Gaia Associates are pioneers in integrated approaches to ecological and social justice. They enjoy an “affectionate alliance” with Gaia, and work jointly on projects or field programmes.

Gaia Associates:
Colin Campbell
Tony Cunningham
Tewolde Berhan Egziabher
Irwin Friedman
Martin von Hildebrand
Martin Khor
Ailton Krenak
Wangari Maathai
Manfred Max-Neef
Andrew Muir
Gurdial Singh Nijar
Melaku Worede
Vandana Shiva

Our Advisors provide wisdom and counsel based on their experience in a range of arenas. We seek their advice on matters relating to the work of Gaia’and our partners.

Gaia Advisers:
Maggie Baxter
David Cadman
Jules Cashford
Angela Cordeiro
Brian Goodwin
Satish Kumar
Juan Mayr
Jacqueline McGlade
Brian Swimme

Patrons:
Thomas Berry


Former Associates, Advisors and Patrons:
Sadly, some beloved colleagues have died during the years since Gaia was founded. We appreciate their support and commitment, the projects that we collaborated on, and they remain in our hearts.

Laurens van der Post (Patron)
Colin Hudson (Gaia Associate)
José Lutzenberger (Gaia Associate)

Colin Campbell

Colin Campbell was born in Harare Zimbabwe, and spent much of his childhood in Botswana.
Initially trained as a traditional doctor, Colin is a skilled herbalist, diviner, and general medical practitioner.

At present Colin co-runs a traditional training school and initiation center for traditional doctors and sangomas. He also has a practice in Cape Town, South Africa from which he consults and runs programs based in Southern African cosmology.

Tony Cunningham

Dr A B (Tony) Cunningham is an ethnoecologist/applied ecologist working on natural resource use by local people. Over the past 25 years, he has worked in East Africa, southern Africa, West Africa, South Asia (Nepal, India) and to a lesser extent, Oceania (Australia, Fiji) in habitats from desert to tropical rainforest. His main interest is the links between people and conservation, centred on the resource values (economic, medicinal, nutritional, utilitarian) of natural resources to people and conflicts between conservation areas and local communities. In 2004, he was GP Wilder Chair, University of Hawaii, teaching an interdisciplinary ethnoecology course bridging marine & terrestrial environments.

Tony is the author or co-author of over 70 publications, including “Applied ethnobotany: people, wild plant use and conservation” (Earthscan, 2001). He helped start the WWF/UNESCO/Kew international conservation programme, the “People and Plants Initiative”, and is on the international steering committee.

Tewolde Gebre Egziabher

Dr. Tewolde Gebre Egziabher is General Manager of the Environmental Protection Authority of the government of Ethiopia, and a board member of the San Francisco-based International Forum on Globalization. He was born in Ethiopia, educated at Addis Ababa University, and subsequently studied for a doctorate in plant biology at the University of North Wales. He has been Dean of the Faculty of Science at Addis Ababa and Keeper of the National Herbarium. He was also President of Asmara University (1983-1991).

Dr. Tewolde is one of Africa’s most outstanding advocates and defenders of community and environmental rights. He was chief negotiator for the African group in the main biodiversity related negotiations during the 1990s, and gained international recognition for his wit and tenacity as negotiator for developing countries in the Biosafety negotiations. He has also pioneered the drafting of two state of the art Model Laws on Biosafety and Community Rights. In December 2000, Dr. Tewolde was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.

Irwin Friedman

Dr. Irwin Friedman has over three decades of professional practice in a variety of areas of health development, primarily in the non-government sector in South Africa. His work in primary health care has included: Medical Director of an integrated primary health care project in the Valley Of a Thousand Hills in KwaZulu Natal (The Valley Trust), Project Leader of an academic problem-oriented, community-based training programme for health professionals (Natal Institute for Community Health Education), National Director of a primary health care advocacy network (National Progressive Primary Health Care Network).

