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Goldman Prize Winners, 2024

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 35 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 220 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (representing each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Andrea Vidaurre—USA: “Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.” (Support/follow: The People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, and Moving Forward Network)
  • Marcel Gomes—Brazil: “Marcel Gomes coordinated a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, to illegal deforestation in Brazil’s most threatened ecosystems. Armed with detailed evidence from his breakthrough investigative report, Marcel and Repórter Brasil worked with partners to pressure global retailers to stop selling the illegally sourced meat, leading six major European supermarket chains in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom to indefinitely halt the sale of JBS products in December 2021.” (Support/follow: Mighty Earth, AidEnvironment, Environmental Investigation Agency, and Repórter Brazil; and please sign this petition.)
  • Teresa Vicente—Spain: “Teresa Vicente led a historic, grassroots campaign to save the Mar Menor ecosystem—Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon—from collapse, resulting in the passage of a new law in September 2022 granting the lagoon unique legal rights. Considered to be the most important saltwater coastal lagoon in the western Mediterranean, the once pristine waters of the Mar Menor had become polluted due to mining, rampant development of urban and tourist infrastructure, and, in recent years, intensive agriculture and livestock farming.”
  • Alok Shukla—India: “Alok Shukla led a successful community campaign that saved 445,000 acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In July 2022, the government canceled the 21 proposed coal mines in Hasdeo Aranya, whose pristine forests—popularly known as the lungs of Chhattisgarh—are one of the largest intact forest areas in India.” (On Twitter, follow @SHasdeo and @CBARaipur)
  • Murrawah Maroochy Johnson—Australia: “Murrawah Maroochy Johnson blocked development of the Waratah coal mine, which would have accelerated climate change in Queensland, destroyed the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge, added 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime, and threatened Indigenous rights and culture. Murrawah’s case, which overcame a 2023 appeal, set a precedent that enables other First Nations people to challenge coal projects by linking climate change to human and Indigenous rights.” (Support/follow: Youth Verdict)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 29, 2024
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2023

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 34 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 215 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (representing each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Diane Wilson—Texas, USA: “In December 2019, Diane Wilson won a landmark case against Formosa Plastics, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, for the illegal dumping of toxic plastic waste on Texas’ Gulf Coast. The $50 million settlement is the largest award in a citizen suit against an industrial polluter in the history of the US Clean Water Act. As a part of the settlement, Formosa Plastics agreed to reach ‘zero-discharge’ of plastic waste from its Point Comfort factory, pay penalties until discharges cease, and fund remediation of affected local wetlands, beaches, and waterways.” (Support/follow: San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper)
  • Alessandra Korap Munduruku—Brazil: “Alessandra Korap Munduruku organized community efforts to stop mining development by British mining company Anglo American in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. In May 2021, the company formally committed to withdraw 27 approved research applications to mine inside Indigenous territories, including the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory, which contains more than 400,000 acres of rainforest. The decision protects a critically threatened area of the Amazon—the world’s largest rainforest and a globally significant carbon sink—from further mining and deforestation.” (Support/follow: Associação Indígena PARIRI, APIB, Amazon Watch, COIAB, and sign this letter.)
  • Tero Mustonen—Finland: “Since April 2018, Tero Mustonen led the restoration of 62 severely degraded former industrial peat mining and forestry sites throughout Finland—totaling 86,000 acres—and transformed them into productive, biodiverse wetlands and habitats. Rich in organic matter, peatlands are highly effective carbon sinks; according to the IUCN, peatlands are the largest natural carbon stores on Earth. Roughly one-third of Finland’s surface area is made up of peatlands.” (Support/follow: Snowchange Cooperative and Global Peatlands Initiative)
  • Delima Silalahi—Indonesia: “Delima Silalahi led a campaign to secure legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of tropical forest land for six Indigenous communities in North Sumatra. Her community’s activism reclaimed this territory from a pulp and paper company that had partially converted it into a monoculture, non-native, industrial eucalyptus plantation. The six communities have begun restoring the forests, creating valuable carbon sinks of biodiverse Indonesian tropical forest.” (More here; and support/follow the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).)
  • Chilekwa Mumba—Zambia: “Alarmed by the pollution produced by the Konkola Copper Mines operation in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, Chilekwa Mumba organized a lawsuit to hold the mine’s parent company, Vedanta Resources, responsible. Chilekwa’s victory in the UK Supreme Court set a legal precedent—it was the first time an English court ruled that a British company could be held liable for the environmental damage caused by subsidiary-run operations in another country. This precedent has since been applied to hold Shell Global—one of the world’s 10 largest corporations by revenue—liable for its pollution in Nigeria.” (See Conservation Lower Zambezi and sign their petition.)
  • Zafer Kizilkaya—Turkey: “In collaboration with local fishing cooperatives and Turkish authorities, Zafer Kizilkaya expanded Turkey’s network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along 310 miles of the Mediterranean coast. The newly designated areas were approved by the Turkish government in August 2020 and include an expansion of the MPA network by 135 square miles (350 sq. km) of no trawling/no purse seine, and an additional 27 square miles (70 sq. km) of no fishing zones. Turkey’s marine ecosystem has been severely degraded by overfishing, illegal fishing, tourism development, and the effects of climate change—and these protected areas help mitigate these challenges.” (Support/follow: Mediterranean Conservation Society)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements, and to find links to their social media pages.

