New Delhi: For the first time, the Goldman Environmental Prize was awarded to an all-women cohort for their contribution to environmental protection. Also known as the Green Nobel, the Goldman Prize is awarded annually to six activists working in the grassroots environmental space each year, from six different regions of the world—Asia, Africa, South and Central America, North America, Europe, Islands and Island Nations.
The 2026 awards were presented at a ceremony in San Francisco on 20 April, where six women from England, the United States, South Korea, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, and Colombia were honoured for their work. They each received $200,000 as part of the prize.
“While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies—in the US and globally—it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,” said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, in a press release.
The award recognised the work of Iroro Tanshi, who created and managed a community-led campaign to prevent wildfires in the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary in Nigeria, one of the last remaining habitats of an endangered species—the short-tailed roundleaf bat.
Alannah Acaq Hurley of the United States, a leader of the indigenous Yup’ik community of Alaska, brought together 15 indigenous nations to protest and eventually stop a proposed mining project in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region. The project would have destroyed 25 million acres of forests and freshwater resources, as well as the habitat of wild salmon.
Meanwhile, Papua New Guinea’s Theonila Roka Matbob started a campaign that made Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, sign an MoU and acknowledge ecological problems caused by its abandoned Panguna mine. The company is now planning to remediate some of these losses.
“This is the first year during which all six Prize winners are women, a testament to the critical role of women in the environmental movement,” the press release added.
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What is the Goldman Prize?
Introduced in 1989, the Goldman Prize is based on the philanthropic efforts of Richard Goldman, an American billionaire and the founder of the Goldman Insurance and Risk Management Fund.
Along with his wife, who was also involved in environmental projects in California, the couple founded the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund in 1951 as part of their environmental philanthropy.
The awards are currently selected by the Goldman Environmental Prize Jury, on the basis of nominations by organisations from all six regions of the world.
Previous winners have included India’s Alok Shukla in 2024, who fought to save Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo Arand forests from coal-mining projects. Medha Patkar, the activist who led the Narmada Bachao Andolan, and MC Mehta, a lawyer who filed and won landmark environmental protection cases in India’s Supreme Court, have also been previously awarded the Goldman Prize.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)