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Watch Gregor MacLennan's Do Lecture.

Gregor has worked on indigenous rights and environmental issues in the Peruvian Amazon for 9 years and is co-founder and advisor to the non-profit indigenous rights group Shinai. He spent 7 years living in Peru working with indigenous communities to defend their territory from incursions by illegal loggers and petroleum companies. He has worked with some of the most remote communities in the Amazon, including people who have only recently entered into contact with the outside world, helping them cope with and be in control of the changes in their society. He has campaigned for improved government policy to protect peoples still living in isolation from the outside world.

Gregor has extensive experience in participative territory mapping, facilitating communities to draw maps of their territory and why it is important to them and using GPS and satellite technologies in order to turn hand maps into detailed geographic representations of indigenous land use. Gregor has helped Achuar and Nahua communities in Peru and the Wapishan in Guyana to prepare these maps in order to communicate the importance of the rainforest to their way of life and support indigenous land claims.

Gregor has worked extensively with indigenous communities affected by oil drilling and oil exploration. With the Achuar people of the Corrientes river in Northern Peru Gregor helped set up a community run environmental monitoring programme, training local people to photograph, film and document oil spills with a GPS, use a computer to systematise the information and publicise the impact of oil drilling on indigenous communities.

Gregor currently works for US-based indigenous rights campaign organisation Amazon Watch as Peru Programme Coordinator. Gregor has received the Sting and Trudie Styler Award for human rights and the environment.

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