Sven Peek
Sven “Bobby” Peek skillfully united his racially divided community and succeeded in closing illegal toxic dumps in south Durban, a highly industrialized, contaminated community.
Hirofumi Yamashita
For 25 years, Hirofumi Yamashita fought a reclamation project in Isahaya Bay, one of the world’s richest wetlands, forcing the government to scale back the massive dike and reassess the reclamation’s environmental costs.
Ka Hsaw Wa
Ka Hsaw Wa fled Rangoon after being tortured for opposing a brutal military government and documented thousands of criminal and human rights abuses by the government related to construction of the Yadana petroleum pipeline.
Kory Johnson
At the age of 9, Kory Johnson founded Children for a Safe Environment and led the successful opposition to a proposed industrial incinerator in Phoenix, Arizona.
Berito Kuwaru’wa
Berito Kuwaru’wa waged a nonviolent international campaign calling on multinational oil companies not to drill in the isolated, traditional homelands of his U’wa people, who consider oil to be the blood of Mother Earth.
Atherton Martin
Atherton Martin successfully organized opposition to halt a copper mine that would have devastated 10 percent of the original tropical rainforests still covering Dominica, known as Nature Island for its rich biodiversity.
Juan Pablo Orrego
Juan Pablo Orrego led the campaign to protect the Bio Bío, one of South America’s last major free-flowing rivers and home to the indigenous Pehuenche people, from the destruction of massive multi-dam developments.
Terri Swearingen
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.
Anna Giordano
Anna Giordano launched a campaign to save raptors being illegally shot for sport in her native Sicily. Despite violent threats and the firebombing of her car, Giordano’s efforts significantly reduced the number of birds killed.
Paul Cox & Fuiono Senio
Paul Cox and Fuiono Senio worked to preserve a 30,000-acre rainforest by developing economic alternatives for villagers who saw the forest as their only source for income.