2001 Goldman Prize. (Awards).

The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded annually to environmental grassroots heroes from around the world. At $125,000, the Goldman Prize is the world's largest award for environmental activists. Its recipients have taken on a diverse range of issues, from stopping toxic industries in communities to helping indigenous peoples preserve their environments and traditional ways of life. The prize money allows the winners to continue their work and expand public awareness of environmental crises.

This year's winners are Jane Akre and Steve Wilson from North America, Eugene Rutagarama from Africa, Oscar Olivera from South America, Giorgos Catsadorakis and Myrsini Malakou from Europe, Yosepha Alomang from Asia, and Bruno Van Peteghem from the Island Nations.

Akre and Wilson are television journalists who uncovered potential health risks of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a genetically modified hormone injected into U.S. dairy cows to stimulate milk production. They reported on studies suggesting a possible link between rBGH and human breast, prostate, and colon cancers. They were fired from their jobs during the ensuing controversy.

Rutagarama worked to save the 355 mountain gorillas in the Virungas Mountains during Rwanda's war in the 1990s. The animals there make up over half of the existing mountain gorilla population. Rutagarama was instrumental in rebuilding the Rwandan national park system, and risked his life to get money and supplies to Congolese park rangers so they could continue their work with the gorillas.

Olivera is a Bolivian labor leader and an advocate for the universal right to affordable clean water. He led a coalition to fight increasing water rates after the city of Cochabamba sold its public water system to a U.S. corporation. The cost of water rose to as much as one-third of the income of many families. He also led protests and negotiations that resulted in the government decision to cancel the sale of the water system.

Malakou and Catsadorakis researched, organized, and advocated sustainable farming to restore crucial wetlands in the Prespa area near northwestern Greece, where over 260 species of birds migrate, winter, and breed, including the rare Dalmatian pelican. Their work resulted in the first transboundary preserve in the Balkans.

For more than 20 years, Alomang has fought environmental, economic, and cultural devastation to West Papua. She rallied her community to protest a gold and copper mine that was dumping tailings into local rivers, spreading pollutants in a virgin tropical rain forest. She also created a women's group dedicated to human rights, environmentalism, and preserving traditional culture.

Van Peteghem is working to protect one of the largest coral reefs in New Caledonia, an island nation in the South Pacific, from being mined by the nickel ore industry. He is leading an effort to have the reef put on UNESCO's World Heritage List of properties considered to be of "outstanding universal value."

"The winners this year illustrate how the environment is affected by wars, international business, economic policies, and the tendency to put short-term gains ahead of long-term solutions," says Richard N. Goldman, founder of the Goldman Environmental Prize. "They also illustrate how the courage and commitment of a single visionary individual can make a difference for generations to come."