Here’s the video about Diane Wilson:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 24, 2023
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2022

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 33 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 200 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (representing each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Nalleli Cobo—Los Angeles, CA, USA: “Nalleli Cobo led a coalition to permanently shut down a toxic oil-drilling site in her community in March 2020, at the age of 19—an oil site that caused serious health issues for her and others. Her continued organizing against urban oil extraction has now yielded major policy movement within both the Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which voted unanimously to ban new oil exploration and to phase out existing sites.” (Support/follow: STAND – L.A.)
  • Alexandra Narvaez and Alex Lucitante—Ecuador: “Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez spearheaded an Indigenous movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining. Their leadership resulted in a historic legal victory in October 2018, when Ecuador’s courts canceled 52 gold mining concessions, which were illegally granted without the consent of their Cofán community. The community’s legal success protects 79,000 acres of pristine, biodiverse rainforest in the headwaters of Ecuador’s Aguarico River, which is sacred to the Cofán.” (Support/follow: Alianza Ceibo and Amazon Frontlines)
  • Chima Williams—Nigeria: “In the aftermath of disastrous oil spills in Nigeria, environmental lawyer Chima Williams worked with two communities to hold Royal Dutch Shell accountable for the resultant widespread environmental damage. On January 29, 2021, the Court of Appeal of the Hague ruled that not only was Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary responsible for the oil spills, but, as parent company, Royal Dutch Shell also had an obligation to prevent the spills. This is the first time a Dutch transnational corporation has been held accountable for the violations of its subsidiary in another country, opening Shell to legal action from communities across Nigeria devastated by the company’s disregard for environmental safety.” (Support/follow: Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth Nigeria)
  • Marjan Minnesma—The Netherlands: “In a groundbreaking victory, Marjan Minnesma leveraged public input and a unique legal strategy to secure a successful ruling against the Dutch government, requiring it to enact specific preventive measures against climate change. In December 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the government had a legal obligation to protect its citizens from climate change and ordered it, by the end of 2020, to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below 1990 levels. The Netherlands’ Supreme Court decision marks the first time that citizens succeeded in holding their government accountable for its failure to protect them from climate change.” (Support/follow: Dutch Urgenda Foundation)
  • Niwat Roykaew—Thailand: “In February 2020, Niwat Roykaew and the Mekong community’s advocacy resulted in the termination of the China-led Upper Mekong River rapids blasting project, which would have destroyed 248 miles of the Mekong to deepen navigation channels for Chinese cargo ships traveling downstream. Flowing 3,000 miles from the mountains of Tibet before draining to the South China Sea, the biodiversity-rich Mekong River’s fisheries, tributaries, wetlands, and floodplains are a vital lifeline for more than 65 million people. This is the first time the Thai government has canceled a transboundary project because of the environmental destruction it would cause.” (Support/follow: Mekong School)
  • Julien Vincent—Australia: “Julien Vincent led a successful grassroots campaign to defund coal in Australia, a major coal exporter, culminating in commitments from the nation’s four largest banks to end funding for coal projects by 2030. Because of Julien’s activism, Australia’s major insurance companies have also agreed to cease underwriting new coal projects. His organizing has produced a challenging financial landscape for the Australian coal industry, a significant step toward reducing fossil fuels that hasten climate change.” (Support/follow: Market Forces)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements, and to find links to their social media pages.

