — for the sake of the planet, let’s hope she’s just getting started.

Sources:

1. Atossa Soltani | World Economic Forum

2. Protecting the Amazon and our climate in solidarity with Indigenous peoples | Amazon Watch

3. Colombia's U'wa tribe, oil is Mother Earth’s blood and must stay in the ground | Lifegate