Four Women to Receive Goldman Environmental Prize!

It’s probably one of the most coveted environmental prizes and certainly the largest environmental prize in the world. Celebrating their 20th anniversary, the Goldman Environmental Prize will honor six grassroots environmentalists on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and See Jane Do has been invited to report on the event!

The Goldman Environmental Prize was established by San Francisco natives, Richard and Rhoda Goldman to reward ordinary people (at a grassroots level) who are doing extraordinary things to improve the environment.

Being that the mission of See Jane Do is to capture the stories of everyday women doing extraordinary things for the planet, we are thrilled that four of the six prize recipients this year are women. This year’s winners include:

• Maria Gunnoe of West Virginia, USA who has fought to stop mountaintop removal for mining coal in her backyard, the Appalachian region.
• Syeda Rizwana Hasa of Dhaka, Bangladesh, an environmental attorney who has worked to reduce the impact of Bangladesh’s ship breaking industry.
• Olga Speranskaya of Moscow, Russia, a scientist who created a strong force to eliminate the toxic chemicals in the environment in the Soviet Union.
• Yuyun Ismawati of Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, she has implemented sustainable community-based solutions that employ and empower the low-income people of her community to reduce waste and improve the environment.

In addition to the four female prize winners other recipients include; Marc Ona of Liberville, Gabon who led efforts against a huge Chinese mining development and exposed the agreements that would threaten the ecosystem and Wanze Eduards and Hugo Jabiniof Pilkin Slee Village and Paramaribo in Surinamre whose work in protecting their traditional lands against logging led to a ruling that enables indigenous and tribal people control to protect their territories from resource exploitation.

The Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony is an invitation only event with over 3,300 people expected to attend. I look forward to interviewing everyday extraordinary women who are doing their part to make a difference and enhance the planet at this historic event.