The 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded
to seven grassroots environmental activists for their courage
and commitment in helping to save our planet from unfettered destruction.
Awardees from left to right: Yuyun Ismawati, Olga Speranskaya,
Hugo Jabini, Marc Ona Essangui, Syeda Riswana Hasan,
Wanze Eduards and Maria Gunnoe.
Photos by Luke Thomas
By Fanny Dassie
April 22, 2009
Environmental issues have always impacted the planet but the coverage they’ve received over the past years and people’s awareness of them has grown tremendously. Two days prior to Earth Day, seven grassroots environmental leaders from all six inhabited continents were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco in recognition of their tremendous achievements to preserve and secure a better environment.
The Goldman Environmental Prize, established by San Francisco philanthropist Richard N. Goldman and his late wife Rhoda H. Goldman 20 years ago, is the most prestigious environmental award in the world. It praises ordinary people for their exceptional courage, activism and commitment to help save the planet from unfettered destruction and awards them with a $150,000 cash prize.
Richard Goldman (left).
“I really admire what [the Goldmans] do,” CNN news correspondent Christiane Amanpour told FCJ during a green-carpet event that preceded the awards ceremony. “The environment is our real major challenge for our children, for our planet, for everything. It is not just a luxury. It really matters.”
Collective efforts from everyone were a constant theme in the ceremony speeches. Amanpour said climate change is mainly man-made and the US government, with the collaboration of all governments including India and China, should lead the way in tackling the most pressing issue facing our generation: “It is a massive global structural change that needs to take place,” Amanpour said.
Christiane Amanpour
The US government’s strategic role in the fight against global warming was stressed by former Vice President Al Gore who said changes will follow if the United States, as well as its citizens, take the matter into its own hands.
Gore acknowledged that the stories of the Goldman Prize winners are stories of “courage and heroism,” of men and women who are driven by a selfless conscience that connects them to the Earth. He compared the year 2009 to “the Gettysburg for the global environment.”
Gore said a tendency to confuse the “unprecedented with the improbable” explains why some people remain unconvinced about the human impacts on climate change. He said such a tendency has its place in most situations with the exception of climate change.
“We’ve never had 6.7 billion people before,” he said. “We’ve never burned so much coal and oil before. We’ve never had so many cars and diesel trucks around the world before, and we’ve never put 70 million tonnes of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours in any previous period in history.”
Al Gore
This year’s winners have been battling on many fronts, from mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia, implementing waste-management solutions in Indonesia, to exposing the devastating ship breaking industry in Bangladesh, often under terrible circumstances.
Marc Ona Essangui, president of the environmental NGO Brainforest and one of the winners of this year’s award, has been put under a lot of pressure by the Gabonese government because of his work to denounce a deal between a Chinese firm and the Gabonese government, arguing that a mining project would damage the already fragile ecosystem. His fighting spirit gave him cause for concern: he received threats, was repeatedly arrested and almost didn’t make it to the ceremony.
“I would like to sincerely thank the Gabonese ambassador to the United States, Mr Carlos Boungou, and all the staff of the American embassy who fought fiercely for me to be here today,” Ona said. “I will never abandon the waterfalls of Congo as long as they breathe.”
Some former recipients of the award have pursued their combat for environmental protection, which has led to noteworthy changes. The city of Rosia Montana in Romania, for which 2005 winner Stephanie Roth campaigned to stop the construction of Europe’s largest open cast gold mine, was declared, in 2008, “a cultural monument of national interest” by the Romanian Supreme Court.
Actor/Director Robert Redford, who has been a long time activist and who regularly speaks out to support a more sustainable future and the protection of natural resources, said he was “incredibly inspired by the courage and the commitment of these activists and what they are willing to do to just create a safer planet.”
Robert Redford
“As someone who has useful knowledge, I feel obliged to help change the world for the better,” said Yuyun Ismawati, who won one of this year’s Prizes for her involvement in developing waste-management solutions in Bali, Indonesia.
Yuyun Ismawati
Environmental activists, by their endless dedication, contribute to making climate change one of the most pressing issues in today’s world.
“Thank you for reminding others that ordinary people create extraordinary changes,” Goldman said to the awardees.
Luke Thomas contributed to this report.
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