Available freshwater comprises only 1.2% of all water on Earth.
Found in watersheds, rivers, and lakes, this surprisingly small quantity sustains entire communities and regions. The health of waterways directly affects those who depend on them for water, food, and economic livelihood. Protecting this precious resource is imperative in every corner of the world.
Simply put, our rivers are the Blue Heart of Europe. Wild, untamable, and incredibly beautiful.
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Goldman Prize Winners awarded for Freshwater
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari
In March 2024, Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari and Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana—a Kukama women’s association for which she serves as president—won a landmark rights of nature court decision to protect the Marañón River in Peru. For the first time in the country’s history, a river was granted legal personhood—with the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination. After finding the Peruvian government in violation of the river’s inherent rights, the court ordered the government to take immediate action to prevent future oil spills into the river, mandated the creation of a basin-wide protection plan, and recognized the Kukama as stewards of the river.
Besjana Guri & Olsi Nika
Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika’s campaign to protect the Vjosa River from a hydropower dam development boom resulted in its historic designation as the Vjosa Wild River National Park by the Albanian government in March 2023. This precedent-setting action safeguards not only the entirety of the Vjosa’s 167 miles—which flow freely across Albania—but also its free-flowing tributaries, totaling 250 miles of undisturbed river corridors. The Vjosa ecosystem is a significant bastion of freshwater biodiversity that provides critical habitat for several endangered species. The new national park is both Albania and Europe’s first to protect a wild river.
Niwat Roykaew
In February 2020, Niwat Roykaew and the Mekong community’s advocacy resulted in the termination of the China-led Upper Mekong River rapids blasting project, which would have destroyed 248 miles of the Mekong to deepen navigation channels for Chinese cargo ships traveling downstream. Flowing 3,000 miles from the mountains of Tibet before draining to the South China Sea, the biodiversity-rich Mekong River’s fisheries, tributaries, wetlands, and floodplains are a vital lifeline for more than 65 million people. This is the first time the Thai government has canceled a transboundary project because of the environmental destruction it would cause.
Maida Bilal
Maida Bilal led a group of women from her village in a 503-day blockade of heavy equipment that resulted in the cancellation of permits for two proposed dams on the Kruščica River in December 2018. The Balkans are home to the last free-flowing rivers in Europe. However, a massive hydropower boom in the region threatens to irreversibly damage thousands of miles of pristine rivers. This is the first Prize for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Alberto Curamil
Alberto Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche, organized the people of Araucanía to stop the construction of two hydroelectric projects on the sacred Cautín River in central Chile. The destructive projects, canceled in late 2016, would have diverted hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the river each day, harming a critical ecosystem and exacerbating drought conditions in the region.
Berta Cáceres
In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres (d. 2016) rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.
Partners in Freshwater
The Goldman Prize is honored to partner with a variety of environmental organizations around the world, each of them united in the goal of protecting our planet. From our nominating partners to global organizations to grassroots NGOs led by Prize winners, they are all essential parts of the environmental community.
