The 2005 Goldman Prize recipients are battling on many fronts: from stopping devastating soil erosion, to fighting mining and illegal logging, to thwarting one nation’s plan to import nuclear waste. Through grassroots efforts, these heroes motivated entire nations, communities and international organizations to fight against corrupt governments, violent drug lords, independent militias and unlawful business interests.

This year’s winners are:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.