Rachael Knight is a lawyer who works to protect Indigenous Peoples’ and rural communities’ collective land rights. For more than two decades, she has worked alongside brilliant local lawyers to support communities around the world to proactively defend their lands and local ecosystems from land grabbing by political elites and international companies. As a core part of her work, she created a process through which communities remember, revive, and implement the rules and protocols that their ancestors followed (allowing for updates to align with present-day realities) to ensure biodiverse, flourishing ecosystems; promote good governance; and strengthen communities’ resilience in the face of climate change. Through her own spiritual path, Rachael has gained a profound appreciation for the spiritual dimensions of land stewardship: she believes that all land (and the whole of the natural world) is sentient – and wants to be honoured, consciously related to, and lovingly tended. Rachael is currently writing a book about communities who are strengthening, remembering and reviving their culture’s spiritual stewardship of lands and local ecosystems. The book will be a kind of ” how to guide” that aims to help all people find their way home to their own culture’s land-feeding rituals and ceremonies, learn to carefully listen for the land’s expressed preferences of how it wants to be treated, and begin to relate to the land they live and work upon in a profoundly honoring way. https://www.rachaelsydneyknight.org

Jacob Johns is an activist and artist from the Hopi and Akimel O’odham nations who is passionate about Native American issues and environmental concerns. In addition to Sierra Club rallies and protests against oil and coal train traffic, Jacob has made several supply runs to the Standing Rock Sioux camp since September, where he joined Dakota Access Pipeline protesters and was interviewed by Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, documenting his scuffle with guards who had unleashed dogs on the protesters. He has gone through a transformation journey from dealing with a range of traumas to connecting with the ancient wisdom of his people. Jacob is fully enmeshed in the regional Native American cultural landscape, advocates healing by reconnecting with traditional tribal culture, and is particularly interested in inspiring youth through written and oral language and art. Using spray paint, pencil, marker, acrylic and other two-dimensional media, Johns creates works that often combine facial portraits and sacred geometry with gestural expressions of color and graffiti-like stylings. He has created a CD of original Hopi music and is currently involved in community organising and campaigns around key struggles.

Rachel is a Human Rights, environmental and feminist activist. A visionary and strategic leader for major international systemic change influencing, advocacy and campaigns specializing in the connection from local to global impact. She is currently a Senior Worldwide Influencing Network Advisor and Strategist for Oxfam working globally for equity and justice in the global food system and led one of the largest global private sector campaigns at Oxfam International. Currently, she has been supporting movement building in feminist food systems, by catalyzing The Makhadzi Feminist Food Collective a global network of local, indigenous and grassroots feminist food activists. Rachel has a Juris Doctorate in Law focused on human rights. She has played leading roles in organizations such as Tearfund, ActionAid, labor unions, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Legal Aid, leading Human Rights organizations in Haiti and lives and works out of South Africa. Rachel has worked in global systems change on issues including: pay equity, tax justice, climate justice, Indigenous peoples’ rights, workers, women’s rights and just food systems. She is an advocate for interconnections and bridging across worlds.