Now Reading
Internationally Acclaimed Goldman Environmental Prize Names 2005 Winners
Internationally Acclaimed Goldman Environmental Prize Names 2005 Winners
Published 04-19-05
Submitted by Goldman Environmental Prize
Celebrating its 16th year, the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize annually honors grassroots environmental heroes from six geographic areas: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to preserve and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives an award of $125,000, the largest of its kind.
"The caliber of this year's winners takes environmental activism to new heights for risk, dedication, and vision," said Richard N. Goldman, president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation. "The Prize has two significant goals. The first is to make the world aware of what the efforts of one individual can accomplish, and the second, to influence world leadership, especially in the recipients' home countries, to act positively and promptly to save our planet from further destruction. The 2005 Goldman Environmental Prize winners meet and exceed that standard."
Since 1990, 107 environmental activists from 65 countries have been recognized. Many have gone on to receive further recognition for their efforts. For instance, in 1991, Wangari Maathai received the Goldman Environmental Prize for founding Kenya's Green Belt Movement which promotes tree planting and sustainable development throughout Africa. In October, Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. "Receiving the Goldman Prize provided moral support and a protective shield against negative forces that were destroying the environment and that the Green Belt Movement and I were fighting. It gave me the strength and courage to carry on," Maathai said.
"The leadership and commitment of today's winners will protect our environment for future generations," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said. "The Goldman Environmental Prize and the dedication of Richard Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda, continue to focus the international community's attention on environmental concerns. The Goldmans' leadership, creativity, and intelligence are gifts to the environmental community and to us all."
This year's winners are:
North America:
Isidro Baldenegro López, 38, Chihuahua, Mexico:
Baldenegro is a subsistence farmer and community leader of Mexico's indigenous Tarahumara people who live in the country's Sierra Madre Mountains. After witnessing the assassination of his own father at a young age, Baldenegro has spent much of his life defending old growth forests from devastating and unregulated logging in a region torn by violence, corruption and drug-trafficking. In 2003, Baldenegro was suddenly arrested and jailed on trumped-up charges. He was released 15 months later. Baldenegro's work has led to new logging bans throughout the Sierra Madre region.
Africa:
Corneille Ewango, 41, Epulu, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
As a botanist for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, Ewango directed the Okapi Faunal Reserve's botany program from 1996 to 2003. Through a decade of brutal civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ewango stood on the front lines and led the protection and preservation efforts for the Reserve, its people, and its rare animals and plants. Ewango is now on scholarship studying tropical botany at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
Asia:
Kaisha Atakhanova, 47, Karaganda, Kazakhstan
Atakhanova led a successful campaign to prevent nuclear waste from being commercially imported into the Republic of Kazakhstan. A biologist specializing in the genetic effects of nuclear radiation, Atakhanova founded and directs the Karaganda Ecological Center which promotes grassroots democracy-building and environmental protection within government and civil society.
South and Central America:
Father José Andrés Tamayo Cortez, 47, Olancho, Honduras
Father Tamayo is a charismatic Catholic priest leading the struggle for environmental justice in Honduras. He directs the Environmental Movement of Olancho, a coalition of subsistence farmers and community and religious leaders who are defending their lands against uncontrolled commercial logging. Together they continue to exert heavy pressure on the Honduran government to reform its national forest policy.
Europe:
Stephanie Roth, 34, Rosia Montana, Romania
A former editor at the London-based magazine, The Ecologist, Roth has been the driving force behind an international campaign to stop construction of Europe's largest open cast gold mine, slated to be built in Romania. Roth joined the anti-mining campaign after she was involved in a successful grassroots movement to stop development of a so-called "Dracula Theme Park" in Transylvania, a project that would have destroyed an ancient oak forest reserve next to a medieval citadel.
Islands and Island Nations:
Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, 58, Papay, Haiti
Agronomist Jean-Baptiste founded the Peasant Movement of Papay in 1973 to teach the people of Haiti the principles of sustainable agriculture and anti-erosion techniques in a land that is literally washing away due to extreme deforestation. It has become one of the most effective environmental peasant movements in Haitian history, successfully fostering economic development, environmental protection and individual survival. Throughout an extremely volatile political climate, Jean-Baptiste carried out his work to reach more than 200,000 people across the country.
About the Goldman Environmental Prize
The Goldman Environmental Prize enables individuals to continue their environmental activism and inspires other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world. The Goldman Environmental Prize was created in 1990 by civic leaders and philanthropists Richard N. Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda H. Goldman.
The Goldman Environmental Prize winners are selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by a worldwide network of environmental organizations and individuals. Prize winners participate in a 10-day tour of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., that includes awards ceremonies in both cities, news conferences, media briefings and meetings with political, public policy, financial and environmental leaders.
ATTENTION EDITORS: Detailed biographical information and photographs of all of the winners are available at www.goldmanprize.org/2005media. Broadcast-quality video and audio of the winners in their home countries is also available. Mr. Richard Goldman and the 2005 Prize Winners will hold a press conference at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel, Monday April 18th at 10am. A limited number of interviews and tapings will be granted prior to and after the press conference. Prize winners will be in San Francisco April 15-19 and Washington, D.C. April 20-22. Use contacts above for more information.
