Born in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous Waorani woman and activist, traveled a long and arduous path to become one of the earth’s fiercest defenders. In her new memoir, We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People, released September 17, she shares the story of that journey, charting her experience growing up in the forest—a place where months are measured in moons, shamans and plant medicines heal, and dreams and intuition guide one’s path in life—as well as the pain and trauma inflicted by missionaries, oil companies, and governments that have long attempted to erase Indigenous culture and exploit their homelands. Now a leading figure in climate activism, Nenquimo’s book is also the first of its kind to be written by an Indigenous person from the Ecuadorian Amazon, where ancestral knowledge and wisdom about life in the forest have been passed down orally for millenia and the tradition of storytelling never manifests on paper. “For us, stories are living beings,” she writes in the introduction. “Our stories have never been written down. Not like this.”
The Amazon rainforest, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, has been gravely impacted by oil spills in Ecuador and elsewhere.
Nenquimo, who left the Amazon at the age of 14 to study with an Evangelical mission in Quito, witnessed the contamination of the region’s previously pristine rivers due to oil spills from ruptured pipelines upon returning to the forest for the first time in 2013. “You often hear that oil is progress for the country and for the world,” Nenquimo tells Condé Nast Traveler. “[But] the Waorani living along the edge of the forest [...] didn’t even have access to water. They Waorani women left at six in the morning to fill bottles with untreated water from the hoses of the oil companies. As a woman, this enraged me even more, and I began to think about how to help and unite our communities.”
Women’s stories are central to the book: from Flor, the Kichwa woman who inspired Nenquimo to co-found the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance (and its sister organization, Amazon Frontlines), to the elder Waorani women who accompanied her as co-plaintiffs as part of the Waorani's historic victory in court against the Ecuadorian government and titans of the oil industry in 2019. We sat down with Nenquimo in New York City during Climate Week to talk about how women have shaped her activism, what she envisions for the future of the forest, and how supporting women and Indigenous resistance together is essential to protecting our planet.
Your memoir is filled with women who have inspired you to take action. Tell me more about their significance in your life?
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Fall in NYC comes as a relief. The city in summer has its virtues—emptier streets, more easily-acquired reservations at most of the best restaurants—but the heat and the reek of garbage baking in it more than wear out that season’s welcome well before September slouches, sweating, into frame. Flattering it is not that autumn follows on its heels, not only turning off the oven but also invigorating New Yorkers who can now don the jackets they are so proud of and walk at their usual bracing clips without perspiring quite so readily.
More than seven decades ago, the S.S. United States — a ship bigger than the Titanic — made its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, breaking the trans-Atlantic speed record.
When most people think of Dubai, they picture towering skyscrapers, glittering lights, and people decked in designer clothes. While that's true to some degree, for me, the city has always been about community get-togethers, roadside shawarma chats, and weekends by the beach.
Autumn is a big season for hotels, especially those that represent the winds of change. In New York City, Standard International debuts its latest hotel concept, The Manner—which feels less like the hedonistic Standards of yore, and more like any of the city’s growing number of fabulous private-members clubs. Across the country in California, a beloved Laguna Beach icon enters an exciting new chapter. Salt Lake City is finally getting a new lifestyle hotel—just in time for another ski season. And the country’s first ultra-sustainable, “carbon positive” hotel opens its doors in Denver to set an example for hotels everywhere. There’s a lot happening, and a lot to explore—where will you go first? These are the most exciting new hotel openings of fall 2024.
There’s never a wrong time of year to visit the Berkshires, the mountainous stretch of western Massachusetts located just 140 miles north of New York City. You can thank the fall’s vibrant display of foliage, summer’s Tanglewood music festival that draws crowds from all over the world, and a steady tide of new hotel openings to take advantage of as cozy winter getaways and for ski season. The region also has strong roots as an artists community, with a robust community of galleries, independent boutiques, and museums. And for city dwellers looking to stretch their legs, the Berkshires is also home to scenic hiking trails and winter slopes for every activity and ability level.
There’s a refreshing fluidity and freeness to the best wine bars of New York City, which can appear in many forms—a sleek power-lunch hotspot, a cozy bar on the Lower East Side, or a tranquil backyard in Brooklyn. “To me, a wine bar serves limited food and is more focused on the beverage at hand,” explains Chase Sinzer, owner of wine bar Claud and Penny in the East Village. “It might feel more ‘casual’ in that it invites guests to maybe peruse the bottles on the wall or pour their own wine from an ice bucket.”