Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced last month that Mongolia will be the global host of World Environment Day (WED) on June 5, 2013. WED began in 1972 and is the UN’s main vehicle for fostering political awareness and action about environmental issues on a global scale. The theme of this year’s event is “Think.Eat.Save. Reduce…

In honor of last week’s World Water Day, we are taking a look back at a handful of Goldman Prize recipients who are working to protect one of our most precious resources: water. Ikal Angelei won the Goldman Prize in 2012 for her efforts to save Lake Turkana from the devastating impacts of the Gibe…

The 2013 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a 12-day summit held every three years, took place earlier this month in Bangkok, Thailand. The convention is being hailed by many conservationists as one of the most successful in recent decades, a sentiment being echoed by 2010 Goldman Prize recipient Randall Aruaz and his…

Check out these informative videos that 2009 Goldman Prize recipient Yuyun Ismawati shared with us to find out more about the global issue of mercury pollution. Ismawati was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2009 for her work to implement sustainable community-based waste and sanitation management programs in Indonesia that provide employment opportunities to low-income people…

1995 Goldman Prize recipient and President of the Korea Green Foundation, Yul Choi, has received a sentence of one year imprisonment from the Supreme Court of South Korea. The Korea Green Foundation and the Korea Federation for Environmental Movement are calling for Mr. Choi’s release, labeling his trial “politically biased, legally unjust and morally corrupt.”…

France’s President Francois Hollande recently made an official visit to Moscow, where he met with several of Russia’s prominent public figures, including 2012 Goldman Prize recipient Evgenia Chirikova. Chirikova told Mr. Hollande about her concerns of corruption regarding Vinci, the French company behind the Moscow-St. Petersburg Motorway project. Chirikova was awarded the Goldman Prize for…

After a tumultuous year, punctuated by the running-aground of the Kulluk drilling rig in Alaska’s Strait of Sitkalidak, Shell has decided to pause its Arctic drilling plans for the remainder of the year. Shell’s operations in the Arctic have been plagued with dangerous weather conditions, equipment failures and operational mishaps, all of which underscore claims…

2009 Goldman Prize recipient Rizwana Hasan recently visited the Bay Area to attend the Bangladesh Development Initiative (BDI), a three day conference hosted at the University of California Berkeley campus. Hasan, a leading environmental attorney and recent winner of the Magsaysay Award, was featured as keynote speaker at the conference, discussing her work in environmental…

2002 Goldman Environmental Prize recipient Alexis Massol and his team at Casa Pueblo recently issued a letter to the Governor of Puerto Rico demanding the swift clean-up of Vieques Island. Vieques Island is part of Puerto Rico and has served for years as a bombing range for the US military. As a result, the island…

A Fierce Green Fire is a feature-length documentary film that explores the last 50 years of the environmental movement.  The title of the film was inspired by the book by the same name, written by Philip Shabecoff. Narrators of the film include long-time friend of the Prize, Robert Redford, as well as Ashley Judd, Meryl…