Mitch Anderson

Mitch Anderson is an environmental justice activist, human rights defender, writer, photographer, and father. He is the co-founder and executive director of Amazon Frontlines, a nonprofit organization based in the Upper Amazon, which defends Indigenous peoples' rights to land, life, and cultural survival. For nearly two decades, he has worked and lived in Central and South America, fighting alongside Indigenous peoples for clean water and the rights to their ancestral lands. In 2011, he moved to Ecuador's northern Amazon to start a grassroots clean water project with Indigenous communities living downriver from contaminating oil operations. Through building more than 1,000 water systems in over 70 Indigenous villages, Mitch supported the founding of the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance that won the prestigious U.N. Equator Prize and whose victories for the Amazon rainforest have inspired millions worldwide.