BIOGRAPHY 

Alberto Saldamando (Xicano/Zapoteca) is an internationally acknowledged expert on human rights/Indigenous rights and has represented Indigenous Peoples, organizations and communities from various countries from most regions of the world, before United Nations human rights mechanisms, as well as the International Labor Organization, the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Alberto is very proud of his very active participation in the negotiations leading to the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, the establishment of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the initial mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. Alberto was accredited as an Expert by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (2014).

Alberto began his climate change work with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) at the Copenhagen Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC 2009) and in 2012 accepted the position as counsel to the IEN on Climate Change and Indigenous and Human Rights. In this role he serves as IEN’s head of delegation to UNFCCC Conferences of Parties and related fora. He is a member of the California Bar Association and a retired member of the Arizona Bar Association. He is on the Board of the Rainforest Action Network and is bilingual in Spanish and English.