Seven Global Environmental Champions Awarded 2000 Goldman Prize posted 21st may 2000 http://www.pl.net/5life/2000awards.html Photo on url A Mexican peasant leader whose struggles against one of the world's largest lumber giants resulted in his imprisonment and torture last May, a Russian lawyer who is breaking new legal ground as she pleads precedent setting environmental cases in Russia, and an ethnobotanist from Madagascar who is fighting to save the island's forests that are rich with potentially life saving drugs are winners of the 11th annual Goldman Environmental Prize. They are among seven environmental heroes from around the globe who received the prestigious Goldman Prize at a ceremony in San Francisco. Each of the winners received a "no strings attached" award of $125,000 from the Goldman Environmental Foundation. In the case of joint winners from a single continent, the award is shared. The total of $750,000 given annually to grassroots heroes from each of the six continental regions makes it the world's largest award for grassroots environmentalists. This year's winners are: >From Mexico, Rodolfo Montiel Flores: A peasant leader, imprisoned since May 2, 1999, who successfully organized the local population to halt voracious logging by US-based Boise Cascade in the Petatlán mountains of the Mexican coastal state of Guerrero. Protesting against environmental degradation, corruption, and human rights violations, he united local subsistence farmers and environmentalists in a movement that led Boise Cascade to abandon the logging it began soon after NAFTA was implemented in México. The movement was brutally suppressed by the Mexican Army, and in May 1999 two campesinos, including Montiel Flores, were arrested, suffered beatings, and remain in prison. As a result, an attorney representing the Petatlán group was kidnapped, brutally attacked and later released. >From Uzbekistan, Oral Ataniyazova: An obstetrician who founded a clinic and a community-based movement to overcome the effects of environmental disaster in Karakalpakstan, an autonomous region of Uzbekistan. The heavy use of pesticides and other toxins in the region has created a devastating ecological nightmare that has negatively affected the health and livelihood of some three million inhabitants. The diversion of water for irrigation of the region's historic cotton crop have resulted in the rapid disappearance of the Aral Sea -- one of the world's largest inland seas -- displacing 40-60,000 individuals dependent on the formerly productive fishing industry. Working mostly with women and children, Ataniyazova has created programs to raise awareness of the issues and to seek solutions to the dire conditions in her homeland. >From Russia, Vera Mischenko: A founder of the public-interest law movement in Russia who won the first successful lawsuit in the Russian Supreme Court in defense of public ecological interests on behalf of current and future generations. Mischenko and Ecojuris, her organization, were the first to use new Russian legislation to protect environmental rights of people without formal power of attorney. A recent legal action under her leadership resulted in an important victory against oil exploration without environmental impact assessments on Sakhalin Island, home to 8,000 indigenous people, migratory birds and marine mammals, including gray whales. This represents the first environmental victory in Russia against a multinational corporation. >From Madagascar, Nat Quansah: An ethnobotanist known as a pioneer in the use of local plants in the treatment of disease. Madagascar is home to five percent of the world's total plant and animal species and remains one of the most recovery from childhood leukemia from 20 to 80 percent. In 1994, the recipient opened a clinic in the village of Ambodisakoana. There Quansah implemented the Integrated Health Care and Conservation Program in which the cultural practice of using natural substances for medicinal purposes is being reintroduced to Malagasy villagers. In the clinic's four years of operation, 5,685 patients were treated, and the use of local medicinal plants has raised the community's awareness of the importance of forest conservation. >From Paraguay, Oscar Rivas & Elías Díaz Peña: They began their efforts in 1986 under the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner. Their struggle has continued during political turmoil involving efforts by fascistic groups to regain control of the country. The most visible success of the group they founded has been the campaign to halt the internationally financed Hidrovía Paraguay-Paraná navigation project, intended to drain, dredge and alter the region's waterways as a spur for export-driven development. Their most recent challenge is the struggle to highlight the severe problems associated with the notorious Yacyretá Dam on the Río Paraná. Calling for effective environmental and resettlement plans, Rivas and Díaz submitted a claim to the World Bank Inspection Panel -- a move that resulted in recommendations to benefit local communities and an apology from the World Bank. >From Liberia, Alexander Peal: An activist who spearheaded the creation of his country's first and only national park. Throughout the civil collapse and terror resulting from the 1989 civil war, Peal persisted in efforts he began in the mid-1970's to protect the dwindling forests of Liberia, the only country left in west Africa with any significant forest cover. After a long exile in the United States, Peal is re-establishing the conservation movement in Liberia. Working without pay, he is taking up where he left off before the civil war and his forced absence. As president of the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL), he heads the country's first private sector environmental conservation group. "It has been my pleasure to provide a measure of assistance through the Environmental Prize," said Richard N. Goldman, President of the Goldman Environmental Foundation. "It is our hope that the Prize enables these heroic individuals to continue their campaigns, even when their struggles put them at personal risk. These selfless actions contribute to the survival of our planet and our ability to maintain life as we know it." The Goldman Environmental Prize is a project of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, established in 1989 by civic leaders Richard N. Goldman and his late wife Rhoda H. Goldman. Richard Goldman is Chairman of Goldman Insurance Services, an independent insurance brokerage firm based in San Francisco. Rhoda Goldman was a descendant of Levi Strauss, the founder of the worldwide clothing company that bears his name. Applications are not accepted for the Goldman Environmental Prize. Nominations from each continent are submitted anonymously by a network of 23 environmental organizations worldwide and a confidential panel of experts representing nearly 50 nations. 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