African toxic waste campaigner Desmond D’sa, and Helen Slottje from the USA – an attorney on a campaign against fracking – are two of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners.
Founded in 1989 by civic leaders and environmentalists Richard N. Goldman (1920-2010) and his wife, Rhoda H. Goldman (1924-1996), the Goldman Prize recognises ‘environmental heroes’ across all six ‘inhabited continents': Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South and Central America and ‘Islands and Island Nations’ (including Australasia).
Celebrating the work of ‘ordinary people to take extraordinary action to protect the world’, the Goldman Prize is thought to be the largest award for grassroots environmental activism.
This year the prize is celebrating it’s 25th annviersary year and has seen the cash prize rise from $150,000 (£89,000) to $175,000 (£104,000).
Desmond D’sa
Among this year’s winners is Desmond D’sa (winner of the African category), a toxic waste management campaigner. D’sa lives in Durban, a heavily industrialised town in Africa with the nickname ‘cancer valley’ in reference to its ‘high cancer figures and unusually prevalent rates of asthma and bronchitis’.
He co-founded the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) where he worked as an unpaid volunteer to campaign against Wasteman, a waste management company that, without consultation, opened a landfill to accommodate toxic waste from the nearby agrochemical plants and gas refineries.
As a result of D’sa’s campaigning, Wasteman withdrew an application to expand their lease on the landfill until 2021, and it ceased all operations in November 2011.
Despite ‘constant threats of violence’ and a firebomb attack on his home, which have led to D’sa living apart from his family, he still remains ‘inspired’ to continue his campaigning work.
Next on his agenda is a campaign against a port expansion that would mean uprooting communities despite having ‘nowhere to settle them’.
Helen Slottje
An environmental issue that has been the source of much controversy recently, fracking (or shale gas fracturing),was also addressed by one of this year’s winners.
Helen Slottje (winner of the North American category) has used a clause in the State Constitution to provide local communities with the right to defend their towns against fracking.
Slottje is an attorney in New York and came across the issue of fracking - a controversial practice that involves drilling through shale and rock using a pressurised mix of water and chemicals to release natural gas - when she moved into a small community in Finger Lakes.
After being left ‘horrified’ by what she had seen and heard about fracking, she began an environmental review that is currently ongoing.
Slottje found a clause in State Constitution that allows municipalities the right to make local land decisions. Using this loophole in the law, she provided pro bono legal assistance to communities and helped them develop laws to ban fracking within their borders.
More than 170 towns across New York have now passed laws against fracking and grassroots plans of a similar kind are starting to appear in Texas, California and Colorado.
Other Winners
The other winners this year include:
SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA:
Ruth Buendia Mestoquiari, Peru
Mestoquiari launched a campaign against large-scale dams that would have uprooted indigenous communities still unsettled after a civil war in Peru.
ASIA:
Ramesh Agrawal, India
Agrawal organised villagers to demand their right to information about industrial development projects and succeeded in shutting down the largest proposed coal mines in Chhattisgarh.
EUROPE:
Suren Gazaryan, Russia
As an internationally-recognised bat expert and zoologist, Gazaryan led numerous campaigns to expose government corruption and illegal use of federally protected forestland along Russia’s Black Sea coast.
ISLANDS & ISLAND NATIONS:
Rudi Putra, Indonesia
A trained biologist, Putra is dismantling illegal palm oil plantations that are causing deforestation in northern Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, in order to protect the habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran Rhino.
Read more about the Goldman Prize 2014.
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