April 21, 2025
Meet the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize winners!
These grassroots heroes prove that when ordinary people take action, they have the power to turn apathy into positive change for the environment. When it comes to protecting our planet, Goldman Prize winners know that the doing makes the difference.
Tune into the San Francisco award ceremony tonight, Monday, April 21, 2025. The ceremony will be livestreamed on the Goldman Prize YouTube channel at 5:30 pm PDT (8:30 pm EDT). The ceremony will be hosted by Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro, and feature live entertainment from Rueda Con Ritmo, featuring Son Chévere. Actor and environmentalist Sigourney Weaver will be narrating the Prize winner videos.
Semia Gharbi
Tunisia / Africa
Semia Gharbi helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000 tons of illegally exported household waste back to Italy, its country of origin, in February 2022. More than 40 corrupt government officials and others involved in waste trafficking in both countries were arrested in the scandal. Her efforts spurred policy shifts within the EU, which has now tightened its procedures and regulations for waste shipments abroad.
Batmunkh Luvsandash
Mongolia / Asia
Determined to protect his homeland from mining, Batmunkh Luvsandash’s activism resulted in the creation of a 66,000-acre protected area in Dornogovi province in April 2022, abutting tens of thousands of acres already protected by Batmunkh and allies. Home to Argali sheep, 75% of the world’s population of endangered Asiatic wild ass, and a wide variety of endemic plants, the protected area forms an important bulwark against Mongolia’s mining boom.
Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika
Albania / Europe
Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika’s campaign to protect the Vjosa River from a hydropower dam development boom resulted in its historic designation as the Vjosa Wild River National Park by the Albanian government in March 2023. This precedent-setting action safeguards not only the entirety of the Vjosa’s 167 miles—which flow freely across Albania—but also its free-flowing tributaries, totaling 250 miles of undisturbed river corridors. The Vjosa ecosystem is a significant bastion of freshwater biodiversity that provides critical habitat for several endangered species. The new national park is both Albania and Europe’s first to protect a wild river.
Carlos Mallo Molina
Canary Islands / Islands & Island Nations
Carlos Mallo Molina helped lead a sophisticated, global campaign to prevent the construction of Fonsalía Port, a massive recreational boat and ferry terminal that threatened a biodiverse 170,000-acre marine protected area in the Canary Islands. Proposed to be built on the island of Tenerife, the port would have destroyed vital habitat for endangered sea turtles, whales, and sharks. In October 2021, because of the campaign, the Canary Islands government officially canceled the port project. In lieu of the port, Carlos is now realizing his vision for a world-class marine conservation and education center—the first of its kind in the Canary Islands.
Laurene Allen
United States / North America
When one of the largest environmental crises in New England’s history was exposed in her own community, Laurene Allen stepped up to protect thousands of families affected by contaminated drinking water. Laurene’s campaign pressured an industrial giant—responsible for leaking toxic forever chemicals into community drinking water sources—to announce its closure in August 2023. The plant’s closure in May 2024 marked an end to more than 20 years of rampant air, soil, and water pollution.
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari
Peru / South & Central America
In March 2024, Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari and Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana—a Kukama women’s association for which she serves as president—won a landmark rights of nature court decision to protect the Marañón River in Peru. For the first time in the country’s history, a river was granted legal personhood—with the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination. After finding the Peruvian government in violation of the river’s inherent rights, the court ordered the government to take immediate action to prevent future oil spills into the river, mandated the creation of a basin-wide protection plan, and recognized the Kukama as stewards of the river.
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