Here’s the video about Nalleli Cobo:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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May 25, 2022
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2021

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 32 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 200 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

 

  • Sharon Lavigne—Louisiana, USA: In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana. Lavigne mobilized grassroots opposition to the project, educated community members, and organized peaceful protests to defend her predominantly African American community. The plant would have generated one million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, in a region already contending with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution. (Support: RISE St. James, Stop Formosa Plastics, and Louisiana Bucket Brigade)
  • Liz Chicaje Churay—Peru: In January of 2018, as a result of the efforts of Liz Chicaje Churay and her partners, the Peruvian government created Yaguas National Park. Comparable in size to Yellowstone National Park, the new park protects more than two million acres of Amazon rainforest in the northeastern region of Loreto. Its creation is a key step in conserving the country’s biodiversity—safeguarding thousands of rare and unique wildlife species and conserving carbon-rich peatlands—and protecting Indigenous peoples. (Support: Instituto del Bien Comun and Amazon conservation organizations)
  • Kimiko Hirata—Japan: After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011, Japan was forced to move away from nuclear power and, in its place, embraced coal as a major energy source. Over the past several years, Kimiko Hirata’s grassroots campaign led to the cancellation of 13 coal power plants (7GW or 7,030MW) in Japan. These coal plants would have released more than 1.6 billion tons of CO2 over their lifetimes. The carbon impact of Hirata’s activism is the equivalent of taking 7.5 million passenger cars off the road every year for 40 years. (Support: Kiko Network, Japan Beyond Coal, and 350.org)
  • Thai Van Nguyen—Vietnam: Thai Van Nguyen founded Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, which rescued 1,540 pangolins from the illegal wildlife trade between 2014 and 2020. Nguyen also established Vietnam’s first anti-poaching unit, which, since 2018, has destroyed 9,701 animal traps, dismantled 775 illegal camps, confiscated 78 guns, and arrested 558 people for poaching, leading to a significant decline in illegal activities in Pu Mat National Park. Pangolins are the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal despite an international trade ban. Heavy demand for their meat, scales, and blood threatens pangolins with extinction; all eight pangolin species are on the IUCN Red List. (Support: Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, WildAid, and Pangolin Crisis Fund)
  • Gloria Majiga-Kamoto—Malawi: Concerned about the environmental harm caused by mounting plastic pollution in Malawi, Gloria Majiga-Kamoto fought the plastics industry and galvanized a grassroots movement in support of a national ban on thin plastics, a type of single-use plastic. As a result of her dedicated campaigning, in July 2019, Malawi’s High Court upheld the ban on the production, importation, distribution, and use of thin plastics. This is the first Prize for Malawi. (Support: Break Free From Plastic, GAIA Zero Waste World, and Lilongwe Wildlife Trust)
  • Maida Bilal—Bosnia and Herzegovina: Maida Bilal led a group of women from her village in a 503-day blockade of heavy equipment that resulted in the cancellation of permits for two proposed dams on the Kruščica River in December 2018. The Balkans are home to the last free-flowing rivers in Europe. However, a massive hydropower boom in the region threatens to irreversibly damage thousands of miles of pristine rivers. This is the first Prize for Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Support: RiverWatch, Patagonia, EuroNatur, and EKO BISTRO)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the video about Sharon Lavigne:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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June 16, 2021
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Recent Films, 2016 – 2021

These are just a few of the many films—with environmental themes—that have come out in the last few years (between 2016 and 2021). The listing also includes a few TV programs. These films and shows (mostly documentaries) touch on all sorts of topics, e.g., food, soil, agriculture/farming, indigenous people, climate change, social and environmental movements, animals, trees and forests, energy, and inspiring leaders and scientists. We’ll continue to add more films to this listing throughout 2021, as we learn of others. We have also posted listings of earlier films (from before 2016); scroll to the bottom of this post to find links to those.

