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environmental justice
'This Is a Fight for Humanity': Meet the 2026 Winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize
“The 2026 prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress," one foundation leader said.
Apr 20, 2026
The Goldman Environmental Foundation announced the six winners of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize on Monday, honoring an all-female slate of advocates who protected wildlife, took on extractive industries, and won important legal victories in the movement to halt the climate crisis.
The announcement comes as world leaders have failed to make progress in addressing environmental challenges, and President Donald Trump, leader of the world's largest historical climate polluter, has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement, rolled back climate and environmental regulations domestically, and made efforts to supercharge the extraction and use of fossil fuels.
“While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies—in the US and globally—it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,” John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said in a statement. “The 2026 prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress."
The 2026 prize is notable because it marks the first time that all of the winners—Iroro Tanshi of Nigeria, Borim Kim of South Korea, Sarah Finch of the United Kingdom, Theonila Roka Matbob of Papau New Guinea, Alannah Acaq Hurley of the US, and Yuvelis Morales Blanco of Colombia—are women.
'There's lots of people doing really good things and, together, we are going to make the world a better place than it would otherwise have been."
"I am especially thrilled to honor our first-ever cohort of six women, as this is a powerful reflection of the absolutely central role that women play in the environmental community globally,” Goldman said.
The winners also exemplify the prize's 2026 theme "Change Starts Where You Stand," as each of them began with a fight to protect a local community or ecosystem that has global implications for the climate, biodiversity, and environmental justice.
As US-based winner Alannah Acaq Hurley said, "At the end of the day, this is a fight for humanity, and, honestly, our ability to continue as humans on this planet."
Here is how six remarkable women waged this fight and won.
Iroro Tanshi
Iroro Tanshi is a Nigerian conservation ecologist who has worked successfully with local communities to protect endangered bats and their rainforest habitat from wildfires.
Tanshi was elated in 2016 when she discovered the short-tailed roundleaf bat, previously believed to be extinct in the area, living in Nigeria's Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary. However, two weeks later, a devastating wildfire ignited, forcing Tanshi to evacuate and ultimately impacting around half of the park.
Tanshi then turned her attention to preventing wildfires, which are sparked by traditional farming practices rubbing against the climate crisis.
"The way people manage these farms is they use fire to clean the farms every year, but climate change has completely toppled the pattern of rainfall and people can no longer predict when to burn safely," she explained in a video.
Tanshi and her team worked with local communities on a Zero Wildfire Campaign, which includes educating farmers on when it is safe to burn and forming a team of "forest guardians" to patrol and fight fires on high-risk days. Due to her efforts, these guardians put out 74 fires between 2022 and 2025, preventing any of them from becoming major blazes.
"My hope for the future is that people would take these small-scale projects as signals for what the future should look like," she said. "Let's stay nimble. Let's try to work in our small communities and solve those problems there on the ground."
Borim Kim
Borim Kim helped win Asia's first successful youth climate lawsuit, inspiring people across the region to demand government action on climate.
Kim was first motivated to take collective action when a heatwave baked Seoul in 2018, killing 48 people including a woman near her mother's age, who died in her home.
"I realized that even home wasn't safe from the climate crisis," she said in a video. "I started looking for what I could do."
Inspired by the international youth climate movement, she founded Youth 4 Climate Action (Y4CA) and helped organize school strikes and walkouts. After her activism led to meetings with policymakers, she realized that national leaders had no real plans to address the climate crisis. In 2020, she and Y4CA mobilized 19 young people to sue the South Korean government for violating the constitutional rights of future generations. Once the case was launched, she also continued to build a social movement for climate action.
In August 2024, the country's Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the young people, mandating that South Korea reduce its emissions in line with the scientific consensus, a decision the environmental minister accepted. The ruling is projected to prevent between 1.6-2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide from reaching the atmosphere.
"Youth may be seen as having a lower position in society, but now this decision has affirmed our right to live safely and the state's duty to protect us," Kim said.
Sara Finch
On the other side of the world, Sarah Finch also secured a precedent-setting legal climate victory.
Finch lives in a part of southeastern England called the Weald. While it is currently a rural area, it hosts oil and gas reserves that were eyed for exploitation during the fracking boom of the 2010s. Finch helped form the Weald Action Group to push back against many potential wells, but they were not able to stop the Surrey County Council from approving the operation and expansion of a drilling site called Horse Hill in 2018.
In gearing up to challenge the decision, Finch discovered that the council's environmental impact statement had only considered emissions from direct drilling at the site, but not the emissions generated from the burning of the fuel once it was extracted, also known as Scope 3 emissions, which make up around 90% of oil and gas' contribution to the climate emergency.
