Global Greengrants Fund is pleased to congratulate the recipients of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize, including Greengrants grantees Olga Speranskaya, Marc Ona Essangui, Wanze Eduards and Hugo Jabini. The winners of the 2009 prize are being honored tonight at the Annual Goldman Prize Ceremony in San Francisco and on April 22nd in Washington D.C.
Created in 1990 by civic leaders and philanthropists, Richard and Rhoda Goldman, the Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest award honoring grassroots environmental activists. Winners are selected from the six inhabited continental regions—Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America—and each is awarded a $150,000 prize to pursue their vision of a renewed and protected environment. In addition, they receive international recognition as well as worldwide visibility for the issues they champion.
To date, 27 Greengrants grantees and advisors have won the esteemed Goldman Prize, including Stephanie Roth, Libia Grueso, Silas Siakor, Yu Xiaogang, Anne Kajir, and Odigha Odigha.
Like past prize recipients, this year’s winners are being recognized for their extraordinary efforts at the local level to safeguard the environment. From protecting traditional and indigenous peoples’ lands from logging, to preserving sensitive equatorial rainforests from unlawful mining operations, to eliminating toxic environmental pollutants, the actions of these inspiring leaders are paving the way toward a stronger and more robust grassroots environmental movement.
Greengrants is proud to highlight four of our grantees being recognized this year by the Goldman Prize for their meaningful and diligent efforts to protect the environment.
Marc Ona Essangui (Gabon) is a human and environmental rights champion in his country and president of Brainforest, a group that seeks to promote sustainable and equitable management of the country’s natural resources. Like many Goldman Prize winners, Mr. Ona’s unwavering commitment to his work has put him at great risk repeatedly, including a recent arrest in his native Gabon that was condemned by environmental and human rights groups around the world.
Marc Ona works to ensure transparency in the oil, gas, and mining industries and is being recognized for his work with Brainforest on a campaign to publicly expose the unlawful agreements behind a huge Chinese-financed mining development project in Gabon. The project threatens the sensitive ecosystems of Gabon’s equatorial rainforests, including Kongou Falls, the country’s highest falls and the site of a proposed hydro-electric dam located within Ivindo National Park. Greengrants supported this work with a $3,500 grant in 2008 to complete a socio-economic assessment of communities located between the mine and the park. The results of the study will be used in an international campaign to ensure that adequate impact studies, mitigation, and compensation measures are put into place. Click here for more on this issue.
Olga Speranskaya (Russia) is a scientist who serves as head of the Chemical Safety Program at the Center for Environmental Problems Solution Eco-Accord, which focuses on raising awareness about the effects of toxic chemicals on human health and the environment within the Eastern Europe, Caucuses, and Central Asia regions.
Olga is being recognized for leading the Russian non governmental organization (NGO) community to become a more potent, participatory force to identify and eliminate the Soviet legacy of toxic chemicals in the environment. Her notable achievements include establishing the first Russian-speaking international news service on chemicals, initiating citizen-led inventories of some 250,000 tons of stockpiled banned and obsolete pesticides, and guiding citizen groups in preparing and executing 70 different projects on toxic chemicals in ten former Soviet Republics. Greengrants supported Eco-Accord with two grants to support the organization’s Chemical Safety Program.
Wanze Eduards and Hugo Jabini (Suriname) are Saramaka Maroons, descendants of African slaves who escaped into the rainforest of Suriname in the 1600s. These leaders are being recognized for their work with the Association of Saramaka Authorities (ASA), a representative organization comprised of traditional village leaders that works to defend traditional territories, which have been threatened by multi-national logging and mining companies. Greengrants supported ASA with a grant to train Saramaka communities on research and territorial mapping techniques to help them manage forest lands and protect themselves from human rights abuses.
Both men’s efforts to successfully organize their communities against logging on their traditional lands have resulted in a landmark ruling for indigenous and tribal peoples throughout the Americas to control resource exploitation in their territories.
Congratulations to these extraordinary activists for their tireless efforts! To read more about the Goldman Environmental Prize click here and to donate directly to the amazing work of this year’s recipients, visit our new partnership donation page at greengrants.org/goldman.