Liz Barratt-Brown

I have long been an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation’s leading environmental organizations. Currently I serve as a Senior Advisor to NRDC's International Program. A lot of my work in the past thirty years has focused on elevating the control of traditional territories by Indigenous communities in Canada's temperate rainforest and boreal forest. Most recently, I helped to launch and steer the high profile Keystone XL tar sands pipeline campaign (tar sands originate in Alberta's beautiful blue-green boreal forest). Today, I am working with my team on logging impacts, especially in Quebec and in the Cree homeland of Eeyou Istchee. Our main tool to bring about change is to push large tissue companies, like Proctor & Gamble (maker of Charmin, Puffs and Bounty), to use more recycled and alternative fiber in their products to reduce their pressure on the boreal and boreal indigenous communities. I also worked on the climate and biodiversity treaties for many years as well as represented NRDC and North American citizens at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. I was a legislative assistant to Senator Frank Lautenberg from 1984-1986 and helped craft and pass the Toxic Release Inventory as an amendment to the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. Prior to working on the hill, I worked on efforts to build support for action on acid rain.