Ana Paula Cunha

Brazilian environmental lawyer protecting Amazon communities through legal advocacy

Ana Paula Cunha (b. 1985) is a Brazilian attorney who founded DefendAmazon in 2014 to combat illegal logging and mining in the Amazon basin. Her legal strategies secured 45 court rulings against environmental crimes by 2019, recovering 120,000 hectares of illegally deforested land. Working closely with indigenous groups like the Munduruku tribe, she developed the first real-time deforestation monitoring system integrated with Brazil's legal framework. Her 2017 report Deforestation and Corporate Accountability led to 14 multinational companies facing lawsuits. Cunha's work was recognized by the 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize, often called the 'Green Nobel'. She co-authored Brazil's 2018 Forest Code amendments ensuring indigenous land rights, cited in the WWF Brazil annual report. Her TED Talk 'Law as a Tool for Ecological Justice' has been translated into 15 languages and viewed over 800,000 times globally.