"It became apparent that it was actually the norm that Scope 3 emissions were being emitted from these kinds of decisions, and we realized that actually it was happening everywhere and in much bigger developments than Horse Hill," Finch said in a video.
She and her team challenged the environmental impact statement over its failure to consider Scope 3 emissions, losing multiple times before finally securing a groundbreaking victory from the UK Supreme Court in 2024, which has come to be known as "the Finch ruling."
The UK government cited the "Finch ruling" when it revoked its backing of two North Sea oil developments. Overall, the projects canceled or delayed in 2024 due to the ruling would have generated enough Scope 3 emissions to equal the UK's domestic greenhouse gas emissions that year.
"It wasn't just a win on Horse Hill," Finch said. "It wasn't even just a win on a handful of sites. It was a win on the whole future of the UK oil and gas industry. And I feel like, there's lots of people doing really good things and, together, we are going to make the world a better place than it would otherwise have been."
Theonila Roka Matbob
Theonila Roka Matbob was born into an environmental disaster. Rio Tinto's Panguna Mine had devastated the ecosystem of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARB), destabilized its society, and led to a civil war that killed 15,000-20,000 Bougainvilleans, including her father.
"Our environment was tortured, and then the land was tortured, and the third party that was tortured were my people," Roka Matbob said in a video.
Rio Tinto closed its copper, silver, and gold mine in 1989 due to the war, but had done nothing to clean up the 150,000 tons of tailings it had dumped into local rivers or take responsibility for the havoc the mine had caused. As an adult, Roka Matbob began to wonder why justice had not been done and to gather testimony from people impacted by the mine.
This led to a successful campaign that persuaded Rio Tinto first to fund an assessment of the mine's impacts and then to sign a memorandum of understanding in 2024 to act on the assessment's findings and develop a plan with local communities to remediate the area.
"It doesn't mean we will restore everything as it was, but at least the story that my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren can remember [is] that our grandparents fought," she said.
Alannah Acaq Hurley
As Theonila Roka Matbob secured justice for the impacts of one major mine, Alannah Acaq Hurley helped prevent another one from being dug in the first place.
Hurley grew up as a member of the Yup’ik Indigenous group in Alaska's Bristol Bay, a haven of biodiversity that also hosts the world's largest wild sockeye salmon run. But in 2001 a new danger emerged: Canadian company Northern Dynasty Minerals announced plans to construct the Pebble Mine, the largest open-pit mine in North America.
"The pit would be so big, you could literally see it from the moon," Hurley said in a video. "It didn't take long for us to understand the level of threat that this mine posed—acid mine drainage, toxic tailings left in perpetuity. It was not a matter of if something goes wrong, it was a matter of when."
Chosen to lead the United Tribes of Bristol Bay in 2013, Hurley built a coalition to oppose the mine, uniting tribes, commercial fishers, and environmentalists to make their cause to the US Environmental Protection Agency and push back against the company's multiple attempts to move forward with the copper-and-gold mining project. Finally, in 2023, the EPA canceled the project via its rarely used veto power.
"It's just really a testament to the power of the people," she said. "We just never stopped until we were heard."
Yuvelis Morales Blanco
Yuvelis Morales Blanco also defended her community from an extractive industry.
Blanco was born to subsistence fishers on Colombia's Magdalena River in the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches.
“We had nothing but the river—she was like a mother who took care of me," she said in a statement.
However, even as a child she saw the river was threatened by oil spills from Ecopetrol, Colombia's leading oil company headquartered nearby. The potential threat level was raised even further when she learned while attending college in 2019 that Ecopetrol planned to build two pilot fracking projects near Puerto Wilches.
"Man, I'm like, 'They're going to do that in Wilches?' No sir!'" she recalled in a video.
Blanco joined the Colombia Free from Fracking Alliance and began to raise awareness in her community about the plans. As the campaign's momentum grew, so did her reputation as a spokesperson. This ultimately led to threats of violence against her that forced her to seek asylum in France in 2022, yet she continued to mobilize against the fracking plans from abroad.
She and the alliance saw success in 2022, as a local court halted the permitting process, newly elected President Gustavo Petro pledged there would be no fracking during his administration, and Ecopetrol suspended its contracts. In 2024, the Colombian Constitutional Court further ruled that the fracking projects had violated the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches' right to free, prior, and informed consent.