Irwin is currently a consulting Public Health Physician in independent practice. He is especially involved in strengthening community based aspects of primary health care with special emphasis on countering the negative inter-relationship between HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Martin von Hildebrand

Dr. Martín von Hildebrand is a visionary and leader in the work to support forest communities and protect the ecosystems and biodiversity of the Amazon tropical forest. For almost 30 years Hildebrand has been carrying out critical work for the protection of indigenous rights, cultural and ecological diversity in Colombia. He combines the experience of living and working among the indigenous communities of the Colombian Amazon with a strong reputation for integrity and tenacity, which has led him to hold key positions of government.

Martín has been the leading force in achieving collective indigenous rights to over 21 million hectares of tropical forest, and in stimulating a political will towards the inclusion of significant indigenous rights within the 1991 Political Constitution. He is the inspiration and founder of the COAMA Programme, winner of the Right Livelihood Award in 1999, and the Colombian NGO Fundación Gaia Amazonas. Hildebrand has written papers, academic and mainstream, on the ethnology and cosmovision of indigenous groups in the Colombian Amazon.

Martin Khor

Martin Khor Kok Peng is unusual among activists: he is as likely to give speeches at global forums as to agitate with the protesters outside. A former economist and university lecturer in Malaysia, he has gained international recognition as Director of the Third World Network (TWN), which he has led since its inception in 1984, and for his role in providing advice and analysis of World Trade Organisation (WTO) strategies and agreements for developing country negotiations in Geneva. He oversees one of the oldest and strongest environmental and social organisations in Malaysia, the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP), and is also closely involved with Friends of the Earth (FoE) Malaysia, which received the Right Livelihood Award for their outstanding contribution to protecting the forests and lifting the profile of the forest peoples’ struggle in the area.

Martin has written extensively on matters relating to trade, development, international finance, the environment and ecology, agriculture, intellectual property rights and threats to biodiversity and indigenous knowledge. Among his most recent publications are Globalization and the South: Some Critical Issues; The WTO, the Post-Doha Agenda and the Future of the Trade System; and Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS and Biodiversity.

Ailton Krenak

Ailton Krenak was born on the Doce River valley, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. When he was 17-years old, Ailton emigrated with his parents to the State of Paraná. He learned how to read and write at the age of 18, and became a graphic producer and journalist. Since the 1980's Ailton has dedicated himself to the indigenous movement. In 1987, he captured media and public attention by painting his face black while delivering a speech in the National Congress, as a gesture of mourning for the retrocession in proceedings on indigenous rights.

In 1988 he took part in the founding of the União das Nações Indígenas (UNI), an intertribal forum seeking representation for the indigenous movement at the national level, and in 1989 he participated of the movement Aliança dos Povos da Floresta, which brought together indigenous peoples and rubber tappers for the protection of the forest and of the people that live in it. He was awarded the Onassis International Prize in 1990.

In recent years Ailton returned to Minas Gerais to be closer to his people. He participates in the Núcleo de Cultura Indígena, a NGO that since 1998 promotes the culture of Brazil’s indigenous groups.

Wangari Maathai

The Right Honorable Wangari Maathai is a prominent figure in the global environmental movement and a leader of the women’s movement in Kenya. She was born in Kenya and trained in biological sciences in the USA, Germany and the University of Nairobi. In 1977 Wangari Maathai founded the Greenbelt Movement to counteract the negative development practices of the government and international lenders. The movement started with a small tree nursery in Maathai's backyard. Now over 20m trees have been planted in Kenya and there are about 5,000 grassroots nurseries. The movement is composed primarily of women and has as its goals both the reversal of the environmental consequences of deforestation and educating a growing population on sustainable energy practices and income-generating programs.

