Nneka Nicholas is an Attorney-at-Law. She is passionate about the environment and creating a world where people of all genders feel safe and respected enough to express themselves as they so determine. Nneka currently leads the legal work program for environmental work at the Department of Environment as the Legal Consultant.
In her time at the DoE, she has been instrumental in crafting and passing the Environmental Protection and Management Act, the first comprehensive environmental legislation in the region. She has also led the region in developing a model agreement for access to genetic resources in Antigua and Barbuda as well as created a multi-agency coordinating mechanism with government and non-government actors, for the review of access and benefit sharing requests under the Nagoya Protocol. She is a negotiator on issues related to biodiversity under the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and its related protocols and in 2016 and has served as the CARICOM representative for the Informal Advisory Committee on Capacity Building on the Nagoya Protocol as an expert. She is also a negotiator for the UN Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species and a focal point for the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation, and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazu Agreement).
Nneka is currently providing legal support for other cross-cutting projects within the DoE as well as legal advice and support for the declaration of several protected areas within Antigua and Barbuda including the Redonda Ecosystem Reserve and the Boggy Peak National Park.
Nneka is a director within the feminist justice organization called Intersect which she co-founded with her friend Sarah Anne Gresham in 2015. In their first year of existence, they coordinated the Orange Flash Rally during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which saw schools, youth groups, artists, performers, and government agencies taking part in a parade that informed the public about GBV. Intersect has continued in their movement building and employs a queer-focused feminist politic that focuses on the needs of the most marginalized among us as well as one which is grounded in the understanding that different vectors of power intersect to produce varied experiences of oppression based on one's gender color race class and nationality which in turn informs one's access power security safety and expressions of love.