ORDINARY PEOPLE. EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT.
Alexander Peal helped create Sapo National Park, Liberia’s first national park, and founded the country’s first environmental NGO. Having fled Liberia’s civil war, he sustained its conservation movement from abroad for nearly 10 years.
An ethnobotanist, Nat Quansah reintroduced the use of native plants as medicine to thousands of Malagasy people in an Ambodisakoana clinic he opened, educating the community about the need for forest conservation.
Elias Díaz Peña and Oscar Rivas cofounded Sobrevivencia to protect indigenous, marginalized communities and prevent developments that threaten Paraguay’s ecosystems and inhabitants.
In response to post-communist development and resource exploitation, Vera Mischenko cofounded Ecojuris, Russia’s first public interest law organization, and brought the first successful environmental lawsuits against the government.
Along with colleague Teodoro Cabrera, Rodolfo Montiel Flores was arrested and tortured for organizing peaceful protests of logging that was devastating farmlands. Both men were jailed for more than two years on trumped-up charges.
An obstetrician, Oral Ataniyazova fought the damage to public health caused by the shrinking of the Aral Sea, which has led to increased salinity and concentrated pollutants, huge dust storms and changes in the regional weather.
