You may know Nemonte Nenquimo as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism, as the co-founder of both the Indigenous-led non-profit Ceibo Alliance, or as the first female president of the Waorani of Pastaza. Now, with the release of her memoir We Will Not Be Saved, Nemonte bestows upon us the singular story of her life from a girl in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest to the force who stood as the voice for her people.

We are honoured to welcome Nemonte to AllBright on the 11th of June to delve into the journey of how she and her husband Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, wrote this astonishing memoir. Continue below to get a sneak peek of We Will Not Be Saved…

The following extract demonstrates one of many events that catalysed the conception of the Ceibo Alliance. Oil companies have encroached on the indigenous lands of Ecuador and poisoned their rivers with spills, waste and runoff without consequence, while indigenous communities suffered illness, famine, ecosystem devastation and loss of their homelands. It serves to demonstrate the scale of power the oil companies operated with and to humanise the terrible struggle of the indigenous people.

“I want to help my women,” I said suddenly. “I want us to build water systems for my women on the Via Maxus road.”

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One afternoon, a light rain pattered on the metal sheet roof of the open-air gathering hall. It was in the island of forest on the outskirts of the town. Emergildo held a manilla envelope in his hands. The shaman’s grandson, Hernán, stood beside him. Michi sat on a bamboo rail, watching a skittish troupe of dusky titi monkeys leaping in the branches.

“My name is Nemonte,” I said quietly to the woman sitting next to me. Her face was stunningly beautiful and her hands were calloused from gardening. She had earth under her fingernails.

She smiled at me. “My name is Flor.”

“Where are you from?” I asked, suddenly realizing how happy I was to be talking to another Indigenous woman.

“From a village downriver.”

“Where there was the oil spill?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am Kichwa but I am married to a Siona man. I live in a Siona village.”

“My mother is Kichwa-Záparo,” I told her proudly. “And my father is Waorani.”

She spoke warmly. “Michi told me about you. He wanted us to meet.” I felt embarrassed suddenly. I wondered what he had said about me. “Do you know what the papers say?” she asked, nodding at the manilla envelope.

I shook my head, though I knew they were documents from the laboratory.

“My children play all day in the river,” she said, watching Emergildo take out the papers, “and I’ve never known what’s in the water. Now I will find out.”

“Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” Emergildo stuttered, squinting through his eyeglasses at the paper. “Heavy metals,” he continued. “Cadmium, barium, lead . . .”

“So what does it mean?” Flor asked loudly, a fiery impatience in her voice.

“I don’t know these words,” Emergildo said, shrugging his shoulders and handing the papers to Hernán. “These are not Kofan words.”

Flor turned to Michi, her face a question. He said: “They’re pollutants. Poisons that oil brings to water.”

“But this list says they are not in the water,” Hernán said, tracing his finger across the document.

We watched him, following his finger.

“It says there are no hydrocarbons, no heavy metals.”

Everyone stared at him in silence.

Hernán looked up, frowning. “It’s as if the spill never happened.”

“What do you mean?” Flor asked. “The river was black!”

“It says that the water is perfectly fine,” Hernán continued, his mono-tone voice cracking ever so slightly.

Michi was peering over Hernán’s shoulders now at the papers. He looked dismayed, then furious. “The labs are in the pockets of the oil industry. They are lying to us.”

“They laugh at us,” Flor shouted. “They treat us like animals!”

Emergildo stood up, removing his glasses and regaining his composure.

“We will keep building the rainwater systems,” he said. His voice was tinged with surrender, as if deceit and corruption were woven into the fabric of the universe, as if the lies of the oil industry were part of the natural order. “That way our families will always have clean water, at least.”

“No!” Flor said. “We must do more than that!”

“What can we do?” Emergildo asked softly.

I glanced at Michi, then at Flor. Her cheeks were twitching in rage. “I don’t know!” she yelled, standing up from the table. “Something! Something!”

We sat in heavy silence and my mind raced with many thoughts, many things to say. But I kept quiet. I was far away from home in a wounded land and I didn’t know how to tell what I saw, didn’t know how to explain what I felt: that we were all there together for a reason that we still couldn’t see clearly.