Samuel Nguiffo
Using his expertise as an attorney, Samuel Nguiffo founded the Center for Environment and Development, which helps forest-dwelling peoples exercise their legal right to manage traditional lands.
Jorge Varela
Cofounder of a wetlands protection organization, Jorge Varela advocated for sustainable shrimping to protect ecosystems in the Gulf of Fonseca, where commercial shrimping destroys mangrove forests and poisons estuaries.
Oral Ataniyazova
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.
Jacqui Katona & Yvonne Margarula
Jacqui Katona and Yvonne Margarula, both Aboriginal women, stopped a damaging uranium mine at Jabiluka, land traditionally owned by the Mirrar people and at the heart of Australia’s largest national park.
Michal Kravcik
Michal Kravcik galvanized support to halt a dam planned during the Communist era by proposing effective democratic alternatives, including smaller dams, decentralized water management, and restored farmlands.
Bernard Martin
Recognizing the need to prevent a repeat of the 1992 collapse of fish stocks, Bernard Martin advocated for lower fishing quotas and Marine Protected Areas to stem the decimation by factory trawlers in the once abundant Grand Banks.
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.
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.
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.