The role of the Executive committee is to ensure the sound governance of the Friends of the Earth International federation. It is elected at the Biennial General Meeting (BGM), and includes representatives from member groups.
Theiva Lingam
Co-Chair
Theiva Lingam has been appointed Co-Chair of Friends of the Earth International in December 2025 after two years sitting in the Executive Committee. Theiva is one of the legal advisors to Sahabat Alam Malaysia - Friends of the Earth Malaysia and Consumers’ Association of Penang and a legal consultant to the Third World Network. She is a public interest lawyer and an environmental activist. Between 2016 and 2021, she took on the Regional Facilitator role for Friends of the Earth Asia Pacific and was one of the FoE Asia Pacific focal persons for the Internationalist Solidarity System until the end of 2022.
Elaine Gilligan
Co-Chair
Elaine Gilligan has been appointed co-chair of Friends of the Earth International in December 2025. Elaine leads international work for Friends of the Earth England, Wales & Northern Ireland. She has many years of experience in leading change, from supporting the national group’s network of local groups to running ground-breaking projects on environmental justice in the UK and around the world. Elaine served on Friends of the Earth International’s Executive Committee for seven years and was part of the solidarity mission to Palestine in 2013. Elaine had been part of the Membership Development Team from 2018 to 2025. She is passionate about justice and, as Chair of Board for the UK-based Corporate Justice Coalition, is helping shape a new campaign calling for new legislation to hold companies to account for environmental and human right abuses.
Juliette Renaud
Treasurer
Juliette Renaud is the coordinator of Friends of the Earth France, where she was before senior campaigner on corporate impunity and corporate capture. Since 2012, she has been participating actively in Friends of the Earth International's “Economic Justice and Resisting Neoliberalism” program. As such, she is involved in the negotiations on the UN binding treaty on transnational corporations and human rights since their start in 2015. In France, she was at the core of the fight for the adoption of the law on duty of vigilance, and she has filed a landmark lawsuit against Total and its oil mega-project EACOP in Uganda and Tanzania. She is an expert on extractivism, and has brought support to communities affected by mining and oil around the world, more particularly in Argentina where she lived for five years and worked as an advisor to Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.
Amegadzé Kokou Elorm
Kokou Elorm Amegadze, current Acting Executive Director of Friends of the Earth Togo, where he has worked since 2002, is an environmental legal person who campaigns for an ecologically well-managed, socially balanced and economically prosperous planet. In addition to his responsibilities within the Federation of NGOs in Togo, as a member of the Board of Directors, he contributed, at a supranational level, to the creation of the West African Civil Society Forum, an umbrella platform for NGOs and associations from 15 countries in the sub-region. In 2023, he became a member of the Consultative Board of Friends of the Earth Africa and of Friends of the Earth international's Membership Development Team.
Mariana Porras
Mariana Porras Rozas has been a member of Coecoceiba / Friends of the Earth Costa Rica for more than 15 years, during which time she has worked on and supported various initiatives related to environmental protection and social justice. She also actively participates in coordination networks such as the Biodiversity Coordination Network and the Committee for the Support of Indigenous Autonomy. She is currently president of the Costa Rican Federation for Environmental Conservation (FECON), an organization with more than 30 years of experience in the socio-environmental movement in Costa Rica. At the regional level, she has represented Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean in the Forests and Biodiversity and Climate Justice programs, as well as in various meetings and regional coordination spaces with allied organizations.
Mai Taqueban
Mai Taqueban is the Executive Director of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Friends of the Earth Philippines (LRC). Her work focuses on the recognition and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and upland rural communities to land and environment. She started in LRC as a law intern, later as Research and Policy Development Adviser. Mai is Chair of the Alternative Law Groups and co-Convener of the Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. She has a PhD in Anthropology and teaches at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Mai also sits on the steering group for FoEI’s Economic Justice Resisting Neoliberalism programme and the Executive Committee of the Asia Pacific region.
Kate DeAngelis
Kate DeAngelis is the deputy director of economic policy at Friends of the Earth United States, where she has worked for over 12 years. She focuses on transitioning public finance away from fossil fuels and other polluting sectors to renewables and sustainable solutions. She has helped bring multiple cases against the U.S. government for financing harmful projects and filed complaints on behalf of impacted communities. Prior to Friends of the Earth U.S., she worked on international climate negotiations at the World Resources Institute. She holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and policy science from the George Washington University.
Ricardo Navarro
Ricardo Navarro is the founder and president of CESTA / Friends of the Earth El Salvador and was the president of Friends of the Earth International from 1999 to 2005. Ricardo holds five academic degrees, as well as having completed various short courses. With a career spanning almost half a century, he has dedicated his work to defending and protecting environmental causes, tackling issues such as climate change, waste management, food sovereignty, sustainable mobility, environmental justice and Earth system science, establishing himself as one of the best-known figures in the environmental movement in El Salvador.
