From the ranger protecting gorillas in Virunga Park, to the smallholder farmer fighting a cement factory. Here are the six environmental heroes of 2017.
For some people, defending the environment is a job; for others, a necessity dictated by circumstance; for others still, it is a vocation — a fire that burns within and drives them to put their own lives on the line to protect nature and its priceless riches. The Goldman environmental prize is dedicated to all such people: an award that since 1990 has honoured environmental activists from around the world. On 24 April, the six activist winners of the Goldman environmental prize 2017 were presented with their awards in San Francisco, California.
The ceremony was dedicated to the memory of Isidro Baldenegro López, an activist from the Tarahumara indigenous community of Mexico, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005, murdered on 15 January because of his non-violent campaign to protect ancient forests from logging. The same fate befell Berta Càceres, a Honduran activist who had spent years fighting to defend the rights of her community and protect the ancestral lands of her country, winner of the Goldman environmental prize 2015, who was murdered in 2016. In many countries, protecting the environment comes at an enormous cost, but the sacrifices of Berta and Isidro have not been in vain, and others have inherited their struggles, their hopes and their dreams.
The Goldman environmental prize, now in its twenty-eighth edition, each year rewards six people from different regions of the globe: Europe, Asia, the United States, South and Central America, Africa and Australia. The 2017 winners are Slovenian Uroš Macerl, Indian Prafulla Samantara, American Mark Lopez, Guatemalan Rodrigo Tot, Congolese Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo and Australian Wendy Bowman. Let's find out who they are and why they have become environmental heroes.
Uroš Macerl, 48, is an organic farmer and livestock breeder and is the president of the environmental association Eco Krog. His farm, where he grew up and which once belonged to his grandfather, is located in the Trbovlje region of central Slovenia, near a Lafarge Cement factory powered by petroleum coke, a by-product of oil refining. Cancer rates recorded in the region are significantly higher than the rest of the country, precisely because of the toxic emissions from the cement factory. Many farmers have suffered serious losses as industrial pollution has compromised the quality of air, soil and water. Macerl was forced to abandon his fields and orchards due to air pollution and turned to sheep farming alone. In 2009, Lafarge Cement obtained authorisation to incinerate hazardous industrial waste as well, claiming that emissions would have a negative impact only within a 500-metre radius of the chimney. Macerl's farm falls within this area and he challenged the authorisation; the Slovenian government ignored him and chose not to revoke the permit, but Macerl subsequently won a case that annulled the permit — however, the court ruling remained unenforced. It took the intervention of the European Court of Justice, which called Slovenia to account over its compliance with EU pollution standards, before the Slovenian government finally decided to order the closure of the cement factory in 2015. Macerl had won his battle.
Prafulla Samantara, 65, grew up in a humble family of Indian farmers and has the ethereal bearing of a charismatic, enlightened leader. He was the central figure in a twelve-year legal battle to defend the rights of the indigenous Dongria Kondh tribe and to protect the Niyamgiri hills in the state of Odisha, in eastern India. This area is considered sacred by the local people and is home to an extraordinary biodiversity, featuring iconic species such as the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) and the Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus). It was precisely in this area that a bauxite mine was to be built by the Odisha state mining company. The mine would have destroyed 1,660 acres of pristine forest, polluting the precious water sources upon which millions of people depend. Roads would also have been needed to transport the bauxite, leaving the forest vulnerable to illegal loggers and poachers. In 2003, Samantara read a newspaper notice announcing a public hearing to discuss bauxite extraction in the Niyamgiri hills. Aware of the mine's environmental impact and of the fact that the Dongria Kondh, who speak neither English nor have access to the internet, would have been unable to defend their land, he decided to personally defend the sacred hills, representing the tribe in court and organising sit-ins on the hills to prevent work from beginning. After a lengthy legal battle, Samantara achieved his goal: the mine will not go ahead, and the tribal councils have obtained the right of veto over mining projects on their lands.
Mark Lopez, 31, comes from a family of activists: he grew up in a household long committed to defending the rights of the Hispanic community in east Los Angeles. Lopez succeeded in convincing the state of California to carry out, in the neighbourhood where he lives, analyses of the lead contained in the sludge and dust produced over more than three decades by a battery manufacturing plant. The facility, taken over by Exide in 2000, increased the volume of batteries processed on site and, with it, the emissions of hazardous pollutants such as lead and arsenic. An analysis of dust on the rooftops of nearby buildings found lead levels of 52,000 parts per million; a quantity of 1,000 parts per million is considered hazardous waste. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause learning disabilities even at very low levels and, as such, there is no safe level of lead for children. In 2015, after coming under investigation, Exide decided to close the plant, but without adequately cleaning up the contaminated site. Mark Lopez, with the support of his organisation East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (Eycej), convinced the state of California to allocate 176.6 million dollars to decontaminate homes and public areas.
Rodrigo Tot, 59, is a Guatemalan indigenous leader who led the peaceful uprising of his community against the construction of a nickel mine in the El Estor region, on the shores of Lake Izabal. This area is of vital importance to its inhabitants, the Q'eqchi people, descendants of the Maya, whose livelihoods still depend on fishing and farming. In the past, the lake had become the most polluted in the country, precisely because of mining wastewater. Gradually, the price of nickel collapsed and the situation returned to normal. In 2006, however, the Guatemalan government granted permission for the reopening and expansion of a large mine situated on Q'eqchi lands. After their ancestors defended their land from Spanish colonisers in the sixteenth century, the Q'eqchi must fight again today — this time against their own government and foreign multinationals. Tot, one of the few Q'eqchi who speaks Spanish, uncovered the government's plans and involved the entire community in reconstructing the ownership records needed to legally reclaim their land. In 2011, the Constitutional Court recognised the rights of the Q'eqchi, compelling the government to issue new title deeds. A happy ending is still far off for Tot and his people, however: the ruling has yet to be implemented by the government and the expansion of the mine has begun.
Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo, 41, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a ranger at Virunga Park, one of the planet's richest and most fragile ecosystems, home to some of the last surviving mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), a species severely threatened by poaching, civil war and oil extraction. Katembo, who managed to escape a childhood as a child soldier, is the protagonist of the film Virunga, nominated for the 2015 Oscar for best documentary. Working undercover, Katembo exposed a system of contracts and corruption woven together to grant Bri