Lina Solano
Ecuador
Lives in Cuenca, Ecuador. She is a social fighter, defender of Pachamama (Mother Earth), human rights activist and of the women. Co-founder of the Popular Peasant Coordinator CCP (2005), the National Coalition for the Defense of Life and Sovereignty CNDVS (2007), Women Defender of Mother Earth (2008), among other important organizations in Ecuador. Cofounder and current President of the Latin American Union of Women ULAM, a network of women in resistance to mining in several countries in the Region. For more than a decade she has been part of the resistance movement to the mega mining projects, especially in southern Ecuador, thereby being targeted for persecution, prosecution and criminalization by mining corporations as well as states and the government of Ecuador.
She has participated in international forums and events to denounce the imposition of mega mining in Ecuador and the criminalization accompanies the social-environmental conflicts of mining. In May-June 2014 she was invited as an expert for the hearing of the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) on human rights violations and environmental damage committed by Canadian mining companies in Latin America, which took place in Montreal, where she made a presentation on "Impacts of mining on the Rights of Women". She is sociologist, holds a master in Sociology and Development from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Cuenca, and is candidate far Master of Health Ecosystem Approach by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cuenca.