Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

Congratulations to the 2017 Goldman Environmental Prize winners! mark! Lopez, United States Prize winner for North America Born and raised in a family of community activists, mark! Lopez persuaded the state of California to provide comprehensive lead testing and cleanup of East Los Angeles homes contaminated by a battery smelter that had polluted the community…

For nearly 30 years, the annual Prize ceremony has been the crowning moment in which we have celebrated the achievement of grassroots environmental heroism. Including 2017, we will have awarded 181 activists from 86 countries. Below are some of our favorite memories from a legacy of commemorating leaders from across the globe: The first winners…

Once again this year we will stream the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony live on our website and Facebook page from 5:30pm PDT on Monday April 24. If you are not familiar with the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremonies, check out last year’s recording of the ceremony when six environmental heroes received their award. The 2017 Ceremony…

It has been almost a year since we awarded the Prize to forest defender Leng Ouch, indigenous rights advocate Edward Loure and steward of protected areas Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera. We caught up with them again this week to find out — in their words — how the Prize has affected their lives and what they have been working on since…

Numerous reports over the past year have pointed to Latin America as one of the most dangerous regions for environmental activists, and Honduras was recently singled out as the most deadly country in the world for environmental defenders. This became all too evident when — a year ago — Berta Cáceres was tragically assassinated. These growing threats against those who…

The following is a statement from Susan R. Gelman, President of the Goldman Environmental Foundation: “One year ago, our family of Goldman Prize winners lost one of our own. Berta Cáceres, an indigenous Lenca woman and leader of the Honduran NGO Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH), was shot and killed…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 19, 2017 Contact: Emily Nauseda, goldmanprize@allisonpr.com, 415-277-4903 Jenny Park, jenny@goldmanprize.org, 415-249-5800 SAN FRANCISCO — The Goldman Environmental Foundation is deeply troubled by this morning’s news that due to recent threats to her safety, Phyllis Omido was evacuated from her home in Kenya. She is now being accompanied by international human rights…

The following is a guest blog by Andrew Miller, Advocacy Director at our partner organization Amazon Watch following his trip to the Summit in the Defense of Life, Territory, and Natural Resources, held within Colombia’s U’wa United Reservation in November last year. He recalls his time with Prize winner and spiritual leader Berito Kuwaru’wa, who…

Over 65 Prize winners are joining together to send an open letter to the Ambassador of Mexico to the United States, Carlos Sada Solana, on behalf of Prize winner Isidro Baldenegro, who was assassinated on January 15, 2017: Dear Sir: Ref.: An Open Letter from Goldman Environmental Prize Laureates We, Goldman Environmental Prize Laureates from across…

“We are deeply distressed by the death of Isidro Baldenegro, a community leader of Mexico’s indigenous Tarahumara people, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005. His relentless work organizing peaceful protests against illegal logging in the Sierra Madre Mountains helped protect the forests, lands and rights of his people. He was a fearless leader…