ORDINARY PEOPLE. EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT.
Terri Swearingen fought the construction of the nation’s largest toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, proposed at a site 1,100 feet from an elementary school. Her efforts halted the construction of other incinerators around the country.
A former naval officer, Alexander Nikitin was unjustly imprisoned for almost five years for treason after revealing the potential for a nuclear catastrophe due to Russia’s aging nuclear submarines based near the Norwegian border. He was acquitted in 2000.
M.C. Mehta single-handedly won numerous landmark judgments from India’s Supreme Court since 1984, including introducing lead-free gasoline to India and reducing the industrial pollution fouling the Ganges and eroding the Taj Mahal.
Leader of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, Yul Choi popularized environmental issues and mobilized a strong anti-nuclear movement amidst powerful development pressure and at considerable personal risk.
Laila Iskandar’s work with the zabbaleen garbage collectors of Cairo demonstrated that large-scale recycling programs offer employment, generate income and improve living conditions.
A Lakota, JoAnn Tall helped stop proposed nuclear weapons testing in North Dakota’s Black Hills and also worked to prevent hazardous landfills from being located in the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations.
Jeton Anjain organized the evacuation of his Marshall Islands homeland, Rongelap, contaminated by the United States’ 1954 hydrogen bomb tests. He died in 1993 from cancer, most likely caused by testing.
A biologist, Kaisha Atakhanova successfully challenged a government plan to import and store foreign radioactive waste in Kazakhstan.
