Victoria Tauli-Corpuz has been fighting for the environment and for the rights of indigenous people since she led her village in opposing an order from the then President of the Philippines to log a forest and dam a river near her village. The Philippine army raided her home, but she and her village prevailed—both the logging and the dam construction were stopped.

She went on to create and direct the Tebtebba Foundation, whose mission is to protect the rights of indigenous people worldwide and to work with them to stop deforestation, mining, and the damming of rivers.

As director of Tebtebba, her goals include helping indigenous farmers avoid bankruptcy, eliminating investment policies that allow mining corporations to evict people from their native lands, and preventing companies from patenting native plants.

Tauli-Corpuz has worked with the United Nations, traveling the world to champion indigenous people as environmental stewards, a world in which environmental activists have all too often been murdered by military and by corporate forces that want them to sit down and shut up.