Click on each of the links below (or go to IMDB.com) to see previews/trailers, reviews, and descriptions of each film. Also, educators should note that many of these films are available for free to teachers, and their websites often have educational resources for teachers/students to use.

Dark Waters   (feature movie, based on a true story re. PFAS and DuPont)

Percy vs Goliath (feature movie, based on a true story re. a farmer and Monsanto)

The Condor & the Eagle

Kiss the Ground

Gather

The Biggest Little Farm

The Serengeti Rules

Climate Solutions 101 (Project Drawdown’s 6-part video series)

Before the Flood

Living in the Future’s Past

Being the Change: A New Kind of Climate Documentary

Inside the Megafire

The Story of Plastic

A Plastic Ocean

RiverBlue

Power Struggle

Life Off Grid

Spaceship Earth

Hard Nox (from the Dirty Money TV series)

The Beekeeper (short film)

You’ve Been Trumped Too

Animals:

Love and Bananas: An Elephant Story

My Octopus Teacher

Artifishal: The Fight to Save Wild Salmon

Trees and Plants:

Intelligent Trees

Fantastic Fungi

The Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees

The Secret World of Trees (TV series)

Inspiring People:

End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock

I Am Greta: A Force of Nature

Jane Goodall: The Hope

Rachel Carson

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

For other media on inspiring environmental leaders, check out the short videos about Goldman Prize winners.

 

Also check out Ecoflix [NEW] and WaterBear: new streaming platforms dedicated to environmental films and media. And take a look at The Years Project videos and shows, as well as PBS shows such as Our Planet, Nature, Earth: A New Wild, and NOVA, and BBC shows such as A Perfect Planet and Planet Earth.

Are there other relevant, recent (or forthcoming) films or TV programs that you’ve seen and would recommend to others?  If so, please mention those in the Comments section below.

 

Green Film Festivals

These are a few of the annual film fests that I’m aware of; this is not an exhaustive list. Please let everyone know about other green film festivals by contributing a Comment. Many of the festivals’ websites feature video clips and a some even stream entire films (short and full-length films), and they list many additional, new, independent films, beyond what I’ve listed above, including some brand new ones that haven’t been screened widely yet.

See the Green Film Network to find film festivals in many countries.

 

Our previous film posts:

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March 12, 2021
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2020

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 31 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have now been 200 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Leydy Pech—Mexico: Leydy Pech, an indigenous Mayan beekeeper, led a coalition that successfully halted Monsanto’s planting of genetically modified soybeans in southern Mexico. The Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the government had violated the Mayans’ constitutional rights and suspended the planting of genetically modified soybeans. Because of the persistence of Pech and her coalition, in September 2017, Mexico’s Food and Agricultural Service revoked Monsanto’s permit to grow genetically modified soybeans in seven states. 
  • Kristal Ambrose—The Bahamas: Drawing on the power of youth activism, Kristal Ambrose convinced the government of The Bahamas to ban single-use plastic bags, plastic cutlery, straws, and Styrofoam containers and cups, to reduce plastic waste in and around the ocean and the Bahamas islands. Announced in April 2018, the nationwide ban went into effect in January 2020. (Organization: Bahamas Plastics Movement)
  • Nemonte Nenquimo—Ecuador: Nemonte Nenquimo led an indigenous campaign and legal action that resulted in a court ruling protecting 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil extraction. Nenquimo’s leadership and the lawsuit set a legal precedent for indigenous rights in Ecuador, and other tribes are following in her footsteps to protect additional tracts of rainforest from oil extraction. (Relevant organizations: Amazon Frontlines, Alianza Ceibo, Amazon Watch)
  • Chibeze Ezekiel—Ghana: As a direct result of Chibeze Ezekiel’s four-year grassroots campaign, the Ghanaian Minister of Environment canceled the construction of a 700-megawatt (MW) coal power plant and adjoining shipping port to import coal. The coal power plant would have been Ghana’s first. Ezekiel’s activism stopped the coal industry from entering Ghana and steered the nation’s energy future away from coal and towards solar and renewables. (Relevant organizations: Ghana Reducing Our Carbon (G-ROC) 350, Strategic Youth Network for Development, 350.org)
  • Paul Sein Twa—Myanmar: Seeking to preserve both the environment and Karen culture in Myanmar, in December 2018 Paul Sein Twa led his people in establishing a 1.35-million-acre peace park—a unique and collaborative community-based approach to conservation—in the Salween River basin. The Salween River basin is a major biodiversity zone and home to the indigenous Karen people, who have long sought self-determination and cultural survival. The new park represents a major victory for peace and conservation in Myanmar. (Relevant organizations: KESAN (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network), ICCA Consortium)
  • Lucie Pinson—France: In 2017, Lucie Pinson’s activism successfully pressured France’s three largest banks to eliminate financing for new coal projects and coal companies. She then compelled French insurance companies to follow suit: between 2017 and 2019, mega insurers AXA and SCOR announced plans to end insurance coverage for coal projects. (Relevant organizations: Reclaim Finance, Coal Policy Tool, BankTrack)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—and watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the video about Leydy Pech of Mexico:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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December 1, 2020
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2019

