Diana Soto Callejas

Colombian environmental lawyer pioneering community-driven rainforest conservation

Diana Soto Callejas is a lawyer and founder of Fundación Amazonía, a Colombian NGO revolutionizing rainforest protection through indigenous collaboration. Growing up near the Amazon basin, Soto witnessed deforestation rates accelerate by 44% between 2016-2020. She developed a legal framework that empowers local communities to manage conservation zones through participatory governance. Her model has protected 2.3 million hectares of rainforest while creating sustainable livelihoods for 35,000+ families.

Soto's Amazonia Protocol combines ancestral knowledge with satellite monitoring, enabling real-time deforestation alerts sent directly to community leaders. This system reduced illegal logging in pilot areas by 68% within 18 months. Her 2021 initiative CACUAS trains young indigenous leaders in drone mapping and carbon credit negotiations, ensuring communities gain 80% of eco-tourism profits instead of external operators.

Her work gained global traction after the COP26 conference where she presented UN-backed case studies showing community-led forests store 30% more carbon than government-managed areas. Soto's approach is now being replicated in Peru's Madre de Dios region and Brazil's Xingu Indigenous Park. She was awarded the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize for her innovative fusion of law, technology, and cultural preservation.