Blanco continues to fight for a ban on fracking and for legal protections for environmental defenders—over 140 of whom were reported missing or killed in 2024, the most recent year for which Global Witness has a full tally. Colombia was also the most dangerous countries for defenders that year, with 48 deaths.
"I am very hopeful because I have a river that always accompanies me, and I know we're going to win," she said.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was founded in 1989 by Rhoda and Richard Goldman, and has since honored 239 winners in 37 years. The 2026 awards will be presented live in San Francisco on Monday evening at 8:30 pm ET. Watch it on YouTube here.
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AI Job Cuts, Plastic Pollution, and Experimental Nuclear: Why I Oppose Dow
We are building a new and sustainable economy on our terms. This is what Dow wants to take away from us; I refuse.
Apr 19, 2026
I’m a 77-year-old shrimper from the Texas Gulf Coast, and the AI revolution has reached my town. Early this year, Dow Chemical announced global cuts to 4,500 jobs as it moves toward artificial intelligence. News of the layoffs tore through our rural community of Seadrift–where some of the thousand people work at the local Dow facility–with the devastation of a hurricane. Replacing workers with robots might be Dow’s latest blow, but this toxic industry has wronged my hometown of Seadrift for 70 years.
I recently completed a 30-day hunger strike on the public property (ditch) outside of Dow Chemical, during which time the sheriff actually arrested me while I was attempting to deliver my letter of demands to a company representative here in my hometown.
For decades, Dow has illegally dumped plastic and chemical waste into the local bays and waterways, which have sustained this fishing community for more than 170 years. Now, the company wants government approval for a new permit that would legalize plastic pollution at the Seadrift plant, and allow the construction of experimental nuclear reactors to power it.
As a native Seadrifter, I say: No.
Industry promised us prosperity, but we lost our economy and our heritage.
Dow is planning massive job cuts right now, despite collecting $177 million in bank finance since 2019—which is more funding than any other petrochemical company currently expanding in the US, according to a new report, "Toxic Finance."
What lasting good have these toxic pollution factories ever done for this community?
My family made a living on the water for four generations, and I’ve been a shrimper all my life. I remember when Union Carbide (now Dow) and Formosa Plastics came to our communities with glossy pamphlets and slick presentations. Our elected officials made a devil’s bargain, and “a little pollution” turned into billions of plastic pellets and tons of chemicals in our water.
When the local bays got sick, the communities started dying with it. First, as in Formosa Plastic’s case, industry bought out the ranchers; then an elementary school; and finally, through a class action suit, bought out citizens and now own their homes. Local businesses have been boarded up throughout the county. As a young woman, I worked at Froggy’s fish house; now, it’s a concrete slab. Four more were bulldozed. A hundred boats used to launch from our docks at the start of shrimp season; today, we’re lucky if we have five. Industry promised us prosperity, but we lost our economy and our heritage. As the old saying goes, our downtown died by a thousand cuts.
I always knew it was a raw deal, but at least some of us got steady jobs… at least for a little while. Now, Dow can’t even deliver on that meager promise. Instead, Dow joins the likes of Amazon, UPS, and dozens of other multinational corporations looking to replace American workers with artificial intelligence.
Nobody from Dow has even responded to me after 30 days of fasting and living in a tent outside of their facility, despite acknowledging receipt of my demand letter to Dow's CEO. To be clear, I will not rest until this company:
- Commits to zero discharge of plastic pellets, powder, and flakes from its Seadrift facility and incorporates that commitment into its operating permit; and
- Cancels all plans to build nuclear reactors at the site and withdraws its construction permit application from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
On a bright note, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has confirmed that a public meeting about Dow’s proposed changes to the water discharge permit will be held at some unspecified time in the future… and so, the fight continues!
Believe me, dear folks, people still have power. I sued Formosa Plastics and won the largest citizen lawsuit settlement under the Clean Water Act in US history—$50 million plus additional fines because the company can’t stop polluting the bay—all of which has gone into a public trust designed to restore the fishing communities, the bays, and the local environment.
Our trust funded a cooperative of 250 fisherfolk working together to revitalize our seafood industry, which now has its own office, a processing plant, and a 60-acre oyster farm that will grow to become the largest in the Gulf. We are building a new and sustainable economy on our terms.
This is what Dow wants to take away from us. I refuse.
Will you join me in fighting back against corporate greed?
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Sinners: Real Monsters of Greed and Racism Still Stalk the Gulf South
The Riverplex Megapark planned for Louisiana's Ascension Parish threatens both the history and future of the community with the destruction of former slave cabins and the construction of a polluting ammonia plant.