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” 2019 is the prize’s 30th year.

This year’s prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Linda Garcia—Washington, USA: Linda Garcia organized Fruit Valley residents to stop the construction of the Tesoro Savage oil export terminal in Vancouver, Washington, in February 2018. Her activism safeguarded residents from harmful air pollution and protected the environment of the Columbia River Gorge. By preventing North America’s largest oil terminal from being built, Garcia halted the flow of 11 million gallons of crude oil per day from North Dakota to Washington. (Relevant organizations: Washington Environmental Council, and Stand Up to Oil)
  • Alfred Brownell—Liberia: Under threat of violence, environmental lawyer and activist Alfred Brownell stopped the clear-cutting of Liberia’s tropical forests by palm oil plantation developers. His campaign protected 513,500 acres of primary forest that constitute one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots, enabling indigenous communities to continue their stewardship of the forest. For his safety, he is living in temporary exile in the United States. (Relevant organizations: Green Advocates, and Rainforest Action Network)
  • Jacqueline Evans—Cook Islands (South Pacific): Conservationist Jacqueline Evans led a five-year grassroots campaign to protect the Cook Islands’ stunning marine biodiversity. Because of her tireless and persistent organizing, in July 2017, the Cook Islands enacted new legislation—Marae Moana—to sustainably manage and conserve all 763,000 square miles of the country’s ocean territory, including the designation of marine protected areas (MPAs) 50 nautical miles around the islands, protecting 125,000 square miles of ocean from large-scale commercial fishing and seabed mining. (Relevant organizations: Marae Moana Marine Park, and Te Ipukarea Society)
  • Alberto Curamil—Chile: Alberto Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche, organized the people of Araucanía to stop the construction of two hydroelectric projects on the sacred Cautín River in central Chile. The destructive projects, canceled in late 2016, would have diverted hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the river each day, harming a critical ecosystem and exacerbating drought conditions in the region. In August 2018, Curamil was arrested and remains in jail today. Colleagues believe that he was arrested because of his environmental activism. (Relevant organization: Alianza Territorial Mapuche) #FreeAlbertoCuramil
  • Ana Colovic Lesoska—North Macedonia: Ana Colovic Lesoska led a seven-year campaign to cut off international funding for two large hydropower plants planned for inside Mavrovo National Park—North Macedonia’s oldest and largest national park—thereby protecting the habitat of the nearly-extinct Balkan lynx. In 2015, the World Bank withdrew its financing for one hydropower project, and, in 2017, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development canceled its loan to the North Macedonian government for the other. (Relevant organizations: Eco-Svest, and Bankwatch Network)
  • Bayarjargal Agvaantseren—Mongolia: Bayarjargal Agvaantseren helped create the 1.8 million-acre Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve in the South Gobi Desert—a critical habitat for the vulnerable snow leopard—in April 2016, then succeeded in persuading the Mongolian government to cancel all 37 mining licenses within the reserve. An unprecedented victory for the snow leopard, as of June 2018 there are no active mines within the reserve—and all mining operations are illegal. (Relevant organizations: Snow Leopard Trust, and Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—and watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the video about Linda Garcia of Washington State (USA):

And here’s the video about Alberto Curamil of Chile:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 29, 2019
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2018

goldmanprizelogo-300x106The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” 2018 is the prize’s 29th year.

