Seven Win Goldman Environmental Prize

This is the VOA Special English DEVELOPMENT REPORT.

This Tuesday is Earth Day. On April twenty-second, nineteen seventy, millions of Americans took part in activities to bring attention to the environment. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin had called for a huge protest against pollution and other threats.

An environmental movement was born, and Earth Day is now observed around the world.

Last week, the seven winners of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize were announced in San Francisco, California. Winners are chosen from each part of the world.

The winners of the Goldman Prize for South and Central America are Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza in Ecuador. The two men are leading a major legal case against the Chevron oil company. It involves petroleum pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon between nineteen sixty-four and nineteen ninety.

The case was brought against Texaco; Chevron bought that company in two thousand one.

The winner of this year's Goldman Prize for Africa is Feliciano dos Santos in Mozambique. He and his band, Massukos, use traditional music to educate villagers about the importance of clean water. He also works to bring better sanitation to poor villages.

The prize winner for islands and island nations is Rosa Hilda Ramos of Puerto Rico. She is leading a movement to protect the Las Cucharillas Marsh from factory pollution. The wetland area is one of the last open spaces near San Juan's community of Catano.

The Goldman prize winner for North America is Jesus Leon Santos. He is leading a land renewal and economic development program in Oaxaca, Mexico. He has worked with local farmers to dig waterways and plant about one million trees. Poor land-use methods have done much damage to the soil.

The prize winner from Asia is Marina Rikhvanova. She is working to protect Lake Baikal in Siberia from damage by Russia's growing oil and nuclear industries.

And the winner from Europe is Ignace Schops. He helped raise ninety million dollars to establish the first and only national park in Belgium.

The Goldman Prize is the world's largest prize for environmental activism. The winners each receive one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Rhonda and Richard Goldman established the award. The prize has gone to one hundred twenty-six people over the past eighteen years.

And that's the VOA Special English DEVELOPMENT REPORT, written by Jill Moss.