Goldman Environmental Prize Honors Six Heroes of the Environment

Award recognizes activists from Australia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, India, Slovenia, United States

This year’s winners are: RODRIGUE MUGARUKA KATEMBO, Democratic Republic of Congo, PRAFULLA SAMANTARA, India, WENDY BOWMAN, Australia, MARK! LOPEZ, United States, RODRIGO TOT, Guatemala and UROŠ MACERL, Slovenia.

Uroš Macerl, an organic farmer from Slovenia, successfully stopped a cement kiln from co-incinerating petcoke with hazardous industrial waste by rallying legal support from fellow activists and leveraging his status as the only citizen allowed to challenge the plant’s permits.

»Tudi če si samo preprost ovčji pastir, lahko zmagaš. Če si oborožen s pravico in resnico, te ni strah, ne ministrov, ne predsednikov vlad, ne kogarkoli. Zmaga je le vprašanje časa, torej vztrajnosti,« je 25. aprila 2017 v svojem govoru po prejemu Goldmanove okoljske nagrade za Evropo povedal Uroš Macerl in požel bučen aplavz v dvorani.