Goldman Environmental Prize Blog

Carving canyons, sustaining communities, feeding wildlife, and shaping history: rivers are integral to life on our planet. Despite their essential role, these rushing waterways make up just under half a percent of all surface freshwater on the planet. Rivers are rare, and they’re a prize worth fighting for. What Rivers Give Us Rivers are vastly…

You’ve heard the stats: The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that current plans to limit global warming to 1.5ºC (2.7ºF) are not enough. Though nearly every nation on Earth signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, most countries are falling woefully short of those commitments. Wildfires, flooding, warming seas—climate change is here,…

If you can read, hear or feel this, you have power. It was as if I were being let in on a secret. Obviously, I’d already heard of global warming and knew a bit about it. But there, in 2001, in a cold lecture theater on the outskirts of Melbourne, scientists who worked on the…

In the effort to curb Earth’s rising temperatures, a lot of focus is rightly placed on combating the extraction and use of coal as a source of energy. Made almost entirely of carbon, coal is the dirtiest form of energy by far, producing carbon dioxide emissions at nearly double the rate of natural gas. Despite…

The Goldman Environmental Prize is thrilled to announce the 2022 grant recipients. Since its launch in 2015, the Goldman Prize Grantmaking program has supported past Prize winner organizations working to further grassroots environmental projects around the world. 2022 Goldman Prize Grant Recipients Listed in alphabetical order: BLOOM Association: Founded by Claire Nouvian (France, 2018) to…

For many Americans, oil drilling doesn’t feel like a hometown issue—it’s the concern of far-off places, from 2010’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. “Urban oil extraction” can even sound like a myth. In reality, it’s happening in our own backyards. Once the first US oil well…

For Kristal Ambrose, World Oceans Day is every day. A 2020 Goldman Prize winner, Kristal—nicknamed “Kristal Ocean”—rallied her community in the Bahamas to protect the seas, passing one of the most stringent plastic bans to date: the categorical ban of single-use plastics, which account for one-third of all plastic in our oceans. On the frontlines…

The 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize winners are changing the world—one river, forest, and community at a time. But they need all of us to get involved. Keep reading to learn how you can support their work, engage with their causes, and speak out for our planet. 1. Stand up to big oil with Chima Williams…

We are honored to announce the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize winners. These leaders from around the world prove that, together, we can reshape the future of our planet. Join us tonight, May 25, 2022, at 5:00 pm PDT (8:00 pm EDT) to hear their stories firsthand at the Goldman Prize virtual ceremony. Hosted by award-winning…

Many famous doctors are fictional—from Doctor Who to Indiana Jones and Dr. Zhivago—but our real world has a living legend in Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE. Sixty years into a trailblazing career, she is the world’s most-beloved conservationist; a UN Messenger of Peace; an author; an international spokesperson; a world-renowned ethologist; an activist; and a global…