April 20, 2026
Meet the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize winners!
The recipients of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize are Iroro Tanshi (Nigeria), Borim Kim (South Korea), Sarah Finch (United Kingdom), Theonila Roka Matbob (Papua New Guinea), Alannah Acaq Hurley (United States), and Yuvelis Morales Blanco (Colombia).
These six extraordinary women show that you don’t have to cross oceans to find environmental leadership—you might find it next door. Global movements begin in backyards and town halls, in our homes, our neighborhoods, and our communities—led by regular people. Change starts where you stand.
Iroro Tanshi
Africa / Nigeria
After rediscovering the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat in Nigeria, Iroro Tanshi and the Small Mammal Conservation Organization identified human-induced wildfires as the main threat to the species and launched a successful, community-led campaign to protect its refuge, the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary. Between early 2022 and May 2025, she and her community fire brigades prevented any serious wildfires from occurring in and around the sanctuary by patrolling thousands of farms and effectively responding to more than 70 fire outbreaks, safeguarding communities, forests, and the bat’s fragile habitat.
Borim Kim
Asia / South Korea
Activist Borim Kim and her organization, Youth 4 Climate Action, won the first successful youth-led climate litigation in Asia. In August 2024, the South Korean Constitutional Court found the government’s climate policy to be in violation of the constitutional rights of future generations, mandating the creation of legally binding emissions reduction targets from 2031-2049 to meet the country’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The historic decision is a watershed moment for the climate change movement in Asia. If implemented, it has the potential to avoid more than 1,500 million tons of carbon emissions—equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 500 coal-fired power plants—over the next 25 years.
Sarah Finch
Europe / United Kingdom
Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group led a tireless campaign against oil drilling in southeastern England for over a decade, persevering through five years of escalating court battles against one oil development in Surrey until the coalition secured a Supreme Court ruling, in June 2024, that finally forced its shutdown. The resulting “Finch ruling” states that authorities must consider the downstream impacts that fossil fuels will have on the global climate before granting permission to extract them. This legal precedent has already stopped subsequent fossil fuel extraction projects and other industrial development across the UK and could inform EU policy going forward.
Theonila Roka Matbob
Island & Island Nations / Papua New Guinea
Theonila Roka Matbob led a successful campaign that compelled Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, to sign a landmark memorandum of understanding in November 2024 to address environmental and social devastation caused by its long-dormant Panguna mine. Despite having abandoned the site 35 years earlier after a social uprising against the mine, the company formally acknowledged the wide range of harms the mine has caused and has begun a collaborative remediation process that aims to address urgent risks and establish a long-term remedy mechanism.
Alannah Acaq Hurley
North America / United States
Acting on behalf of 15 tribal nations, Yup’ik leader Alannah Acaq Hurley led a campaign that stopped the proposed Pebble Mine megaproject in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region. As the executive director for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay (UTBB), Alannah and a broad-based coalition yielded a historic EPA veto of the copper and gold mining project in January 2023. The victory safeguards Bristol Bay and its greater watershed—encompassing 25 million acres of wilderness, rivers, and wetlands and home to the largest wild salmon runs in the world—from the construction of what would have been North America’s largest open-pit mine. Alannah and UTBB continue to work to protect the bay from encroaching development.
Yuvelis Morales Blanco
South & Central America / Colombia
As a young adult, Yuvelis Morales Blanco helped mobilize her community in Puerto Wilches against two key drilling projects, successfully preventing the introduction of commercial fracking into Colombia. In 2022, the campaign forced the country’s largest petroleum company, Ecopetrol, to suspend its contracts for the pilot fracking projects. In August 2024—with the projects still suspended—the Colombian Constitutional Court, in response to a lawsuit by a local organization, confirmed that the projects had violated the right of the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches to free, prior, and informed consent.
Watch the Goldman Prize Award Ceremony
Tune in to the award ceremony tonight—Monday, April 20, 2026.
The ceremony will be livestreamed on the Goldman Prize YouTube channel at 5:30 pm PDT (8:30 pm EDT). It will be hosted by Vanessa Hauc, Emmy Award-winning journalist and anchor for Telemundo, and feature live entertainment from Caminos Flamencos. Actor and environmentalist Peter Coyote will be narrating the Prize winner short films.