This year’s prize recipients (from each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

collage-announcement-2018-take-2-740x480

  • LeeAnne Walters—Flint, MI, USA:  LeeAnne Walters led a citizens’ movement that tested the tap water in Flint, Michigan, and exposed the Flint water crisis. The results showed that one in six homes had lead levels in water that exceeded the EPA’s safety threshold. Walters’ persistence compelled the local, state, and federal governments to take action and ensure that residents of Flint have access to clean water. (Relevant organization: U.S. Water Study)
  • Francia Marquez—Colombia: A formidable leader of the Afro-Colombian community, Francia Márquez organized the women of La Toma and stopped illegal gold mining on their ancestral land. She exerted steady pressure on the Colombian government and spearheaded a 10-day, 350-mile march of 80 women to the nation’s capital, resulting in the removal of all illegal miners and equipment from her community. (Related organization: Afro-Colombian Human Rights Campaign)
  • Khanh Nguy Thi—Vietnam: Khanh Nguy Thi used scientific research and engaged Vietnamese state agencies to advocate for sustainable long-term energy projections in Vietnam. Highlighting the cost and environmental impacts of coal power, she partnered with state officials to reduce coal dependency and move toward a greener energy future. (Organization: GreenID, Green Innovation and Development Centre)
  • Manny Calonzo—The Philippines: Manny Calonzo spearheaded an advocacy campaign that persuaded the Philippine government to enact a national ban on the production, use, and sale of lead paint. He then led the development of a third-party certification program to ensure that paint manufacturers meet this standard. As of 2017, 85% of the paint market in the Philippines has been certified as lead safe.  (Relevant organization: Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint)
  • Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid—South Africa: As grassroots activists, Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid built a broad coalition to stop the South African government’s massive secret nuclear deal with Russia. On April 26, 2017, the High Court ruled that the $76 billion nuclear power project was unconstitutional—a landmark legal victory that protected South Africa from an unprecedented expansion of the nuclear industry and production of radioactive waste.  (Relevant organizations: SAFCEI, South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute; and Earthlife Africa)
  • Claire Nouvian—France: A tireless defender of the oceans and marine life, Claire Nouvian led a focused, data-driven advocacy campaign against the destructive fishing practice of deep-sea bottom trawling, successfully pressuring French supermarket giant and fleet owner Intermarché to change its fishing practices. Her coalition of advocates ultimately secured French support for a ban on deep-sea bottom trawling that led to an EU-wide ban.  (Organization: BLOOM)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—and watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the video about LeeAnne Walters of Flint, Michigan:

And here’s the video about Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid of South Africa:

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 23, 2018
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2017

goldmanprizelogo-300x106The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award of $175,000. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” 2017 is the prize’s 28th year.

This year’s six prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:

  • Rodgrigo Tot—Guatemala: An indigenous leader in Guatemala’s Agua Caliente, Rodrigo Tot led his community to a landmark court decision that ordered the government to issue land titles to the Q’eqchi people and kept environmentally destructive nickel mining from expanding into his community. (Relevant organizations: Defensoria Q’eqchi’ and Indian Law Resource Center)
  • Wendy Bowman—Australia: In the midst of an onslaught of coal development in Australia, octogenarian Wendy Bowman stopped a powerful multinational mining company from taking her family farm and protected her community in Hunter Valley from further pollution and environmental destruction. (Relevant petition: Stop the Hunter Coal Rush)
  • Prafulla Samantara—India: An iconic leader of social justice movements in India, Prafulla Samantara led a historic 12-year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.
  • Uros Macerl—Slovenia: Uroš Macerl, an organic farmer from Slovenia, successfully stopped a cement kiln from co-incinerating petcoke with hazardous industrial waste by rallying legal support from fellow Eko Krog activists and leveraging his status as the only citizen allowed to challenge the plant’s permits. (Relevant organization: Eko Krog)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—and watch a brief, well-produced video—about each person’s remarkable efforts and achievements.

Here’s the video about Mark Lopez of East Los Angeles:

And here’s the video about Wendy Bowman of New South Wales, Australia:

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 25, 2017
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