Wangari Maathai is internationally recognised for her persistent work for democracy, human rights and environmental issues. She was elected to parliament in Kenya in 2002 and appointed Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife. Wangari Maathai has served on the UN Commission for Global Governance and has received numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award, the Goldman Prize, and most recently the Sophie Award from Norway (2004). In December 2004 Wangari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Manfred Max-Neef

Manfred Max-Neef is a Chilean economist who has gained an international reputation for his work on development alternatives, especially relating to the third world and to the idea of stimulating self-reliance and satisfying our fundamental human needs. After teaching economics at the University of California (Berkeley) in the 1960s, he served as a Visiting Professor at a number of US and Latin American universities. In addition to a long academic career he has also gained notoriety as a candidate in the Chilean presidential election in 1993 before being appointed as Rector to the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia.

In 1981 Manfred Max-Neef wrote the book for which he is best known, From the Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics, which seeks to counter the logic of economics with the ethics of well being. In the same year he set up the Centre for Development Alternatives in Chile. Max-Neef received the Right Livelihood Award "for revitalising small and medium-sized communities, fostering self-confidence and reinforcing the roots of the people."

Andrew Muir

Andrew Muir is an environmental activist who targets influential community people - youth leaders, opinion leaders and politicians – using the natural environmental as a medium for learning and skills development. He has designed and implemented programmes that have impacted on 60,000 South Africans, with the majority of participants being drawn from previously disadvantaged backgrounds: extending socio-political perceptions; influencing environmental legislation; developing environmental and cultural awareness among emerging young black leaders (Imbewu programme); activating a future for orphans of the Aids crisis (uMzi whetu, an environmentally focused skills development program).

Andrew is Director of the Wilderness Foundation of South Africa, a nationally based environmental NGO; also Chairman of the Wilderness Leadership School Trust, a Trustee of Usiko Rites of Passage and the Deputy Chairperson of the Eastern Cape Provincial Parks Board. He has a Masters Degree in Environment and Development.

Gurdial Singh Nijar

Prof. Gurdial Njiar is a senior practising lawyer and Legal Advisor to the Third World Network. He qualified at Kings College, London and the University of Malaya. He is currently a Barrister-at-Law, Middle Temple and a registered Advocate and Solicitor in Victoria New South Wales, Australia. His research interest includes many aspects of biodiversity law. Particular areas of expertise include: Biodiversity Law - including developing national and international legal regimes for access and benefit sharing arising from the utilization of genetic resources; Biodiversity Law and Biotechnology; and Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity - protecting traditional knowledge in relation to biodiversity.

Gurdial Nijar has represented Malaysia and the legal profession and numerous international forums and meetings. He has published several books covering civil trial advocacy, indigenous peoples knowledge systems and drafting for lawyers.

Melaku Worede

Dr. Melaku Worede is internationally renowned for his pioneering work in plant genetic research and his role in restoring Ethiopia's food security. Born in Ethiopia, he obtained a PhD in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska, and returned to Ethiopia to become involved in the development of the Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC) in Addis Ababa, serving as its director from 1979 to 1993. Dr Worede and his staff collected and safely stored a considerable amount of Ethiopia's seeds and plant materials and in the process established one of the world's best genetic conservation systems. He has worked directly with farmers in Ethiopia, to help build on their traditional knowledge and practices rather than imposing western scientific priorities.

Dr Worede played a key role in launching the Seeds of Survival (SoS) Program in Ethiopia in 1988, and is now bringing SoS to other regions of Africa and Asia as key promoter and scientific adviser. In 1989, he was honoured with the Right Livelihood Award "... for preserving Ethiopia's genetic wealth for the benefit of all humanity."

Vandana Shiva

Vandana Shiva is a physicist, feminist, philosopher of science, writer and science policy advocate. She is deeply committed to the ecological, social and economic struggles of subsistence workers in India, and has stood beside people in their struggles against destructive forestry practices, large-scale dams and multinational dominated agribusiness. Her recent work, as Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehradun, India, has concentrated largely on the protection of farmers' rights to their own seed stock, and to exposing the threats to the world's farmers by the potent combination of global liberalisation of trade and patent protection of agricultural processes and products.

