Speakers

Madjid Abdellaziz • Germany/Algeria
Born in Algeria in 1959, he studied engineering in Berlin.
He came in touch with the theories of Wilhelm Reich, Nikola
Tesla and Victor Schauberger which changed his scientific
understanding. In 2004, he returned to Algeria and started
realizing an extraordinary project for “integral
environmental healing” and desert greening 500 km south
of Algiers at the Sahara periphery. In “Djanan”, a 30 ha
property, he set up “cloudbusters”, a device originally
developed by Wilhelm Reich, with which one is supposed
to be able to “make rain”.

more information: www.desert-greening.com

Nader Al-Khateeb • Palestine
Born 1960. He is the general director of the Water and
Environmental Development Organization (WEDO), a non-profit
Palestinian organization that promotes a number of
environmental programs and projects centered around water
quality control, waterconservation, wastewater treatment
and reuse, as well as solid waste management and
recycling.He is also the Palestinian Director of
EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).FoEME is
a unique regional organization that brings together Jordanian,
Palestinianand Israeli environmentalists to promote
sustainable development and advancepeace efforts in the
Middle East. It has offices in Amman, Bethlehem and Tel Aviv,
employs 40 paid staff and actively involves hundreds of
volunteers. It is a member ofFriends of the Earth International,
the largest grassroots environmental organization in the world.

more Information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth_Middle_East

Paulo Borges • Portugal
Born 1959 in Lisbon. Professor of philosophy at the University
of Lisbon and presidentof the Portuguese Buddhist Union
(“União Budista Portuguesa”). Philosopher,author of many
books and translator especially of various publications about
TibetanBuddhism. He is dedicated to study, practice and
instruction of meditative experience,Portuguese culture and
the great spiritual traditions, to intercultural and
inter-religious dialogue. He sees himself as heir of the vision
that it is Portugal’s mission to serve the emancipation of
consciousness, contribute to a new world beyond the technocratic
consumerist civilization and create a spiritual-ethical
community to transcend national, cultural, political and
religious barriers. Paulo Borges is the president of the
Portuguese Animals and Nature Party (“Partido pelos Animais
e pela Natureza” – PAN) which heco-founded in the beginning
of 2011 and run for parliamentary elections.

more information: www.pan–portugal.com

Jalal Bsharrat • Palestine
Team member in the new project for waste water collection and
treatment plant for Jericho Governorate and of the UN
specialists group implementing the MINURCAT water policy and
the Environmental Checklist. For more than 8 years he is now
managing the water system in Jericho (production, distribution,
maintenance and operating). He is the technical coordinator
for the Master Plan project for Jericho surface water management
donated by EU (CIUDAD Supporting Mechanism) and implemented by
experts from Pisa Municipality.

Felix Marcel Hediger • Switzerland
Mechanical Engineer and sculptor. After his studies he worked
to develop technical approaches from art, and to give them renewable
impulses, thereby unavoidably coming into contact with science and
borderline science over a long period. For many years he worked with
Bernhard Schaeffer, a vortex and thermodynamics researcher in Berlin.
After this he worked briefly for the Association for Spacetime
Research in Stein, Nürnberg and more recently for the Association
for Implosion Research in Zell am Harmersbach. Today he runs his
own small development workshop.

Sepp Holzer • Austria
Sepp Holzer was born in 1942 in Austria, to a hill-farming family.
From an early age he experienced the processes of nature with the
wakeful curiosity of a child. At the age of nineteen, Sepp Holzer
took over his family farm, the Krameterhof – today comprising
forty-five hectares of land, at an altitude of between 1100 to 1500
meters above sealevel. Here he started to implement the knowledge
that he had gained by observing nature. He developed an abundant
permaculture and discovered fundamental knowledge for nature
healing, new forms of water management and self-sufficiency in
cooperationwith nature. For his persistence to move out of#
conventional thinking and find genuine solutions, he is called
the “rebel farmer”. Today, the Krameterhof attracts thousands
of visitors each year. Since Sepp Holzer has passed his farm on
to his son, he givesadvice to landowners and projects worldwide,
in various climate zones, and educates many people in permaculture
according to his principles. Since 2007 he has strongly supported
Tamera’s ecological work.

more information: http://www.krameterhof.at/en/

Minni Jain • Great Britain
Born and brought up in India, she has been living in the UK for the
last 7 years. She runs a charity called Earthlinks UK. Her work
includes assessing community projects in India and the UK; organising
and planning international and local ecological events, initiating
local food projects with the intention of changing the way we engage
with food and understand it as a nourishment both for self and planet;
helping create clean water systems as locally controlled initiatives;
women’s empowerment from the personal and pioneering experience of
breaking many social taboos that exist for women in India. She is
also an editor of the Holistic Science Journal.

