Three Gwich’in Native Americans who battled oil development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge have been doubly rewarded for their efforts: Last week, the Senate voted to block oil drilling in the refuge, and today, the activists are being honored with this year’s Goldman Prize, the world’s biggest and most prestigious award for environmentalists. Other recipients of the prize include a Somali fighting deforestation, an ecologist restoring mangroves on the Thai coast, a Guyanese-Amerindian trying to stop mining in native territories, a Polish organic-agriculture advocate, and an entrepreneur opposing open-pit mining projects in Puerto Rico. The brainchild of San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, the $125,000 prizes have been awarded since 1990 to individuals who are acting to protect the environment at “great personal risk” on each of the planet’s six inhabited continental regions.