Apr 12, 2026
I was pleased to see Sinners have a good night at the Oscars, picking up four trophies. It didn’t win Best Picture, but to my mind, it is the movie of the year. Sinners had far and away the greatest cultural impact, especially among Black people.
Sinners is the rare blockbuster film that explores Black history from the perspective of Black people, but I believe the reason the film has touched such a nerve is that it’s much more than a period piece. When I watched Sinners, I didn’t just see a movie about the past. I saw a mirror. The horror in the film isn’t history; the blood-sucking vampires of racism, white supremacy, and cultural erasure still haunt us today.
For me, Sinners hit literally close to home. Although it is set in Mississippi, it was filmed entirely in southeastern Louisiana, where my roots trace back to a small community called Donaldsonville. The film reminded me of my childhood when grandpa and I walked the avenue to shop. We’d walk from Smoke Bend, up the avenue, to a warehouse on the edge of town to get syrup in a yellow can—perfect for eating with fry bread. What’s funny about the movie is that Michael B. Jordan’s characters’ names were Smoke and Stack. And my grandpa told me that Smoke Bend got its name from the Indian campfires travelers saw when they came around the river bend. The scenes where Smoke and Stack go to Clarksdale to buy supplies were shot on Railroad Avenue in Donaldsonville, where I live and work. Folks from around here remember hearing the alarm and radio announcements from Ascension Parish Barn on Church street as they shopped along the Avenue.
The Jim Crow era depicted in Sinners has ended, but here in Ascension Parish, we are in a struggle to protect Black lives and preserve Black heritage. In the name of economic growth, the Parish government is planning to create a massive, 17,000-acre industrial complex—the so-called Riverplex Megapark—featuring a Hyundai plant and other pollution-producing factories. The complex will decimate the historic predominantly Black community of Modeste and part of Donaldsonville, displacing as many as 800 people.
We will not be able to protect our communities unless more should-be allies come to recognize that environmental justice is a major civil rights issue of our time.
In October, Modeste residents reported that heavy machinery had demolished some of the slave cabins on the site of the former Germania and Mulberry Plantations. The purpose of the destruction was to make way for the Hyundai facility, which could destroy both plantations as well as the neighboring Zeringue Plantation.
Those cabins hold the stories of their enslaved ancestors, the people whose labor built this land and whose spirit still breathes through it. Among the destroyed cabins was one of deep significance to me: My uncle, Cloveste, was born in one of them. Like the juke joint in Sinners, those cabins are a sacred space; they are bloodline, legacy, and love—and they were bulldozed to make room for corporate profit.
While erasing our past, this industrial complex also threatens our future. Located in the heart of “Cancer Alley,” Ascension Parish is one of the most polluted counties in the United States. Less than 3 miles from my house is the world’s largest ammonia plant, the single worst polluting factory in the country. I am a breast cancer survivor. All three of my children were born prematurely, and one of them has had respiratory problems his whole life. These kinds of sicknesses are commonplace around here. Yet plans for the complex include another ammonia plant that will spew out thousands of tons of pollution.
Down here, corporate executives don’t wear hoods or burn crosses, but their greed can kill us just the same.
We are all for development, but we want economic growth that strengthens our communities, not that erases and endangers them while creating generational wealth for others. Rural Roots Louisiana, the organization I founded, is leading an effort to block the “megapark,” and a judge recently ruled in our favor, ordering the front group behind the project to turn over relevant public records.
But we are up against forces with bottomless resources, which they are using to try to buy out and pay off people in the community. This presents people with hard choices, but as we see in Sinners, there is a cost to accommodating your oppressor. As Director Ryan Coogler said, his film explores “the deals people in oppressive situations must rationalize.”
In this struggle, as in all my work, I take heart in the example of our ancestors, who persevered in the face of even steeper odds. Their efforts and sacrifices ended American apartheid, and it is important to remember how far the country has come. Sinners itself, the fact that it got made, is a form of progress. It serves as a rebuke to those trying to erase Black history.
I also draw inspiration from activists and organizers throughout southeast Louisiana. A few years ago, in Plaquemines Parish—where most of Sinners was shot—community members blocked an oil terminal that would have destroyed a cemetery where their enslaved ancestors were buried. In St. James Parish, community groups have made headway in their lawsuit seeking a landmark moratorium on petrochemical facilities, while in St. John Parish, a historic Black community waged a heroic battle against a proposed grain elevator.
Still, we will not be able to protect our communities unless more should-be allies come to recognize that environmental justice is a major civil rights issue of our time. Put another way, environmental racism might not seem like the scariest vampire—it dresses in suits and wears nice shoes—but none have more blood on their teeth.
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