The Goldman Environmental Foundation in San Francisco has announced the 2023 recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual award that recognizes grassroots environmental leaders from around the globe.

Launched in 1989, the program honors emerging leaders from the world’s inhabited continental regions who are working to protect the environment and their communities. The prize, which includes a cash award, gives a platform to grassroots leaders that amplifies their voices, enhances their credibility and global visibility, and provides them with the financial support needed to pursue their vision of a protected and renewed environment.

The 2023 Goldman Prize recipients are Chilekwa Mumba of Zambia, whose pollution lawsuit against Vedanta Resources set a legal precedent and was the first time a British company was held liable for the environmental damage caused by subsidiary-run operations in another country; Zafer Kizilkaya of Turkey, who expanded Turkey’s network of marine protected areas along 310 miles of the Mediterranean coast; Tero Mustonen of Finland, who led the restoration of 62 severely degraded former industrial peat mining and forestry sites across Finland—totaling 86,000 acres—and transformed them into productive, biodiverse wetlands and habitats; Delima Silalahi of Indonesia, who led a campaign to secure legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of tropical forest land for six Indigenous communities in North Sumatra; Diane Wilson of the United States, whose landmark case against Formosa Plastics, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, for the illegal dumping of toxic plastic waste on Texas’ Gulf Coast is the largest award in a citizen suit against an industrial polluter in the history of the U.S. Clean Water Act; and Alessandra Korap Munduruku of Brazil, who organized community efforts to stop mining development by British mining company Anglo American in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

“Now that the world has awakened to acute environmental crises like climate change, fossil fuel extraction, and pollution of our air and water, we are much more aware of our connections to each other and to all life on the planet,” said foundation president John Goldman. “A grassroots activist in Malawi working to combat plastic pollution in her own country is directly connected to us, and vice versa; and she has much to teach us about how we can do that work at home, where we live. This work, and our fates, are all intertwined.” 

For more about the recipients, see the Goldman Environmental Foundation website. 

(Photo credit: Goldman Environmental Foundation)