Angélica María Chávez

Championed environmental conservation in the Amazon, advocating for indigenous rights.

Angélica María Chávez is a Peruvian environmental lawyer and founder of Amazon Conservation Consortium, dedicated to protecting biodiversity and supporting indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest. Born in 1978 in Iquitos, Peru, she studied law at the National University of San Marcos before specializing in environmental policy at Harvard University. Her career began in 2001 with the Peruvian Ministry of Environment, where she helped draft laws protecting ancestral indigenous territories.

In 2005, Chávez established the Amazon Conservation Consortium to combat illegal logging and mining. The organization works directly with indigenous groups like the Asháninka and Shipibo to map traditional lands and enforce legal protections. Her team pioneered satellite monitoring systems to detect deforestation in real-time, data that has been used in over 50 successful court cases against illegal operators.

Chávez's advocacy led to the creation of the 3.8 million-acre Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve in 2015. She received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2017 and the UN Equator Prize in 2020. Her work demonstrates how legal frameworks and technology can protect both ecosystems and indigenous cultures in the face of modernization pressures.