Ruth Buendía Mestoquiari is an environmental rights defender who insists that the law is on her side. Invoking an International Labor Organization treaty that Peru ratified in 1994 and legislation passed in 2011, Buendía maintains that the Peruvian government must consult with Indigenous communities before launching infrastructure projects or mining concessions that will affect them, a process known as prior consultation. As the first female president of CARE, an organization which represents about 10,000 Indigenous Ashaninka in the Peruvian Amazon, she has successfully stopped the construction of two mega-dams along the Ene River. Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Prize
