Ehuana Yaira Yanomami is a Yanomami leader, artist, researcher, and mother of four. She has spent her entire life in the Demini region (Amazonas), the area of the Amazon rainforest where she was born, raised, had her children, and continues to live. Around the age of ten, she began studying at the Indigenous school in her community, where she learned to write in her native language. Ehuana became the first female teacher in her community in 2010, when she began participating in several research projects and book productions in her native language, notably authoring Yɨpɨmuwi thëã oni, Words Written About Menstruation (Saberes Indígenas, 2017). Through these research projects, she started illustrating books, revealing her talent as an artist. Since 2017, she has been creating drawings and paintings that portray her daily life as a woman of the forest. She also draws inspiration from dreams, with her strong ability to dream, being the daughter of a shaman. Her artworks have been exhibited in Brazil and abroad. Ehuana stands out as one of the few female leaders among the Yanomami and has gained increasing recognition by coordinating the Yanomami Women’s Gathering, held annually in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory. She also takes part in several other major meetings held within the Yanomami territory. Additionally, Ehuana has participated in events aimed at non-Indigenous audiences, where she speaks about the strength of Yanomami women, the fight against illegal mining, the struggle for her people’s health, and the defense of the forest where she was born, raised, and raises her children.

Vanessa Boanada Fuchs is the Director of the St.Gallen Institute of Management in Latin America, and Assistant Professor of International Development and Sustainability at the University of St.Gallen (HSG). She also leads the HSG-based Leading House for the Latin America region, which promotes research and innovation cooperation between Switzerland and Latin America. Vanessa’s research and teaching interests relate to the socio-environmental dimensions of infrastructure projects, including stakeholder engagement. She also focuses on decolonial approaches and the social control of on-the-ground practices of rights and policies. Vanessa Boanada Fuchs studied Law and International Relations in Brazil (PUC-Rio) and obtained her PhD in International Development Studies at the Graduate Institute in Geneva (IHEID). As a researcher, Vanessa held a postdoc and visiting positions at the University of Campinas, Michigan State University, and Freie Universität Berlin.