The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and 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 an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. 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.”
This year’s six prize recipients (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:
Kimberly Wasserman (Chicago, IL, USA) — Fought to get local, polluting, coal power plants shut down; leading community greening projects
Jonathan Deal (South Africa) — Fighting against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) gas extraction
Azzam Alwash (Iraq) — Restoring marshes and protecting water resources
Nohra Padilla (Colombia) — Instituting recycling and waste management programs
Rosanno Ercolini (Italy) — Fighting toxics from incinerators and spearheading a Zero Waste movement
Aleta Baun (Indonesia) — Protecting sacred forestland from marble mining
Click on each recipient’s name to read—or watch a brief, well-made video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.
Here’s the three-minute video about Kimberly Wasserman, who “led local residents in a successful campaign to shut down two of the country’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants — and is now transforming Chicago’s old industrial sites into parks and multi-use spaces:”
Last year’s recipient from the U.S. was Caroline Cannon, who has brought “the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope, Alaska to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling.”
Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists.
“The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. 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.”
The Goldman Prize ceremony (which is held in San Francisco) is one of the best events I attend every year. The recipients are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and inspiring. This year’s six prize winners (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:
Caroline Cannon (Point Hope, AK, USA) – Issue: Oil and gas drilling
Sofia Gatica (Argentina) – Issue: Toxic/lethal pesticides
Ma Jun (China) – Issue: Pollution from manufacturing plants
Ikal Angelei (Kenya) – Issue: Large dam development and water security
Evgenia Chirikova (Russia) – Issue: Highway development in a protected forest
Click on each recipient’s name to read about—or watch a brief video about—their remarkable efforts and achievements.
Here’s the three-minute video about Caroline Cannon, who has been “bringing the voice and perspective of her Inupiat community in Point Hope to the battle to keep Arctic waters safe from offshore oil and gas drilling.” Shell and other oil companies currently have plans to drill in the Arctic.
Last year’s recipient from the U.S. was Hilton Kelley, who has been fighting for environmental justice for communities along the Gulf Coast of Texas.
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists.
Here’s a description of the Prize from the Goldman Environmental Prize website: “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. 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.”
The Goldman Prize ceremony (which is held in San Francisco) is one of the best events I attend every year. The recipients are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and inspiring. This year’s six prize winners (one from each of the six inhabited continental regions) are:
Click on each recipient’s name to read about—and watch a brief video about—their remarkable and selfless efforts and achievements.
Here’s the three-minute video about Hilton Kelley, who is leading the battle for environmental justice on the Gulf Coast of Texas:
Last year’s recipient from the U.S. was Lynn Henning, a family farmer in Michigan, who “exposed the egregious polluting practices of livestock factory farms in rural Michigan, gaining the attention of the federal EPA and prompting state regulators to issue hundreds of citations for water quality violations.”
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest award for grassroots environmentalists. This is the 21st year that the prize has been awarded. The winners are models of courage, and their stories are inspiring.
If you’ll be in the San Francisco Bay Area during the first week of October, consider attending one or both of these entertaining and edifying events, which will be taking place in San Francisco and in West Marin County respectively:
West Coast Green, San Francisco
Expo + conference on green innovation for the built environment
Fort Mason Center
October 1-3, 2009 (Thursday – Saturday) www.westcoastgreen.com
3rd Annual Point Reyes Green Homes Tour, Pt. Reyes Station
Organized by the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin (CLAM)
October 4, 2009 (Sunday) www.clam-ptreyes.org
If you’d like to recommend other green events that will be happening in the Bay Area this fall, feel free to mention them in the Comments section.
The new California Academy of Sciences museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park recently opened its doors to the public. The building achieved the Platinum (top-tier) rating in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system. Designed by Renzo Piano, Stantec Architecture, and Arup, the 410,000-square-foot building is the largest public Platinum-rated project in the world (to date). Featuring a four-story rainforest exhibit, an aquarium, a planetarium, and an enormous (and hilly) “living roof” (AKA a vegetated or green roof) that visitors can access, the museum is proving to be wildly popular. If you go there soon, be prepared for crowds.
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The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and 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 an award of $150,000, the largest award in the world for grassroots environmentalists. 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.”
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