- Each year, the Goldman Environmental Prize honors grassroots activists from each of the six inhabited continental regions.
- The 2025 prize winners are Semia Gharbi from Tunisia, Batmunkh Luvsandash from Mongolia, Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika from Albania, Carlos Mallo Molina from the Canary Islands, Laurene Allen from the United States and Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari from Peru.
Seven environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 21. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhabited continental regions.
This year’s winners include a scientist and educator who fought illegal trafficking of Italian household waste to Tunisia; an electrical engineer who campaigned to protect a region in the Gobi Desert from mining for copper and other minerals; a social worker and an ecologist from Albania who together campaigned to protect the Vjosa River from hydroelectric dam construction; an activist who pressured a polluting plastics company in New England to shut down; a former civil engineer who campaigned to protect a marine protected area in the Canary Islands from port construction; and an activist who won legal personhood for Peru’s Marañón River in a landmark court case.
“It’s been a tough year for both people and the planet,” Jennifer Goldman Wallis, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said in a press release. “There’s so much that worries us, stresses us, outrages us, and keeps us divided. However, for me, these environmental leaders and teachers — and the global environmental community that supports them — are the antidote.”
The winners will be honored at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 21, at 5:30 p.m. local time, hosted by Rue Mapp, founder of environmental education nonprofit Outdoor Afro, and musical guest Rueda con Ritmo featuring Son Chévere. The event will be livestreamed on the Goldman Prize YouTube channel.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman. Prize winners are selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by a worldwide network of environmental organizations and individuals.
Here are the winners of the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize:
Semia Gharbi, Tunisia
Semia Gharbi, 57, is a scientist and educator in Tunisia who cofounded the Green Tunisia Network, or RTV by its French acronym. Tunisia struggles to enforce regulations on the importation of waste from other countries, resulting in overflowing landfills that threaten the health of nearby communities. In 2019, a Tunisian business agreed to accept 7,900 metric tons of Italian recyclables for sorting and recycling. But the 282 containers sent turned out to be full of household garbage.
Gharbi and RTV spearheaded a campaign urging Tunisia to return the waste to Italy and to investigate the case. Their campaign led to the return of 6,000 metric tons of illegally exported waste back to Italy (the rest had burned in a fire during storage in Tunisia) and the arrest of more than 40 corrupt government officials and others involved in waste trafficking in both countries. Gharbi’s efforts ultimately spurred the European Union to tighten its rules and regulations for waste shipments abroad, in order to better protect human health and the environment.
Batmunkh Luvsandash, Mongolia
Batmunkh Luvsandash, 81, is a Mongolian electrical engineer hailing from a family of nomadic herders. He was born in Dornogovi in the eastern Gobi Desert, a biodiverse region of sand dunes and underground springs that is home to Argali sheep, 75% of the world’s population of endangered Asiatic wild ass, and many endemic plant species. The area also is a hotbed of mining activity for copper and other minerals.
Concerned with the environmental, cultural and economic impacts of proposed mining projects, Luvsandash worked to create a new protected area in Dornogovi. His efforts included personally surveying the landscape and hand-drawing a map, denoting areas of cultural and ecological concern. Luvsandash’s activism resulted in the creation of a 26,700-hectare (66,000-acre) protected area in Dornogovi province in April 2022, abutting tens of thousands of acres already protected by Luvsandash and allies, for a total of 83,200 hectares (205,600 acres) that are closed to extractive activities.
Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika, Albania
Besjana Guri, 37, is a social worker, and Olsi Nika, 39, is a biologist and aquatic ecologist. They campaigned to protect the Vjosa River and its tributaries from hydropower projects in Albania after learning of plans to construct 45 dams along the river and its tributaries. The Vjosa ecosystem protects aquatic biodiversity and provides critical habitat for several endangered species, including European eels, Egyptian vultures and otters.
Guri and Nika launched the Friends of the Vjosa initiative in 2015, and their work resulted in the designation of some 12,700 hectares (31,400 acres) as the Vjosa Wild River National Park by the Albanian government in March 2023. This park, which includes 400 kilometers (250 miles) of undisturbed river corridors, is the first in both Albania and Europe to protect a wild river. As the park is finalized, Guri and Nika are working to prevent water diversion, gravel extraction, urbanization and agriculture within its borders.
Carlos Mallo Molina, Canary Islands
Carlos Mallo Molina, 36, is a marine conservationist and former civil engineer from Spain who specialized in port construction on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. While working on a new highway being built to the location of a proposed port, Mallo became concerned about potential environmental impacts. The port was to be built in the Teno-Rasca marine protected area, a region that includes habitat for endangered sea turtles, whales and sharks, as well as a whale heritage site, potentially leading to habitat destruction, noise pollution, vessel traffic and whale strikes.
In 2018, Molina left his job and started the environmental nonprofit Innoceana to fight the port’s construction. He collected data on underwater ecosystems and worked with other activists to oppose the project. In October 2021, in part because of his campaigning, the Canary Islands government officially canceled the port project. Instead, the Canary Islands’ first marine conservation and education center will be built at the proposed port location.
Laurene Allen, United States
Laurene Allen, 62, is a clinical social worker and self-taught expert on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, or forever chemicals. She lives in New Hampshire, in the northeastern United States. First synthesized in the 1940s to repel oil and grease and protect products from water and heat damage, PFAS take thousands of years to break down and are widespread globally today. Studies link PFAS exposure with cancers and other health concerns, but the chemicals are poorly regulated in the United States.
When Allen learned in 2016 of PFAS contamination in her town’s water, she began a campaign to pressure the French-owned Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant — which coated products in PFAS and dried them in ovens, emitting PFAS through its smokestacks — to shut down. She formed Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, a grassroots advocacy organization that worked to improve water treatment locally and to push for stricter regulations of PFAS across the state. The plant closed down in 2024 without admitting legal responsibility for the PFAS contamination. Allen continues to campaign to hold Saint-Gobain accountable for remediation of its plant and to document the full scope of environmental and health impacts from PFAS contamination in the region.
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, Peru
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari is a Kukama Kukamiria activist who grew up in Shapajila, an Indigenous community on the Marañón River in Peru. A tributary of the Amazon that begins at Peru’s Nevado de Yapura Glacier in the Andes mountains and flows more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi), the Marañón and its tributaries support 75% of Peru’s tropical wetlands and are home to pink dolphins, giant river otters, manatees, black caimans and more than 100 fish species. The river basin provides habitat for the critically endangered Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey, jaguars and spectacled bears. The river also flows through some of Peru’s largest oil and gas reserves, and oil spills and hydroelectric projects along the river have harmed human well-being and the region’s ecosystems.
In 2001, Canaquiri founded the Hard-working Women’s Association, or HKK by its local acronym, to address ongoing oil spills and the lack of leadership opportunities for Kukama women in confronting social, economic and environmental challenges. In 2021, HKK, working with several other environmental nonprofits, sued for legal recognition by Peru of the personhood of the Marañón River, and Canaquiri became the face of the effort through her activism and leadership.
In 2024, HKK prevailed in court, with the historic decision recognizing the river’s intrinsic value and inherent right to be free of environmental contamination and remain free-flowing. The court found the Peruvian government — and the state-run oil company, Petroperú — to be in violation of those rights, ordering authorities to immediately address the oil spills and create a protection plan for the river and its tributaries. Other Indigenous communities have since filed similar cases to protect other rivers throughout Peru.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A conversation with 2024 Goldman Prize Winner Murrawah Maroochy Johnson about Indigenous rights and using the law to protect land and community, listen here:
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