Vera Kleinhammes • Germany/Portugal
Co-worker of Tamera, student of the Peace School Mirja,
one of the coordinators of the Global Campus, an education
initiative with bases in different continents. She has been
involved in peace work in Israel-Palestine since she was
17. At this age, in 2001, Vera gave her first speech at a
peace demonstration in Jerusalem, speaking for the youth of
the peace movement. As a committed peace worker, she focuses
on combining inner and outer peace.

more information: www.tamera.org

Jürgen Kleinwächter • Germany
Physicist and Inventor, born 1944, grew up in France, Germany
and Egypt, studied physics and astrophysics in Grenoble and
founded, together with his father Hans Kleinwächter the
KLERA-institute: “Kleinwächters Ent-wicklung und Forschung,
Raumfahrt und Atomtechnik”
(Kleinwächter’s Space and Atomic Energy Research and Development].
They investigated light-weight optics, thermo-dynamics and
concentrator photovoltaic systems and their applications.
Wishing to develop a peaceful technology which really helps
people to improve their living conditions, he has dedicated himself
to the research and application of solar technology for 30 years.

more information: http://www.bsrsolar.com/

Werner Kvarda • Austria
Born in Vienna in 1940, studied architecture in Vienna and Illinois
Tech in Chicago.After his studies he worked as a spatial planner at
the Austrian Institute of SpatialPlanning (OIR) and at the
University of Technology. For many years he was teachingat the
Austrian Horticulture School landscape and ecological design.
He made is PhD in Environmental education and became a professorship
in landscape planning at theUniversity of Natural Resources and
Life Sciences in Vienna and is president of the
Association Permaculture Austria.

Sabine Lichtenfels • Germany/Portugal
Co-founder of Tamera, free-lance theologian and medium, one of the
“1000 Women forPeace. For years she has been engaged in international
peace work, especially in Israel and Palestine. Initiator of the
GRACE peace pilgrimages in the Middle East, Colombia and Portugal
with up to several hundred participants. Founder of the GRACE
Foundation for the humanisation of money. She has a profound
knowledge of community development, conflict resolution, spiritual
life practice and the reconciliation of the genders. With her
political compassion and her feminine insight she is a leading
ambassador for a global peace perspective.

more information: www.sabine-lichtenfels.com

Andy Lipkis • USA *)
Founder of  TreePeople, an international guiding light for the
citizen forestry movement. His programs include airlifting bare-root
fruit trees to Africa, inspiring the planting of one million trees
in L.A. before the 1984 Summer Olympics, numerous disaster relief
efforts during flood and fire, and trainings that increase citizen
involvement in urban tree planting and care. Andy also spearheaded
an approach to use integrated watershed management to apply a
forest’s natural infrastructure services to cities. The result:
a sustainable water supply as well as flood and pollution prevention.
This has created a long term retrofit of the Sun Valley area
(pop. 80,000) and a new paradigm for increasing the environmental
health and sustainability of our cities. He  is a creative problem
solver who develops solutions to pressing public health, economic
and environmental issues by forging partnerships between diverse
and sometimes conflicting parties. For over 30 years Andy’s leadership
has helped make Los Angeles a testing ground for visionary,
community-based efforts.
Across the country and around the world, he has addressed groups
involved in the linked issues of environment, urban forestry,
sustainability, water, and energy use. In 1998, he was honored
as Founder of the Year at National Philanthropy Day. In 2007,
he was named a Durfee Fellow and received the Boeing Crystal
Vision Award. In 2009 he was named an Ashoka Fellow.
*)his participation is not yet fully confirmed

more information: www.treepeople.org

John D. Liu • China/USA
John D. Liu is an American who has lived in China for more than
30 years. He worked for CBS News for 10 years until 1990 and also
for RAI Italian Television and ZDF German Television. John Liu
has concentrated on ecological film making since the mid-1990’s,
and has written, produced and directed films on Grasslands,
Deserts, Wetlands, Oceans, Rivers, Urban Development, Atmosphere,
Forests, Endangered Animals, and Poverty Reduction. His work has
taken him to over 70 countries. Many of his films have appeared
on BBC World and other networks. Since 1997, John Liu has directed
the Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP), which uses
television to deliver ecological, sustainable development and
public health messages in China and other countries.

more information: http://www.whatifwechange.org/blog/?cat=7

João Motta • Portugal
Born in 1949. He was a diplomat for the Portuguese Government
from 1972 to 1989, specializing in the work of the big
international organizations like the UN, UNESCO and the Council
of Europe. In that year, having realized that the political map
did not correspond to reality he switched to a cultural life.
He wrote a book (The Territory and the Map), did several
performances and created fine art, such as the Magical Gardens
(miniature worlds inside glass cases) and painting. Above all
he has been pursuing since his youth a spiritual life dealing
with identity, the meaning of life and the nature of reality.
Having returned to Portugal in late 2010, he founded the Movement
Despertar Portugal (Awaken Portugal) to bring consciousness
into public life and foster a holistic paradigm as well as to
link inner individual awakening with collective social awakening.
He is also interested in community building and
alternative lifestyles.

more information: http://despertarportugal.com/

Bernd Walter Müller • Germany/Portugal
Born 1962 in Cologne, Germany. Nature researcher, specialist in
the construction of Water Retention Landscapes, permaculturist,
dowser. Since 2007, co-worker of the Peace Research Centre Tamera
in Portugal, in close coopeation with Sepp Holzer. Today Bernd
Mueller is director of the Ecology Department of Tamera and
teacher  of the Global Campus, an international training centre
for peace workers.

