Every single day, grassroots environmental heroes around the world are working tirelessly on the frontlines to safeguard their land, water, and resources. From organizing a community to dismantle illegal palm oil plantations in Indonesia, to standing up to one of the world’s largest mining corporations in Peru, their work is the flame that keeps the grassroots environmental movement ignited.
However, cultivating solutions to environmental harm and social injustice can be thankless work. Activists and visionaries oftentimes put themselves at great personal risk in their fight for environmental justice, and rarely are doing the work for glory or recognition, but instead to protect and save the planet and their ways of life.
This is why the Goldman Environmental Prize is such an exceptional award and honor for environmental defenders worldwide. The award calls international attention to the incredible work activists are doing, recognizing environmental leaders for their bravery, innovation, and persistence, and bringing the issues they face into the public eye. Each April, we look forward to recognizing the next cohort of grassroots environmental heroes at the Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony.
We are proud that so many of our grantees – 80 to be exact – have been recognized for their leadership and activism over the years and have been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.
We would like to recognize a few of the many environmental heroes – and Global Greengrants Fund grantees – who have earned the Goldman Environmental Prize:
1990
- Harrisin Ngau Laing
1991
1992
- Colleen McCrory
- Wadja Egnankou
1993
- Sviatoslay Zabelin
1994
- Luis Macas
1995
- Ricardo Navarro
- Yul Choi
1996
- Albena Simeonova
- C. Mehta
1997
- Juan Pablo Orego
1998
- Atherton Marton
- Berito Kuwaru’wa
- Sven “Bobby” Peek
1999
- Jorge Varela
- Ka Hsaw Wa
- Samuel Nguiffo
2000
- Oscar Rivas & Elias Diaz Peña
- Vera Mischenko
2001
- Oscar Olivera
2002
- Fatima Jibrell
- Jean La Rose
- Pisit Charnsnoh
2003
- Maria Elena Foronda Farro
- Odigha Odigha
- Von Hernandez
2004
- Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho
- Libia Grueso
- Manana Kochladze
- Rudolf Amenga-Etego
2005
- José Andrés Tamayo
- Kaisha Atakhanova
- Stephanie Roth
2006
- Anne Kajir (2006)
- Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor
- Yu Xiaogang
- Tarcisio Feitosa da Silva
2007
- Julio Cusurichi Palacios
- Tsetsegee Munkhbayar
2008
- Noah Idechong
- Pablo Fajardo Mendoza & Luis Yanza
2009
- Marc Ona Essangui
- Olga Speranskaya
- Wanze Eduards & S. Hugo Jabini
- Yuyun Ismawati
2010
- Randall Arauz
- Thuli Brilliance Makama
2011
- Francisco Pineda
- Dmitry Lisitsyn
2012
- Ikal Angelei
- Ma Jun
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize