Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

It’s not hard to imagine why Kim Wasserman (2013, United States) was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2016 Waterkeeper Alliance Conference earlier this month. Since her victory shutting down two coal power plants in Chicago’s south side, she continues to defend her community’s right to a clean environment — including water. For almost 20 years she has been…

Last week’s Global Witness report On Dangerous Ground opens with the following statement: The environment is emerging as a new battleground for human rights. Alarming Numbers The report, fittingly dedicated to Berta Cáceres (2015, Honduras) covers the state of land and environmental defenders in 2015 and is not short of harrowing evidence to support this statement:…

Before winning the Goldman Environmental Prize in April, we spoke to Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera to discover what it took to protect the 30-mile Northeast Ecological Corridor in Puerto Rico from two proposed mega-resorts. Rivera Herrera’s almost 20 year-long campaign is a testament to the power of perseverance in the face of government corruption, and efforts to discredit his…

When we first met with 2016 Goldman Prize winner Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera earlier this year, we didn’t know that his award would coincide almost to the day with composer, lyricist, and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s awarding of the Pulitzer Prize. So we thought we’d compare — in a very fair and scientific way — these two…

A few months before winning the Goldman Environmental Prize in April, we spoke to Máxima Acuña and her attorney and head of the NGO Grufides Mirtha Vásquez, to learn more about Máxima’s life as a farmer, and the challenges she’s facing while standing up to Yanacocha Mining Company (a joint venture of the Peruvian Buenaventura…

Program Officer Ryan Mack looks back at his first meeting with Goldman Prize winner Máxima Acuña in the northern Peruvian highlands of Cajamarca in early 2016. They are photographed above standing in front of the pristine Laguna Azul: Thick fog crawled along the hillsides of Cajamarca’s highlands, engulfing Laguna Azul and the surrounding mountains. The wind picked up, rustling…

We hope you enjoyed hearing the stories of the six winners of the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize! On Wednesday April 20, the second ceremony of the week took place at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. This year, we were delighted to welcome for the first time journalist and National Geographic…

We hope you enjoyed hearing the stories of the six winners of the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco! This year, we were delighted to once again welcome award-winning journalist Dana King as our Master of Ceremonies. Our veteran narrator, Robert Redford, again provided the incredibly moving voice-over for the Prize winner profile videos. The most poignant difference…

Congratulations to the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners! Destiny Watford, United States Prize winner for North America In a community whose environmental rights had long been sidelined to make room for heavy industry, Destiny Watford inspired residents of a Baltimore neighborhood to defeat plans to build the nation’s largest trash-burning incinerator less than a mile away…

The 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize Ceremony is fast approaching! This year, in addition to our usual livestream on our YouTube channel and website, we also will be streaming the event direct from our Facebook page from 5:30pm PDT on April 18. Also new this year, we will be taking you behind the scenes via Periscope…