O Premio Ambiental Goldman (The Goldman Environmental Prize)

O Premio Ambiental Goldman honra herois ambientais populares das seis regioes continentais habitadas do mundo: Africa, Asia, Europa, Ilhas e Nacoes Ilhas, America do Norte, e America Central e Sul. O Premio reconhece individuos para esforcos significantes e sustentados para proteger e melhorar o ambiente natural, frequentemente correndo risco da vida. O Premio Goldman vista lideres populares como aqueles envolvidos em esforcos locais onde mudanca positiva esta criada pela participacao comunitaria ou de cidadaos nos assuntos que os afetam. No reconhecimento destes lideres, o Premio procura inspirar outras pessoas ordinarias para fazer acoes extraordinarias para proteger o mundo natural. 2015 1) Phyllis Omido, Quenia, Africa: After learning her own breast milk was making her baby sick—and realizing her child wasn’t the only one suffering from lead poisoning—Phyllis Omido galvanized the community in Mombasa to shut down the smelter that was exposing people to dangerous chemicals. The burgeoning solar industry in Kenya has increased demand for lead, recovered by recycling car batteries in smelters. Shanty towns across Mombasa, where poor, marginalized workers are desperate for work, are hotspots for such industrial activity. Among them is Owino Uhuru, where a smelter emitted fumes laden with lead, often at night to avoid detection, and released untreated waste water that spilled into streams that residents use to wash, cook and clean. Phyllis Omido was a young single mother with a baby boy when she was hired to manage the plant’s community relations. One of her first tasks was to put together an environmental impact report. Working with a team of experts, she found that the plant’s proximity to the local community left residents vulnerable to dangerous chemicals—and that the plant was likely operating under illegally obtained permits. Her report recommended closing the factory and relocating, but management dismissed the recommendations and removed Omido from the project. Workers at the plant faced the most direct exposure to chemicals. They were provided one pair of flimsy cotton gloves per month, which quickly disintegrated after a few days. Once the gloves were gone, workers continued work with bare hands. In contrast, managers entering the factory did so in full protective gear. About three months into her job, Omido’s infant son became violently ill and was hospitalized. Tests for malaria, typhoid, and other likely culprits all came back negative. Following a suggestion from a plant manager that it could be lead poisoning, doctors tested the baby’s blood and found that he had acutely high levels of lead, which had likely been passed along via his mother’s breast milk. Her son’s medical bills quickly ballooned to more than $2,000, an insurmountable amount for Omido. She demanded that the plant pay for the hospital fees. The company paid her bills in exchange for her silence, but Omido felt a responsibility to the community. She quit her job and began cleaning houses to make ends meet and support her quest to bring justice to the workers and families impacted by the smelter. 2011 In response to Germany’s expanded reliance on nuclear energy, Ursula Sladek created her country’s first cooperatively-owned renewable power company. Twenty-five years ago, the catastrophic Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union produced a radioactive cloud that quickly spread across Europe. As news of the event rippled through the continent, questions arose about toxic fallout and its implications for communities thousands of miles from Chernobyl. At the time, West Germany relied almost exclusively on nuclear and coal energy to power its growing economy. A small handful of companies held a monopoly on the energy market, controlling most of the local grids. An anti-nuclear movement had been active throughout the 1980s and had gained some popular support, but German power companies did not provide opportunities for consumers to opt out of using nuclear-derived power. For Ursula Sladek, a mother of five from the tiny community of Schönau in Germany’s Black Forest region, the Chernobyl disaster served as a serious wake-up call about the dangers of nuclear energy. She and her neighbors were alarmed by reports about radioactive residue detected on playgrounds, backyard gardens, and farmland in Schönau. Suddenly, it was unsafe for Sladek to go about her normal routine of eating locally grown foods and sending her children outside to play. In response, Sladek, her husband, and a small group of parents began researching the energy industry in Germany to see if there was a way to limit their community’s dependence on nuclear power. They found that power companies were not allowing citizens to have a say in energy production decisions. Chernobyl proved that though nuclear energy could be called “green” by some standards, the safety risks associated with it were cause for deep concern. Sladek also knew that nuclear energy was not the only option. Thus, the group began what would become a 10-year project to take over the local grid, and in a second step, allow people all over Germany to choose safe, reliable, sustainably produced energy. This project would transform Sladek from a small-town parent trained to be a schoolteacher into the founder and president of one of Europe’s first cooperatively owned green energy companies. In the more than two decades since Sladek began working for clean and safe energy in Germany, she has built a company that now provides power to more than 100,000 homes and businesses throughout the country, including Germany’s best-known chocolate factory, which produces the popular Ritter Sport candy for export all over the world.