Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim

Chadian environmental activist bridging indigenous knowledge with climate science to protect the Sahel region

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, a Mbororo pastoralist from Chad, revolutionized climate advocacy by integrating indigenous ecological practices into global policy frameworks. As co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, she championed the ‘3N Initiative’ (Nigeria, Niger, Chad) to combat desertification through traditional water management systems.

Her groundbreaking participatory mapping projects, documented by National Geographic, enabled nomadic communities to visually track shrinking lakes and grazing patterns using satellite data blended with ancestral navigation techniques. This fusion of tech and tradition influenced the Paris Agreement’s Article 7 on loss and damage compensation.

In 2019, Ibrahim engineered the ‘Great Green Wall Accelerator’, mobilizing $14.3 billion to create an 8,000km mosaic of sustainable land use across Africa. Her TED Talk on ‘Indigenous Science’ has reshaped UN biodiversity strategies, proving that marginalized voices can drive planetary-scale solutions.