Conservationists and campaigners from Guyana, Poland, Puerto Rico, Somalia, Thailand, and the Gwich'in indigenous tribe of North America were honoured Monday as crusaders for the environment.
They are this year's recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, given by the US-based Goldman Environmental Foundation on the strength of recommendations from a global network of 'green' organisations and a confidential expert panel. An award of US$125,000 is conferred upon each winner; one winner or group of winners is chosen for each of six continents.
Many, including Fatima Jibrell, this year's winner from Africa, have had their lives threatened in their fight to protect the environment against powerful corporate interests.
Jibrell, 54, grew up in Somalia and worked across clan boundaries in order to establish Horn Relief, an organisation that trains young adults to conduct education campaigns about the ecological damage caused by unrestricted charcoal production. The charcoal is made from old acacia trees ranging from 50 to 500 years old.
Since the collapse of Somalia's central government in 1991 and subsequent civil war, the market for charcoal in the Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia has fuelled large-scale and environmentally damaging logging, said Jibrell, who was educated in the United States. Charcoal, a source of fuel, has replaced livestock as Somalia's main export.
As a result of Jibrell's campaign, the Puntland regional government of northeast Somalia created and enforced a ban on sales of charcoal to the Gulf States in 2000 that has led to an 80 percent reduction in exports.
"Jibrell saved the northeast region of Somalia from the massive logging of old-growth acacia trees," said the foundation.
Land woes
A continent away, in Guyana, Jean La Rose also has been harassed for organising a campaign to protect the environment. A 40-year-old Arawak woman, La Rose has worked with the Amerindian Peoples Association to stop mining on land claimed by indigenous communities.
In 1977, the government declared the entire Mazaruni River, one of the country's largest, and its tributaries a mining district, including homelands of several indigenous communities. Thousands of small-scale miners have since overrun the area and caused severe environmental contamination with mercury and cyanide, two chemicals used to extract gold from ore.
"Today, the long Mazaruni River is unfit for human use," La Rose said in a statement. Ancestral fishing grounds and spawning areas have been destroyed and the river water has caused vomiting and diarrhoea, especially in children, she said.
With La Rose's guidance, indigenous communities filed in 1998 Guyana's first land rights lawsuit.
Alexis Massol-Gonzalez, from Puerto Rico, has fought a similar struggle against mining concessions. A civil engineer by training, Massol-Gonzalez founded Casa Pueblo, a community organisation that educates communities about the impacts of copper, silver, and gold mining on the tropical forests of the island's central mountain range.
To protect the forests from future mining, Massol-Gonzalez convinced the Puerto Rican government in 1996 to create the island's first community-managed forest reserve, known as Bosque del Pueblo.
This year's winners from North America have fought a similar battle against natural resource extraction. For years, Jonathon Solomon, Sarah James and Norma Kassi, members of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, have been fighting against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
A vast wilderness along Alaska's shore near the US Canada border north of the Arctic Circle, the 600,000-hectare Arctic refuge is home to more than 180 species of bird and numerous mammals including polar bears, caribou, musk ox, wolves, wolverine, moose, arctic and red foxes and black and brown bears.
The reserve also is the birthing grounds for the 129,000 animals of the Porcupine River caribou herd, and it is considered sacred land to the Gwich'in Indians, an indigenous tribe whose traditional lifestyle depends on the caribou.
"For thousands of years the Gwich'in have safeguarded the sacred calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou, which sustains our existence," said Kassi, who lobbied lawmakers against opening up the refuge to drilling. On April 18, the US Senate voted against drilling in the reserve.
Asian winner
This year's winner from Asia, Pisit Charnsnoh, is an ecologist from Thailand's southern province of Trang, on the Malay Peninsula. In 1985, he and his wife founded the Yadfon Association in order to protect coastal fisheries and mangrove swamps from logging, charcoal harvesting, and shrimp farming.
Yadfon encouraged villages to unite in protecting coastal resources upon which they relied for their livelihoods. Charnsnoh, a Buddhist, overcame cultural and religious differences to work with disadvantaged Muslim fishers. The association's work, which began in a few villages, eventually spread to 30 communities.
"Successful conservation must involve and sustain resident communities, and the approach requires education, decentralized decision-making and hands-on strategies," Charnsnoh said in a statement.
This year's winner from Europe was Jadwiga Lopata, a computer programmer turned conservationist who founded the European Centre for Ecological Agriculture and Tourism Poland, which works to preserve and promote Poland's traditional family farms.
Because the Polish national park system only preserves one percent of the country's land, small family farms are the only habitat for a rich variety of species. Lopata's organisation has publicised the ecological benefits of smaller family farms.
As Poland prepares to join the European Union (EU) this year, Lopata has been lobbying the government to reject the EU's system of agricultural subsidies that favour large-scale factory farms.
"Poland should only join the EU when a way is found that will clearly support and build on the values of the Polish countryside," said Lopata. (IPS)
