Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

In 2009, Yuyun Ismawati was awarded the Goldman Prize for her work to implement sustainable community-based waste and sanitation management programs that provide employment opportunities to low-income people and empower them to improve the environment. In the Q&A below, Ismawati updates us about her work in the years since winning the Prize. Tell us about…

For over 10 years Robert Redford has been narrating the Goldman Prize recipient profile videos and has been a valued partner of the Prize. Redford is an ardent conservationist and environmentalist, who stands for social responsibility and political involvement. He is an artist and businessman who is a staunch supporter of uncompromised creative expression. His…

Russian scientist Olga Speranskaya was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2009 for her work to transform the NGO community in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asian (EECCA) region into a potent, participatory force working to identify and eliminate the Soviet legacy of toxic chemicals in the environment. She formed a civil society network that…

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report detailing the significant impact climate change is already having on the Earth’s continents and ocean systems and warns that things are going to get worse unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly brought under control. The report warned that poor and marginalized communities…

1997 Goldman Prize winner Alexander Nikitin was awarded the Prize for revealing the potential for a nuclear catastrophe due to Russia’s aging nuclear submarines based near the Norwegian border. Until 1985 Alexander Nikitin was a naval captain in the Soviet Northern Fleet, where he served as chief engineer on nuclear powered submarines. From 1987 to…

In a recent article from the Guardian, 2006 Goldman Prize winner Silas Siakor called on the EU to take action against member states that have not yet implemented a law designed to curb illegal logging. New research from the environmental group Client Earth reveals that only ten EU member states (Austria, Denmark, Croatia, Germany, Cyprus,…

When Rwanda’s bloody civil war broke out in the 1990’s, conservationist Eugène Rutagarama risked his life to ensure the safety of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas. At that time, only about 650 mountain gorillas existed worldwide, over half of which lived in the Volcano National Park in the Virungas mountains straddling Rwanda, Uganda, and…

Goldman Prize winners Jonathan Deal (2013) and Ikal Angelei (2012) recently attended the Climate Reality Project training program in Johannesburg, South Africa as guest speakers. The three-day intensive training program, held March 12-14, was designed to “equip individuals from Africa and around the globe with the communications skills, knowledge, tools and drive to educate and…

Olya Melen, an environmental lawyer, was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2006 for using legal channels to temporarily halt construction on a deep-water shipping channel that would have destroyed fragile ecosystems in the heart of the Danube Delta, one of the most valuable wetlands in the world. At the time, Melen was working at for…

Last week, Goldman Prize winners Kimberly Wasserman (2013) and Maria Gunnoe (2009) joined Goldman Prize Board members John and Doug Goldman for “The Goldman Prize at 25,” a public event at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. In the first half of the two part program, John and Doug Goldman discussed the history…