'Introducing the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners', 15 June 2021

We are honored to announce the recipients of the 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize. These everyday heroes demonstrate the power of grassroots activism in the fight to protect our planet...

Gloria Majiga-Kamoto, Malawi ... Concerned about the environmental harm caused by mounting plastic pollution in Malawi, Gloria Majiga-Kamoto fought the plastics industry and galvanized a grassroots movement in support of a national ban on thin plastics, a type of single-use plastic. As a result of her dedicated campaigning, in July 2019, Malawi’s High Court upheld the ban on the production, importation, distribution, and use of thin plastics...

Thai Van Nguyen, Vietnam ... founded Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, which rescued 1,540 pangolins from the illegal wildlife trade between 2014 and 2020. Nguyen also established Vietnam’s first anti-poaching unit... Pangolins are the world’s most heavily trafficked mammal despite an international trade ban...

Maida Bilal, Bosnia and Herzegovina ... led a group of women from her village in a 503-day blockade of heavy equipment that resulted in the cancellation of permits for two proposed dams on the Kruščica River in December 2018... a massive hydropower boom in the region threatens to irreversibly damage thousands of miles of pristine rivers...

Kimiko Hirata, Japan ... After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 2011, Japan ... embraced coal as a major energy source. Over the past several years, Kimiko Hirata’s grassroots campaign led to the cancellation of 13 coal power plants (7GW or 7,030MW) in Japan...

Sharon Lavigne, United States ... a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River... The plant would have generated one million pounds of liquid hazardous waste annually, in a region already contending with known carcinogens and toxic air pollution...

Liz Chicaje Churay, Peru ... as a result of the efforts of Liz Chicaje Churay and her partners, the Peruvian government created Yaguas National Park... Its creation is a key step in conserving the country’s biodiversity—safeguarding thousands of rare and unique wildlife species and conserving carbon-rich peatlands—and protecting Indigenous peoples...