Philip Munyasia • Kenya
Born 1983. OTEPIC – Organic Technology Extension and Promotion
of Initiative Centre – is a registered community-based
organization that works with poor farmers, especially women, in
the Western North Rift of Kenya. Through grass roots development
work, they improve food security and soil fertility and empower
communities. Educating women effectively improves the standard
of living for the whole community.

more information: OTEPIC

Ababu Namwamba • Kenya
Hon. Ababu Namwamba is the member of parliament for Budalang’i
constituency in Western Kenya. He is a leading Public Interest
Attorney specializing in international human rights and
constitutional law, and a respected columnist with the highly
rated Sunday Standard newspaper in Kenya. The Humphrey
Fellowship (Fulbright) alumni holds a Master of Laws Degree
in International Legal Studies from American University’s
Washington College of Law, a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the
University of Nairobi and a Diploma in Legal Practice from the
Kenya School of Law. He is currently the Chief Counsel at the
Chambers of Justice, a top Public Interest Foundation he
founded in 2002.

Pablo Solón Romero • Bolivia
Pablo Solón Romero served as Ambassador of the Plurinational
State of Bolivia to the United Nations from February 2009 to
July 2011. He was very active in climate change negotiations
under the UNFCCC, and helped organize the World People’s
Conference on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2010.
Before becoming Ambassador to the United Nations,
Pablo Solón Romero worked as an activist for many years with
different social organizations, indigenous movements,
workers’ unions, student associations, human rights and
cultural organizations in Bolivia. (particiption not fully confirmed)

more information: Articel about his speech in Durban

Aida Shibli • Palestine/Israel
Born in 1971, as a political activist since the first Intifada
she was fighting against the Israeli occupation and for
women’s empowerment. After years of dedicated political work in
several peace organizations, Aida discovered the
essential need to include inner peace work and spirituality,
and to discover the connection of the war and oppression
between men and women to the war and oppression between nations.
She was born in a Bedouin Palestinian village inside Israel, a
combination that made her being in touch with the pain from
both sides. As former student of the Monte Cerro Peace Education
in Tamera, she works today as coordinator between Tamera and
different projects in the Middle East.

more information: http://www.prvme.org/#

Rajendra Singh • India
Born 1959. Well known water conservationist from Alwar district,
Rajasthan in India. Also known as “waterman of India”, he
received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in
2001 for his pioneering work in community-based efforts in water
harvesting and water management. He founded and runs an NGO
called ‘Tarun Bharat Sangh’ which has been instrumental in
fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped
villagers take charge of water management in their semi-arid
area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad,
rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time-tested as
well as path-breaking techniques.

more information: http://www.tarunbharatsangh.org

Ben Tyers • Great Britain
Engineer and sculptor, founding partner of the Living Water
Hydro-Electric project in the north of England, developing
ideas of Viktor Schauberger. The living Water Hydro-Electric
project combines water healing and energy generation,
establishing a paradigm shift from emission reduction in
energy generation systems to energy generation systems which
have a clear positive healing effect on the environment
while they generate electricity for human use.

Martin Vilela • Bolivia
Co-worker of the Bolivian Platform on Climate Change, a
national level net- work comprising several social movements
and NGOs. Having worked in the NGO ‘Agua Sustentable’
(‘Sustainable Water’ ) he is now continuing political
advocacy on water issues and climate change at the Bolivian
government and international scenarios such as „Rio+20“ and
on climate change at the UNFCCC, especially based on the
search of a new development based on „Buen Vivir“ and the
rights of Mother Earth.

more information: http://www.aguasustentable.org/

Martin Winiecki • Germany/Portugal
Born 1990 in Dresden, Germany. He is a student of the
Peace School Mirja in Tamera. He participated in several
pilgrimages through Israel-Palestine (2007), Portugal (2009)
and Colombia (2010). He is one of the young coordinators
for the Movement for a Free Earth. Today he is working
in the Institute for Global Peacework (IGP) and is committed
to build an international network for peace.

Tamir Yaari • Israel
Trainee of Water Landscape Design-Tamera ecology team
(in the last two years) member of the core group PRV-ME,
environmental educator (Shomrei Hagan Israel) studied
agriculture and the environment (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
and environmental leadership
(Arava Institute for Environmental Studies).

more information: www.prvme.org