Jocabed Solano

Jocabed Reina Solano Miselis is a young theologian and storyteller from K(G)una Yala in Panama. She is a leading voice for Indigenous self-determination and climate justice on the global stage. As director of the grassroots collective Memoria Indígena, she collects oral histories and trains Latin American church leaders to challenge traditional ideas about religion. She insists that “the forest and the ocean are our first seminaries.” Solano often goes to big meetings at the United Nations about climate change, like COP27 and COP28. There, he mixes ideas from K(G)una cosmology, the study of the Bible, and practical action to encourage people to protect land and sea because they are like parts of our own bodies. Whether she is speaking out against deep-sea mining in big meetings or hosting Talanoa circles for young people on her island of Ustupu, she brings together traditional knowledge and the people who make the rules. She reminds the people who make decisions that every ton of carbon has a human story behind it.