About the speakers

Frank Bibeau is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe who lived on Leech Lake Reservation in Ball Club, Minnesota most of his life. Frank is a Tribal Attorney working extensively with Chippewa treaty rights, civil rights, tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction on and off reservation, with a focus on Rights of Nature. 

Frank has developed several legal defense strategies based on the Rights of Manoomin. Frank serves as Executive Director for the 1855 Treaty Authority and represented Manoomin (wild rice) and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Manoomin v Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources in White Earth Tribal Court and DNR v WEBO and Chief Judge DeGroat in the Minnesota District Court and Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals (2021-2022).

Frank is the Director of the Tribal Rights of Nature Program for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights. Frank presently is focusing on the Rights of Fish as part of a United Usufructuary Tribes of Turtle Island as Fish are the most common key environmental indicator species around the world and Fish are often of significant, cultural importance.

Hugo Echeverría is an Attorney at Law and Doctor of Jurisprudence granted by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Quito, Ecuador. Master of Laws (LLM) granted by McGill University in Montreal - Quebec, Canada. Alumni of the Chevening Fellowship Program, directed by The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on Environmental Governance at Wolverhampton University – United Kingdom.

Echeverria has worked in environmental law since 2001, with an emphasis on biodiversity conservation, the environmental rule of law, and the Rights of Nature, areas in which he practices as an attorney and a consultant.