Annie’s Story

I believe the future depends on finding real relationships, collaboration, compassion, and courage. This is what women have done in herstory and can do when we are empowered, respected, loved and given support.

People often ask me how I became an eco-feminist. Looking back, I don’t think there was one defining moment. Rather, my life has been a series of experiences that the well-being of women and the well-being of the Earth are inseparable.

Growing up between France, England, the United States, and later living and working throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, I learned early that every culture has its own traditions, but everywhere I went I saw that women were the heart of their communities. They cared for families, grew food, passed on traditions, and quietly held communities together, often without recognition.

As a young woman, I was searching for my own place in the world. I found it through environmental/political activism, social justice, and eventually helping to build the Green movement in the United States and internationally. Long before climate change became part of everyday conversation, I believed we had to rethink our relationship with both nature and one another.

Later I co-founded Earth Rights Institute, where for more than three decades I have worked alongside communities creating regenerative solutions that restore ecosystems while improving people’s lives. Engaging in women’s rights, providing a lens into the feminine principles and being part of a variety of women’s groups, I learned that even today women need to come together to find their voices, empower their passions, take control of their bodies and feel worthy for their contributions. Women who are recognized have shown to be the foundation for real transformation to happen on this earth.

Real change begins with relationships. It begins when people gather in trust. And when women create those spaces, magic happens.

I have witnessed extraordinary women transforming their communities with courage, creativity, and compassion. They planted forests where there had been barren land. They built cooperatives that lifted families out of poverty. They protected watersheds, educated children, restored degraded landscapes, and created hope where others saw only challenges. Yet, many of these women carried enormous responsibility without having a place at the table of wealth, authority or power.

When I first experienced a Red Tent gathering here in LA, I knew this was important for women to have the opportunity to gather, to listen, laugh, solve problems, and support one another. It is a remembering that women have always healed through community. I know that the feminine carries an extraordinary capacity to restore balance, not only within ourselves, but within our families, our communities, and our relationship with the Earth.

Today our world faces climate disruption, conflict, loneliness, and increasing division. We often search for complicated solutions, yet some of our greatest wisdom comes from one of humanity’s oldest traditions: women sitting together in circle.

That is why Red Tent Global speaks so deeply to me. When women feel safe, valued, and connected, they become extraordinary agents of change.

My hope is to help weave together women across generations, cultures, and countries, creating circles of belonging that nurture leadership, compassion, resilience, and action.

Green blessings and love from Annie