The stories and battles of the seven people awarded the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize, the “Nobel Prize for the environment”.
On paper, we all agree on how important it is to defend the environment. When theory gives way to practice, however, one soon discovers that activism – and, even more so, achieving results – requires dedication as only a starting point. After that, you have to do your research, poring over laws and ordinances, wear out your shoe leather meeting people, organise demonstrations, marches, sit-ins. You have to invest your own time and your own money. Sometimes, at personal risk. Because on the other side stand powerful forces: governments, oil companies, mining giants, multinationals. The seven people recognised in 2024 by the Goldman Environmental Prize, the "Nobel Prize for the environment", did exactly that. And, even when their mission seemed hopeless, they prevailed.
"These extraordinary grassroots leaders refused to remain inactive in the face of adversity, or to be intimidated by the power of governments and corporations," says John Goldman, president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation. "Individually, their achievements around the world are admirable. Together, they are a collective force – and a growing global movement – that is breathtaking and full of hope. From San Francisco to São Paulo, all the way to the Wild Coast of South Africa, we are a global community."
In Brazil, the beef industry is a powerhouse. It accounts for around 20 per cent of global exports; and, of that 20 per cent, roughly one third is controlled by Jbs, a giant that operates at a pace of 35,000 cattle slaughtered per day, with revenues of around 78 billion dollars in 2022.
Marcel Gomes, after building the investigative team at Repórter Brasil, had the professionalism and the courage to get to the bottom of it. Having mapped out the convoluted and opaque steps of the beef supply chain, he teamed up with the NGO Mighty Earth to conduct an investigation into Jbs meat sold in European supermarkets. Tracing, one by one, the batches originating from farms established on areas of the Amazon, the Cerrado or the Pantanal that had been illegally deforested.
Following the publication of his report, six major European supermarket chains (Sainsbury's in the United Kingdom, Albert Heijn and Lidl in the Netherlands, Carrefour and Delhaize in Belgium and Auchan in France) removed Jbs meat from their shelves and, in some cases, all meat originating from Brazil.
It looked like the proverbial clash between David and Goliath. On one side, Waratah Coal, the company controlled by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer, which in 2019 received the green light to open a mine in Queensland. The plan was to extract 40 million tonnes of coal per year for 35 years, devastating the Bimblebox nature reserve and releasing a total of 1.58 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. On the other side, Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, a twenty-nine-year-old activist from the Birri Gubba Aboriginal people and co-director of the NGO Youth Verdict. And, now, also a winner of the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize.
After consulting First Nations peoples, and with the assistance of the law firm Environmental Defenders Office (Edo), Murrawah Maroochy Johnson brought a case before a Queensland court to oppose the mining application. She argued that the project would have violated the human and cultural rights of Indigenous peoples, in Queensland and beyond. The court chose to hear the testimony of Indigenous people on their own lands, listening to their stories and witnessing their traditional dances. In the end, it ruled in their favour, setting a precedent of historic significance.
When he visited the Hasdeo region of India in 2011, Alok Shukla realised that local communities knew almost nothing about the government's plans to put mining concessions up for sale. He then helped to bring together a unified activist movement. Almost ten years later, in 2020, the government announced auctions for a further 21 mines – only to be met by a far more resolute opposition.
In the middle of the pandemic, Alok Shukla organised protests among villagers, also winning broad support on social media. First, in autumn 2020, the government withdrew three concessions that would have encroached on elephant habitat. In October 2021, following a ten-day protest march, it withdrew a further fourteen. In the summer of 2022 came a prolonged sit-in, meetings with political leaders, interviews, petitions and press conferences. In July 2022, all mining concessions in the Hasdeo Aranya region were cancelled – an achievement that earned Alok Shukla the Goldman Environmental Prize.
The Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon in the Spanish region of Murcia, is no longer "merely" a site of community interest forming part of the Natura 2000 network. It is no longer "merely" protected by a series of international conventions. Since September 2022, it also enjoys legal personhood under a law passed by the Parliament in Madrid. This means it has the right to the conservation of species and habitats, to protection from potentially harmful activities and to the remediation of environmental damage it has sustained – all aspects overseen by dedicated bodies.
This particular form of protection, which remains a unique case in Europe, is owed above all to the determination of Teresa Vicente, a university professor of Philosophy of Law. Born and raised in Murcia, she witnessed with her own eyes the Mar Menor basin disfigured by apartment blocks and tourist marinas, its waters polluted by desalination plants and agricultural fertilisers, and fish dying en masse. She studied the issue from a legal standpoint, promoted the citizens' initiative law, and collected more than 600,000 paper signatures despite Covid-related restrictions. And she secured a victory that matters for the Mar Menor, and beyond.
In the metropolitan area of the Inland Empire, encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties in California, more than four million people live. Air quality is appalling. The incidence of cancer, asthma and premature death is far higher than the national average. The picture is worsening further due to the increase in freight traffic: in addition to airports, ports, rail yards and warehouses through which lorries pass 600,000 times a day, Amazon is building the world's largest logistics hub in the same area.
Andrea Vidaurre has experienced all of this first-hand. She therefore mobilised warehouse workers' and hauliers' unions, persuading them to join forces with environmental justice organisations. The California air resources board, the agency responsible for climate and air quality, launched the process at the end of 2018 to regulate emissions from heavy road and rail transport. It also engaged with civil society, of which Vidaurre was a spokesperson. In the end, the Carb adopted a roadmap to reach a point where only zero-emission heavy vehicles would be sold. An initiative that other states – including New Jersey, New York and Washington – have also adopted.
There are two Goldman Prize winners for Africa. Sinegugu Zukulu and Nonhle Mbuthuma live in Pondoland, in South Africa. It was October 2021 when they learned that the oil company Shell was about to begin seismic testing in search of oil and gas beneath the ocean floor off the Wild Coast, a marine area of extraordinary biodiversity, frequented by endemic fish species, humpback whales and southern right whales.
Within a couple of weeks, they had brought together the entire Amadiba coastal community. They received confirmation that Shell had consulted some commercial fishers, but not the local inhabitants. For them, the sea also holds a spiritual significance, as they consider it the home of their ancestors.
Nonhle and Sinegugu launched legal action, gathering hundreds of pages of testimony. In December 2021, the high court ordered an immediate halt to Shell's seismic testing. At that point, they challenged the legality of the ministerial authorisation for the entire operation. Securing yet another victory.