Vandana Shiva is a well-known environmentalist and supporter of social justice, and received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. She serves as an ecology advisor to several organisations including the Third World Network and the Asia Pacific People's Environment Network, and has an international reputation as an activist, author and engaging public speaker. Her publications include Staying Alive; Women, Ecology and Development; The Violence of the Green Revolution, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge; Monoculutures of the Mind; and Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit.

Maggie Baxter

Maggie Baxter has worked in the voluntary sector for over 30 years. Most recently she was Executive Director of WOMANKIND Worldwide. Prior to that, she was Deputy Chief Executive and Grants Director at Comic Relief, responsible for the allocation of all Red Nose Day income, and she was seconded whilst at Comic Relief to set up the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Maggie has also worked as London adviser to the Baring Foundation, and a grants officer in the Grants Unit of Camden Council.

Maggie is totally committed to the voluntary sector and has a particular knowledge and understanding of policy issues. Her other roles include being a trustee of the Hilden Charitable Fund, City Parochial Foundation, Dance United, Green Belt Movement International and Women for Refugee Women.

David Cadman

Prof David Cadman is an urban land economist and writer and is currently a Visiting Professor at a number of universities in England. As a birthright Quaker, he is interested in the ways in which language and values shape our lives and has explored these themes through a study of our own myths, through the teachings of the Buddha and other sacred texts and in the struggle to understand how we can dwell more lightly upon the land. He is the author of a number of papers and stories.

In David's own words, he "wishes to share his quest with others, in the hope that as they, too, stumble along the path, they may find his own questions and stories to be useful".

Jules Cashford

Jules Cashford is a writer and lecturer on mythology. She studied philosophy at St Andrews University and literature at Cambridge, and was Supervisor in Tragedy for Trinity College, Cambridge for some years. She is a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology.

Jules Cashford is the co-author, with Anne Baring, of The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image (Penguin Arkana, 1993), and translator of The Homeric Hymns (Penguin Classics, 2003). Her most recent book, The Moon: Myth and Image (Cassell Illustrated, 2003) is a comprehensive look at the Moon and its vast influence on the structure and symbolism of mythology, religion and consciousness.

Angela Cordeiro

Angela Cordeiro is a Brazilian Agronomist, with a Master Degree in Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources. Since 1987 she has been working with biodiversity management at community level with peasants organizations in Brazil. She believes participatory approach is essential to empower local communities. She has a special interest on network theory and its applications on biodiversity conservation and knowledge sharing.

Brian Goodwin

Brian Goodwin is a professor of biology at Schumacher College and member of the Board of Directors of the Sante Fe Institute. He looks on biology as an exact science, and sees the "new biology" less as a historical science than as an enterprise similar to physics in its emphasis on principles of order. Goodwin is more comfortable with the complexity ideas of Stuart Kauffman and with Francisco Varela's holistic approach to biology. and is strongly opposed to the reductionist view of the ultra-Darwinians.

Brian Goodwin is the author of: Temporal Organization in Cells and Analytical Physiology; How The Leopard Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity (Touchstone Books 1996); Form and Transformation: Generative and Relational Principles in Biology (with Gerry Webster) (Cambridge Univ Press 1996); and (with Richard Sole) Signs if Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology (Basic Books 2002).

Satish Kumar

When he was only nine years old, Satish Kumar renounced the world and joined the wandering brotherhood of Jain monks. Dissuaded from his path by an inner voice at the age of eighteen, he left the monastic order and became a campaigner for land reform, working to turn Gandhi’s vision of renewed India and a peaceful world into reality.

In 1973, he settled in England, taking an Editorship of Resurgence magazine. He has been the editor ever since, and is the guiding spirit behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures in Britain. In 1991, Schumacher College, a residential international center for the study of ecological and spiritual values, was founded, of which he is the Director of Programme. Satish has published a number of books, including: No Destination, an autobiography, The Buddha and the Terrorist, and The Spiritual Compass.

