Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

From China to Bangladesh, rivers run purple, blue and black with waste from garment factories. Locals say they can tell what colors are in fashion by looking at the river. Meanwhile, the air is so thick with toxic fumes- it causes regular nosebleeds, fainting, and retching- especially in children. Rampant pollution from the garment industry is…

Congratulations to Goldman Prize recipients Kimberly Wasserman and Ignace Schops on being selected to join Al Gore’s Climate Leadership Corps, part of the Climate Reality Project– an organization that seeks to fight climate change by empowering local citizens to make a difference. Schops was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2008 for the leadership role he…

Douglas E. Goldman, President of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, recently sent a letter to Gabonese President Ali Bongo in support of 2009 Goldman Prize winner Marc Ona Essangui. Mr. Ona is facing possible jail time and a fee of nearly $10,000.00 US after being convicted of defamation by a Gabonese court for speaking out against…

An elementary school teacher, Rossano Ercolini began a public education campaign about the dangers of incinerators in his small Tuscan town that grew into a national Zero Waste movement. How did you begin to create awareness in your community about the dangers of incinerators and the need to adopt recycling programs? When it was announced…

Giving up a comfortable living and family life in California, Azzam Alwash returned to war-torn Iraq to lead local communities in restoring the once-lush marshes that were turned to dust bowls during Saddam Hussein’s rule. How did you first learn about Saddam Hussein’s destruction of the Mesopotamian marshes and what motivated you to dedicate your…

Silas Siakor was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2006 for exposing evidence that former Liberian President Charles Taylor used profits from unchecked, rampant logging to pay the costs of a brutal 14-year civil war that left 150,000 people dead. At great personal risk, Siakor collected extremely hard-to-get evidence of falsified logging records, illegal logging practices…

President Obama’s highly anticipated Climate Action Plan was released earlier this week, the centerpiece of which focuses on cutting carbon emissions from new and existing coal fired power plants. Such plants are responsible for nearly 40% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other components of the plan focus on investing in renewable energy technologies, fortifying…

Congratulations to Evgenia Chirikova and Oscara Olivera for recently being awarded the 2013 James Lawson Award, administered by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. The award ceremony took place at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. The award is named after James Lawson, a key leader from the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and…

Thuli Makama, an environmental attorney from Swaziland, was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2010 after winning a landmark case to include environmental NGO representation in the Swaziland Environment Authority, reinforcing the right to public participation in environmental decision making. For the past several months, Makama has been living in Oregon while completing a fellowship with…

By organizing hundreds of local villagers to peacefully occupy marble mining sites in “weaving protests,” 2013 Goldman Prize recipient Aleta Baun stopped the destruction of sacred forestland on Mutis Mountain on the island of Timor. Tell us about the Mollo people, your way of life and your spiritual connection to the land. Our livelihood is…