The Goldman Environmental Foundation has announced the six recipients of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual $150,000 award that recognizes grassroots environmental leaders from around the globe.

Now in its twenty-third year, the program honors emerging leaders from the world's six permanently inhabited continental regions who are working to protect the environment and their communities. This year's recipients are Ikal Angelei of Kenya, who is fighting to stop construction of the Gibe 3 Dam, which would block access to water for indigenous communities around Lake Turkana; Ma Jun of China, whose online database and digital map of factories in violation of the country's environmental regulations are helping corporations to clean up their practices; Evgenia Chirikova of Russia, who is mobilizing her fellow Russian citizens to demand the rerouting of a highway that would bisect Moscow's Khimki Forest; Edwin Gariguez of the Philippines, who is leading a grassroots movement against a nickel mine on Mindoro Island; Caroline Cannon, a member of the Inupiat community in Point Hope, Alaska, who is leading a campaign to stop offshore oil and gas drilling in Arctic waters; and Sofia Gatica of Argentina, who is organizing local women to end the indiscriminate spraying of toxic agrochemicals in neighboring soy fields.

An invitation-only awards ceremony took place Monday at the San Francisco Opera House, and a smaller ceremony will be held at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History on Wednesday.

For profiles of the award recipients, visit the Goldman Environmental Foundation Web site.