In a landmark moment for environmental activism, the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize, often described as the 'Green Nobel', has been awarded exclusively to women for the first time in the award's 37-year history.
Prize recipients are chosen from each of the world's six primary regions. This time six activists have been awarded whose fights against fossil fuels, destructive mining, and biodiversity loss span six continents.
For the first time since the prize was created in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman, all recipients are women: Iroro Tanshi from Nigeria; Borim Kim from South Korea; Sarah Finch from the United Kingdom; Theonila Roka Matbob from Papua New Guinea; Alannah Acaq Hurley from the United States; and Yuvelis Morales Blanco from Colombia.
Each receives $200,000 in prize money.
"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. "The 2026 Prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress."
The youngest winner, 24-year-old Morales Blanco from Colombia, grew up in a family of fishermen along the Magdalena River and fought some of the world's biggest oil companies to successfully stop commercial fracking in the country., as per the official Goldman Prize website. "We had nothing but the river - she was like a mother who took care of me," she said.
Her activism began after a major oil spill in 2018 that killed thousands of animals and forced dozens of families to relocate, and despite intimidation that forced her to temporarily leave her home, she helped elevate fracking as a central issue in Colombia's 2022 election.
South Korea's Borim Kim founded Youth 4 Climate Action and won a landmark ruling from the Constitutional Court that the government's climate policy violated the constitutional rights of future generations — the first successful youth-led climate litigation on the continent.
Britain's Sarah Finch fought oil drilling in southeastern England for more than a decade, securing the "Finch ruling" from the Supreme Court in June 2024, which stated that authorities must consider fossil fuels' impacts on the global climate before granting permission to extract them.
Papua New Guinea's Theonila Roka Matbob led a successful campaign that saw mining giant Rio Tinto - the world's second-largest - agree to address environmental and social devastation caused by its Panguna copper mine, 35 years after it was closed following an uprising.
Alaska's Alannah Acaq Hurley, from the Yup'ik nation, fought alongside 15 tribal nations to stop a mega copper and gold mining project threatening ecosystems in Bristol Bay, home to the largest wild salmon runs in the world.
Nigeria's Iroro Tanshi rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat and has been working to protect its home, the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, from human-induced wildfires.
ALSO READ: Europe's Climate Change Agenda Is Derailing | The Reason Why
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