CO-FOUNDER
Emilio MIller-Lopez
Emilio Lopez has spent his entire life weaving together music, activism, technology, and community to create events and platforms that inspire empathy for the planet and all animals who share it. His work began in college, where he was already producing concerts and gatherings to support environmental justice and Indigenous rights movements, including efforts to stop the mining of Big Mountain on Dine lands in Arizona. These early years set the tone for a career defined by creative activism and a deep belief that art and community can move people to protect the living world.
After college, Emilio stepped fully into event production and went on to co-found Faerieworlds LLC with his wife Kelly, and Robert Gould of Imaginosis, where they co-produced more than fifty festivals and conventions across the United States. Faerieworlds quickly became known for its creative vision, its devoted global audience, and its commitment to giving back.
Every year the festivals supported charitable causes, with the inaugural Oregon event featuring environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill as both the donation recipient and the main speaker. Under Emilio and Kelly’s direction, Faerieworlds created a model of celebration that blended art, culture, activism, and philanthropy.
Throughout these years, Emilio produced and collaborated on events with icons of environmental and humanitarian activism. His work has intersected with artists and leaders including Ziggy Marley, Donovan, Jane Goodall, Loreena McKennitt, Heilung, Captain Paul Watson, Bruce Lipton, Paul Stamets, Prince EA and many others who have shaped global movements for peace, sustainability, and compassion. These collaborations helped build a foundation of relationships and experience that would later evolve into even larger global projects.
As technology advanced, Emilio’s work expanded beyond physical festivals. He founded PORTL, a platform created to bring people together through real world experiences. During the pandemic PORTL transformed into a global online event hub, producing One Earth Live, one of the largest online events of the pandemic. PORTL followed up Live from Earth with multiple large scale online eco-events, including Live from Earth which brought together Captain Paul Watson, Jean Michel Cousteau, Andrew Millison, Vandana Shiva, Amazon Watch, Lynn Twist, and dozens of leaders across the animal welfare and sustainability movements.
Emilio also served as a co producer for the Plant a Million Trees global event featuring Jane Goodall in collaboration with the Shift Network, and co produced the World Permaculture Water Summit with YouTube educator Andrew Millison. These events became lifelines for isolated communities during the pandemic and carried forward the same mission that defined Emilio’s entire career: inspiring people to act for the protection of the Earth and its animals.
By combining event production, music, and emerging technology, Emilio built a unique pathway that always pointed toward service. That path deepened when he and his wife, animal activist and wildlife rehabilitator Kelly Ann Miller, took twenty five years of shared experience and transformed it into a lifelong sanctuary project. In 2023 they purchased the Woodland Animal Sanctuary on the protected forest and wetlands of Siltcoos Lake on the Oregon coast. The sanctuary became the heart of their next chapter, a place where their work for animals could finally be grounded in the land itself.
Today Emilio and Kelly are building the next generation of empathy based platforms and events through the Foundation for Animal Empathy. Emilio is the co creator and lead producer of the Plant Powered Music and Arts Festival set for Summer 2027 in Golden Gate Park. Plant Powered will be the largest event they have ever produced and will bring forward a new era of activism centered on compassion, community, and plant based living. At the same time he is using his decades of experience in technology to build AEON, the Animal Empathy Online Network, a global media and community platform designed to unify creators, activists, nonprofits, and everyday people who care about animals and the planet.
Both Plant Powered and AEON serve a larger mission. They empower and fundraise for ELF, the Empathy Legal Fund, the legal and advocacy branch of the Foundation for Animal Empathy. Through ELF, Emilio and Kelly will support legal challenges, policy reform efforts, and direct action campaigns to defend wildlife, end cruelty in agriculture, and protect animals harmed by outdated or abusive practices.
From a college stage supporting Indigenous land defenders, to global broadcasts connecting millions during the pandemic, to the forests of Siltcoos Lake where rescued animals now live in safety, Emilio’s work has always been grounded in the same belief. Art and technology can open hearts. Empathy can create change. And people everywhere are ready to stand up for animals and the planet when given the tools, the information, and a community to do it with.
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