Juan Mayr

Juan Mayr has dedicated his life to the environment and indigenous rights. He founded Fundación Pro-Sierra de Santa Marta, a Colombian NGO working to protect the ecosystems and indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada, the world’s highest coastal mountain range; he has been an active member of the World Conservation Union (IUCN); and in 1998 was appointed Minister for the Environment in Colombia.

At the international level, Juan acted as President of the Extraordinary Session of the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Cartagena in February 1999 and in Montreal in January 2000 (Cartagena Biosafety Protocol), and as Chairman of the VIII session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in 2000. He also chaired the High level Segment of the Second Session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), and acted as Consultant for the UNEP on the issue of cultural diversity and the environment.

Juan Mayr is currently a member of the Blue Ribbon Panel to revise environmental policy of the IDB. He is Advisor to the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Humanitarian Coordinator in Colombia, and a member of the National Conciliation Commission.

Jacqueline McGlade

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, an environmental scientist active across a broad spectrum of the life sciences, is Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (EEA), the main European-level provider of environmental information to policy makers and the public.

She has worked as Senior Research Scientist in Canada's Fisheries and Oceans Department, Director of the NERC Centre for Coastal and Marine Sciences in the UK, Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick, UK, and Director of the Theoretical Ecology Group at the government research centre at Jülich in Germany; and has led or participated in expeditions and field activities in the Caribbean, Red Sea, western Africa, the north Atlantic and Canadian Arctic.

Jacqueline McGlade is the winner of several academic awards, prizes and scholarships in various countries, and has over 150 publications to her name on such subjects as environmental informatics, ecosystems analysis, climate change, natural resource management and risk and governance. She has broadcast extensively on television and radio – including her own BBC Radio 4 series.

Brian Swimme

Dr Brian Swimme is a mathematical cosmologist on the graduate faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. His primary field of research is the nature of the evolutionary dynamics of the Universe.

Brian Seimme brings us a meaningful interpretation of the human as an emergent being within the Universe and Earth. In 1989 he founded the Center for the Story of the Universe, a production and distribution affiliate of the California Institute of Integral Studies.

His published works include: The Universe is a Green Dragon (Bear & co 1984), The Universe Story (1992) and The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos (Orbis Books, 1996), and his books have been translated into eight different languages. He is the producer of a twelve-part video series Canticle to the Cosmos (Tides Center, 1990), which has been distributed worldwide, and was featured in a three part television series Soul of the Universe (BBC, 1991).

Thomas Berry

Thomas Berry is a historian of cultures and the intersection of cultural and ecological issues. He was born in 1914 in North Carolina, entered a monastery in 1934 and earned his doctoral degree from the Catholic University of America. His early interest in western history was expanded to include Asian history and religion as well as the culture and religious life of indigenous peoples. He studied Chinese language and culture in China in 1948; later he learned Sanskrit for the study of India and its religious traditions. He has assisted in an educational program for the T'boli tribal peoples of South Cotabato on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.

Thomas Berry's published works include: Buddhism (Columbia University Press,1968), Religions of India (Columbia UP, 1972) and The Dream of the Earth (Sierra Club Books, 1988). In 1992 he co-wrote The Universe Story with cosmologist Brian Swimme (Harper, San Francisco).

Laurens van der Post

Sir Laurens van der Post, born in South Africa, was a writer, journalist, conservationist and strong opponent of apartheid. He lived for many years among the people who created the first blueprint for life on earth, becoming the principal chronicler of the Kalahari Bushmen. He was also one of C.G. Jung's closest friends. Van der Post dedicated his life to teaching the meaning and value of indigenous cultures in the modern world, a world he felt is in danger of losing its spiritual identity to technology, prejudice, empty values, and a lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of all life on earth.

