Oscar Soria

Oscar Soria
Born Santiago del Estero, Argentina
Residence New York City, United States
Occupation Campaigner,
Avaaz
Media director,
WWF
Various roles,
Greenpeace
News editor,
El Liberal
Founder and Executive Director,
Salus Terrae
Employer Avaaz
Board member of Oxfam GB
Religion Roman Catholic

Oscar Soria (born 1974) is an Argentinian political activist, social journalist, and environmental and human rights campaigner, currently serving as senior campaigner in the international activist group Avaaz. Previously he was the global brand director of Greenpeace and afterwards the media director of WWF.

Soria is also part of the directorate of the British section of Oxfam and confidant and close adviser of progressive politicians, social leaders and NGO executives in South America and Asia.

Early and personal life

Born in Santiago del Estero in a traditional political family and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he went back to his province in 1984 with his family, during the beginning of the democratic transition in the aftermath of the National Reorganization Process. He led many efforts to promote transitional justice, in particular over forced disappearances and the stolen children during the dictatorship in the country.

Soria started his journalism career in the newspaper El Liberal when he was 14, becoming the youngest journalist in the Argentine media, leading high profile investigative reports on social, environmental and human rights issues. He was known for shifting the rules of covering political campaigns, by refusing visibility to rallies or negative campaigning and organising instead local debates, community forums, off-line civic and open-source journalism formats, focusing the discussions in party platforms rather than candidates.

Activism

Since the age of 16, he was involved in neighborhood organizing, youth work in his community, and mass mobilizations against land grabbing.

In 1993 he founded the human rights and environmental justice movement Salus Terrae, which brought youth activists from rural areas and poor neighborhoods with university students and youth groups of the Catholic church. With this group, they campaigned for lands rights and water access, and successfully stopped deforestation and agribusiness plans, nuclear repositories and mass river engineering projects. The group were known by their high profile exposes, denouncing illegal toxic waste [1][2] and deforestation.[3] During his campaign against the channelization project called "Canal Federal", there were notorious public clashes between Soria and then the governor of Santiago del Estero, Carlos Juárez, the national environmental secretary María Julia Alsogaray and the president of Argentina, Carlos Menem.[4]

In 1999 Soria was appointed in Greenpeace, where his early adoption of mobile phones led into landmark victories in forest protection and indigenous rights in Argentina.[5][6][7][8][9] He also designed a successful campaign towards the reduction of waste by encouraging individuals to participate in mobile campaigning.[10]

Soria later designed high profile campaigns on GMOs, deforestation, pollution and climate change, leading mass global pressure against companies such as Nestlé, Tata Group, Volkswagen, Mattel or McDonald's, using subvertising, internet activism, mobile campaigns and other creative confrontational tactics in United States, United Kingdom, Japan, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Turkey and in the Netherlands. A political TV show called him "the man who shakes companies" [11]

He also advised indigenous movements and communities opposed to mining, paper mills and agribusiness in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

In February 2012 Soria left Greenpeace International to join the global group WWF in its world's headquarters in Switzerland [12] where he led social media campaigns against illegal wildlife trade and climate change. After two years in WWF International, Soria left the organisation and joined the advocacy operations of Avaaz in the United States.

Awards and recognition

Soria was mostly awarded for his investigative work on human rights and environmental issues.

References

  1. ↑ Maria Julia no quiere hacerse cargo de 30 toneladas de veneno | Pagina/12. http://www.pagina12.com.ar (1998-05-04). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  2. ↑ Confirmado: al mes de julio de 1999 Santiago del Estero sigue teniendo el depósito de residuos más peligroso de Argentina | FUNAM. http://www.funam.org.ar (1999-07-01). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  3. ↑ Talan sin control especies en extinción del bosque chaqueño | Clarin. http://www.clarin.com.ar (1998-10-19). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  4. ↑ Una obra amenaza a Mar Chiquita | La Nacion. http://www.lanacion.com.ar (1998-10-12). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  5. ↑ Greenpeace uses SMS to monitors forest destruction | 160Characters. http://160characters.org (2005-11-7). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  6. ↑ Forest Saved With Mobiles | 160Characters. http://160characters.org (2005-11-7). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  7. ↑ I was there | Greenpeace. http://www.greenpeace.org (2009-04-22). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  8. ↑ Cell phone for campaigns - stories from MobileActive | MobileActive. http://aspirationtech.org (2005-10-4). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  9. ↑ SMS mobilizes demobilize rainforest destruction | TechPresident. http://techpresident.com (2005-10-4). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  10. ↑ SMS Creates Zero Waste in Buenos Aires | TechPresident. https://techpresident.com (2005-12-12). Retrieved on 2012-06-09.
  11. ↑ El hombre de Greenpeace que hace temblar a las empresas | La Hora de Maquiavelo. https://www.youtube.com/user/lahorademaquiavelo (2010-12-20). Retrieved on 2012-01-05.
  12. ↑ WWF International Directors | WWF. http://www.panda.org (2012-03-01). Retrieved on 2013-01-05.
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