gloria_pinango

Peruvian environmentalist leading global efforts to protect Amazonian biodiversity through indigenous partnerships and tech innovation.

Gloria Piñango is a Peruvian environmental scientist whose work bridges cutting-edge technology with indigenous knowledge to protect the Amazon rainforest. Born in 1988 to an Asháninka father and Quechua mother, Piñango co-founded Rainforest Guardians in 2013, an NGO that trains indigenous communities to use drones and satellite monitoring to combat illegal logging. Her Eco Sentinel program has reduced deforestation by 40% in protected areas of Peru's Madre de Dios region.

In 2017, Piñango developed the first AI-powered biodiversity tracking system in partnership with Google's Earth Engine team, now used by 23 countries. Her advocacy led to the 2021 Amazon Accord, which secured $2.3B in international funding for rainforest conservation. Piñango's groundbreaking book Amazonian Algorithms (2020) details how machine learning can preserve cultural ecosystems. She was named one of Time Magazine's 2022 Most Influential People for her work merging technology with ancestral wisdom. Her recent collaboration with NASA uses soil moisture sensors to predict drought patterns, directly benefiting over 500,000 farmers annually.