Awarded a knighthood (the C.B.E.) in 1981, Sir Laurens died after his 90th birthday, in December, 1996.

Colin Hudson

Dr. Colin Hudson, British-born Barbadian, environmentalist and innovative scientist, was advisor to the United Nation's environmental project, Greening Barbados, and Green Expo 2003. He was coordinator of the Village of Hope for the 1994 UN Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, which focussed on many of the challenges islands faced and some of the simple decisions needed in order to heal the planet. And Colin later established a similar ‘village of hope’ in South Africa, to coincide with World Summit on Sustainable Development, and an ongoing initiative in Pakistan.

Colin was widely known as a fertile source of ideas, information and inventions, and wrote more than 200 papers on agronomy, engineering and environmentalism. His weekly “hike and stare” environmental walks with the Barbados National Trust led to the creation of Treading Lightly, an organisation dedicated to finding sustainable solutions to development problems. He was awarded the Gold Crown of Merit (GCM) in Barbados, and the Guinness Award for Scientific Achievement.

Colin Hudson died in 2004. Among the many heartwarming tributes, it was said that he “represented a bright light in the dark decisions that are being made globally that degrade planet Earth. His passion, energy and genius will be remembered and even more highly valued in the years ahead.”

José Lutzenberger

Dr. José Lutzenberger - environmental hero, family farm advocate, and opponent of multinational trade agreements - is considered widely to be the father of Brazil's environmental movement. He was a practical scientist and a brilliant orator, with a reputation for being outraged by injustice of any kind. Lutzenberger trained as an agronomist and chemist in Brazil and at Louisiana State University, and worked in Germany for BASF Chemicals. Troubled by the un-checked production of pesticides, he returned to Brazil where in 1971 he helped found Agapan, Brazil's first citizen environmental organisation.

In 1988 Lutzenberger was awarded the Right Livelihood Award. Two years later, he was appointed Minister for the Environment in Brazil. Initial successes soon gave way to disillusionment and he resigned and returned to activist organising. He devoted the remainder of his life to promoting sustainable agriculture and denouncing industrialised farming methods. An outspoken critic of modern agribusiness, he penned a scathing critique in 1998, The Absurdity of Modern Agriculture - from Chemical Fertilizers and Agropoisons to Biotechnology. Other written papers have focussed on Regenerative Agriculture. Lutzenberger died in 2002, at the age of 75.

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VACANCIES

Advocacy Officer for the African Biodiversity Network. Full-time, based in Africa. More detail.

Gaia Learning Centre

2008 Programme of Events.

A range of workshops and evenings, to inspire and strengthen our relationship with the natural world and influence the choices we make in our daily lives.

** BOOK NOW **
Wild Law Workshop - 26-28 September - with the Environmental Law Foundation and the UK Environmental Law Association.

Earth Ethics Series

Summaries from recent Gaia Evenings.

Zero Carbon Britain - by Peter Harper

Restoring the Mythological Paradigm - by Jules Cashford

The Colombian Amazon: An Indigenous Peoples' Journey - by Dr. Martín von Hildebrand

Changing America's Environmental Laws - by Andrew Kimbrell.

Science's Changing Myth - by Prof. Brian Goodwin.

Countdown: Life on a Hotter Planet - by Mark Lynas.

A New Relationship with the Living Earth - by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake.

Get Involved

Other events and links to inspire you:

The Age of Stupid - the unmissable new climate change documentary for the big screen. Documentary footage, drama and cutting-edge animation asks "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"

Earth is Community - DVDs
For anyone who was not able to make our Earth is Community event, celebrating the vision and path of Thomas Berry. A set of DVDs with the main presentations, now available.

Earth Community Network

Schumacher College and Bija Vidyapeeth offer residential courses on Earth democracy and sustainable living. Visit the Earth Community Network for more opportunities in experiential learning - in Brazil, Kenya, India, UK.