fbpx
Skip to content

ORDINARY PEOPLE. EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT.

Watch the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony.

The People’s Summit Gets Underway at Rio+20

June 20, 2012

Goldman Prize staff members Melina Selverston-Scher and Jenny Park spent yesterday at the People’s summit in Rio de Janeiro. Touted as the ‘counter conference,’ the People’s summit departs from the ‘suit and tie’ formality of the UN conference and offers a more relaxed, grassroots forum for alternative ideas and discussion. An outlet for idealism, radical change and discontent- the People’s summit is home to sundry protests and ideologies.

The summit is held on Flamengo Beach, where meetings take place under bamboo tents and canopies. Information is shared through pamphlets, demonstrations, placards and performances. Upbeat music fills the air. People are dressed casually, if not in traditional garb, for there are many representatives from Brazil’s numerous indigenous groups. Rituals, body art and dancing are around every corner.

The feeling is relaxed and communal. Earnest faces of young activists mix in the crowd with stoic and hardened life-long environmental defenders- all united in their desire to effect lasting change and promote environmental stewardship.
photo1 photo2

Melina poses in front of the beachfront entrance to the People’s summit. Later, she has a chance run-in with some old friends, reunited after many years by the pursuit of shared interests.

photo3 photo6

The “quilt of messages” from people to leaders serves as a visually stunning call to action. Indigenous Karioca people gather outside the summit to make a unified entrance.

marina

Marina Silva receives a blessing from Karioca leaders before her speech, in which she told the crowd, “This movement doesn’t have a leader, it’s a collection of everybody.”

rccam

Over 1000 people gathered on the beach, braving hours of hot weather to form a ‘human river.’

Above, participants wave to the RC helicopter camera taking aerial shots of the crowd. Below, the RC camera flies overhead.

photo3

In the photo at the top of this post: A spectacular aerial view of the human river, a living work of art designed by John Quigley to call attention to the threats that hydroelectric dams (like the Belo Monte) pose to the environment.

Related Posts

Wrapping up a Busy Fall at Asia-Pacific Climate Week


November 21, 2023

Uniting Grassroots Leaders from around the World Today we are celebrating the end to a busy fall season, which brought the Goldman Environmental Prize to five regional climate events and summits around the world. Over the course of the past three months, in five different countries, the Goldman Prize convened 21 Prize winners across five…

Read more

Reflections on Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week


November 1, 2023

Last week, the Goldman Environmental Prize gathered in Panama for Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week. Five Prize winners were in attendance: Ruth Buendía (Peru, 2014), Leydy Pech (Mexico, 2020), Liz Chicaje Churay (Peru, 2021), and Alexandra Narvaez and Alex Lucitante (Ecuador, 2022). For those who won the Goldman Prize during the COVID-19 pandemic,…

Read more

Goldman Prize Winners Reflect on the IUCN Leaders Forum


October 23, 2023

From October 11 – 13, three Goldman Environmental Prize winners attended the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Leaders Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. The three-day conference convened global leaders and experts in policy, finance, and science to discuss how to protect and restore biodiversity across various sectors. Prize winners in attendance were Howard…

Read more