They are not as famous as the Nobel Prizes, but the Goldman Prizes have gained international recognition for the rigor of their call and, above all, because for 33 years they have made the work of people who dedicate a good part of their lives ( some of them have even lost it, they have been murdered) to the defense of nature, the quality of the environment and the rights of indigenous populations in practically all corners of the planet.
For yet another year, since 1990, the non-profit organization The Goldman Environmental Prize has presented its awards at an event held in San Francisco (United States) on March 24.
The people distinguished on this occasion represent the diversity in defense in all parts of the world and in the face of many of today’s great environmental threats, from mining operations that do not respect the environment to overfishing, plastic pollution and climate change.
Zafer Kizilkaya, in collaboration with local fishing cooperatives and the Turkish authorities, has made possible the expansion of Turkey’s network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) along 310 miles of the Mediterranean coast. The newly designated areas were approved by the Turkish government in August 2020 and include an expansion of the MPA network by 135 square miles (350 square kilometers) without trawling or purse seine fishing, and an additional 27 square miles (70 square kilometers) of no-fishing zones. Turkey’s marine ecosystem has been severely degraded by overfishing, illegal fishing, tourism development and the effects of climate change, and these protected areas help mitigate these challenges. Zafer Kizilkaya, 53, is the president and founder of Akdeniz Koruma DernÄŸi (the Mediterranean Conservation Society), which he launched in 2012. A civil engineer by training, he grew up in Ankara watching Jacques Cousteau documentaries and fell in love with the sea.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku organized community efforts to stop mining development by Anglo American in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Thanks to his work and that of his organization, in May 2021, the company involved formally committed to withdrawing 27 approved investigation requests for exploitation within indigenous territories, including the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory, which contains more than 400,000 acres of rainforest. tropical. The decision protects a critically threatened area of ​​the Amazon. Alessandra Korap Munduruku, 38, is a member of the Munduruku indigenous group of Sawré Muybu. She is president of the Pariri Indigenous Association, which supports communities in the Tapajós River region. Alessandra previously worked as a teacher and, for the last decade, she has been involved in the fight against deforestation, hydroelectric development and the contamination of the Tapajós River. Initially, she encountered strong resistance to getting a woman involved in the movement to protect the territory, but she persisted and gradually changed the paradigm; she eventually became the first female coordinator of the Pariri Indigenous Association. In 2018, Alessandra decided to study law to better represent and protect the Munduruku communities and the Amazon rainforest from further illegal extraction by mining, logging and drilling interests.
Chilekwa Mumba launched his most prominent environmental action alarmed by the pollution produced by the operation of the Konkola copper mines in Zambia’s Copperbelt province. He organized a lawsuit to hold the mine’s parent company, Vedanta Resources, liable. Chilekwa’s victory in the UK Supreme Court set a legal precedent: it was the first time an English court had ruled that a British company could be held liable for environmental damage caused by the operations of a subsidiary in another country. This precedent has since been applied to hold Shell Global, one of the world’s 10 largest corporations by revenue, accountable for its pollution in Nigeria.
Tero Mustonen has been leading since April 2018 the restoration of 62 severely degraded former industrial peat logging and forestry sites across Finland, totaling 86,000 acres, transforming them into productive and biodiverse habitats and wetlands. Rich in organic matter, peatlands are highly effective carbon sinks; According to the IUCN, peatlands are the largest natural carbon stores on Earth. Approximately one third of the surface of Finland is made up of peat bogs.
Delima Silalahi led a campaign to secure legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of tropical forests for six indigenous communities in North Sumatra. His community activism reclaimed this territory from a paper company that had partially converted it into a monoculture industrial plantation of non-native eucalyptus trees. The six communities have begun restoring forests, creating valuable carbon sinks from Indonesia’s biodiverse tropical forests.
Diane Wilson won a landmark case in December 2019 against Formosa Plastics, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, for the illegal dumping of toxic plastic waste on the Texas Gulf Coast. The $50 million settlement is the largest settlement in a citizen lawsuit against an industrial polluter in US Clean Water Act history. As part of the settlement, Formosa Plastics pledged to achieve “zero discharge” of plastic waste from its Point Comfort factory, pay fines until discharges cease, and fund restoration of affected local wetlands, beaches and waterways.
