Six grassroots leaders from Nigeria, South Korea, the UK, Papua New Guinea, the United States, and Colombia received the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize, marking the first time all winners are women
The Goldman Environmental Prize recognized six grassroots leaders in 2026, all of them women, a milestone that highlights the growing influence of local activism on global environmental policy. Winners came from across the six inhabited continental regions and each received $200,000 to advance their work.
The prize, established in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman, has long been described as a Green Nobel for its focus on community-driven defense of nature and climate.
This announcement underscores how varied tactics — from courtroom challenges to community fire prevention and large-scale organizing — can deliver measurable protections for ecosystems and people.
As the foundation noted, the 2026 recipients demonstrate that leadership can emerge from small towns and remote coasts as readily as from capitals. Their victories range from legal rulings that force stronger climate policy to local programs that keep fires from destroying critical habitat.
Profiles of the winners
South and Central America: resistance to fracking
Yuvelis Morales Blanco won for work in Colombia, where she mobilized her riverfront community around the Magdalena River to oppose commercial fracking. Raised in the Afro-Colombian town of Puerto Wilches, Morales Blanco began organizing after a major 2018 oil spill devastated local livelihoods and wildlife and forced families to relocate. Her activism brought national attention to fracking, helped stall new projects, and shaped public debate during the 2026 election cycle. The prize recognizes both her grassroots organizing and the risks she faced, including intimidation and temporary displacement.
Asia and Europe: litigation and long legal campaigns
Borim Kim, representing Asia, used strategic youth-led litigation to compel South Korea’s government to strengthen its emissions targets after the Constitutional Court found climate policies insufficient to protect future generations. Kim’s group, Youth 4 Climate Action, framed climate ambition as a constitutional right and won a landmark ruling. In Europe, Sarah Finch and the Weald Action Group followed a decade-long fight against oil drilling in southeastern England and scored a Supreme Court decision—the so-called Finch ruling in June 2026—requiring authorities to weigh fossil fuels’ global climate impacts before authorizing extraction.
Battles against mining and protection of fisheries
Corporate accountability in Papua New Guinea
Theonila Roka Matbob, from Papua New Guinea, led a campaign demanding responsibility from a major mining company over long-standing environmental and social harms at the abandoned Panguna copper mine. Her work pressured the corporation to acknowledge the damage and begin remediation processes decades after the mine’s closure. The campaign blends community testimony, documentation of pollution, and public pressure to create a path toward cleanup and restitution.
Indigenous coalition wins in Alaska
Alannah Acaq Hurley, representing North America and a member of the Yup’ik nation, coordinated with 15 tribal nations and a broad coalition of Alaskans and NGOs to halt a proposed mega-copper and gold mine that would have imperiled Bristol Bay’s ecosystems. Their efforts culminated in an EPA veto that safeguards roughly 25 million acres of salmon-rich lands and waters, preserving the region’s ecological and cultural lifeways.
On-the-ground conservation and community resilience
Iroro Tanshi earned the prize for conservation work in Nigeria after she rediscovered a small colony of the short-tailed roundleaf bat in Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary and then built a community-centered wildfire prevention program. With her organization, the Small Mammal Conservation Organization, she trained local guardians, installed early-warning weather systems, and helped nearby villages adopt bylaws and no-burn practices. The program has protected tens of thousands of acres of rainforest and key habitats for endangered species while supporting local livelihoods.
How to support the winners and why it matters
Each recipient’s work offers concrete ways for supporters to help: follow and donate to the grassroots organizations leading these efforts, sign petitions that press companies to remediate legacy pollution, and back legal frameworks that require public authorities to consider climate consequences before permitting fossil fuel projects. Engaging with Indigenous coalitions defending land rights and joining campaigns that promote community-based fire prevention are other practical steps. The prize amplifies these leaders and channels resources that can scale effective local solutions.
What the award symbolizes
The 2026 cohort marks the first all-women group of winners in the prize’s history, spotlighting how women are central to conserving biodiversity and advancing climate justice. The winners will be honored at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 20, 2026, with the event livestreamed for global audiences. Their combined achievements—from courtroom precedent to restored rivers and protected sanctuaries—illustrate the power of community-led strategy to produce outcomes that governments and markets have failed to deliver.
