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　　Each year the $175,000 award recognizesindividuals who have shown courage andinitiative against the odds to take action toprotect the world.

　　This year's Goldman Prize winner in South Africa isDesmond D’Sa, D’Sa grew up in Durban and workedin a nearby chemical factory.

　　His poor working class neighborhood is surrounded by gas and oil refineries, paper mills andagrochemical plants. Half of its 300,000 residents have asthma and also suffer from high ratesof cancer.

　　A refinery explosion sparked his activism and he began to organize against the expansionof a toxic waste dump near his neighborhood.

　　“We started to develop a community and create awareness," D'Sa said. "We have healthworkshops. We take bucket samples to ensure they know what’s causing all the illnesses. Sowe have developed the knowledge base. We have agitated. We have lobbied. We were able forthe first time in the history of this country to get the industry bosses to be held accountablefor their actions.”

　　The landfill was forced to close and, despite threats to his life and property, the Goldmanaward winner is now fighting the expansion of Durban’s port, which would displace thousandsof people without compensation, while also increasing pollution.

　　“We’ve shown that as a united force, you can stop environmental racism," he said. "And we’veshown communities that there needs to be a new way of doing business.”

　　Indonesian biologist Rudi Putra is the Goldman laureate representing the world’s islandnations, where the majority of the world’s palm oil is grown. The oil is in everything fromcookies, chocolate and baby formula to cosmetics and soap products.

　　Palm oil plantations are replacing the forests in Sumatra, one of the most bio-diverse regionsof the world. So Putra has turned his own chain saw on illegal operations, cutting down thetrees on nearly 500 hectares. Putra has succeeded in getting village chiefs, local officials and thepolice to join him on his crusade. But, he says, there is much more to do.

　　“Recently we started an international petition against damage to the ecosystem, and we gotover 1.4 million signatures worldwide, which were submitted to the Indonesian government tocancel their plans to develop the rainforest here," Putra said. "We are determined to win thisbattle, too.”

　　Europe is represented in the Goldman Awards by zoologist Suren Gazaryan from Russia.Gazaryan made headlines with his challenge to former president Dmitry Medvedev, who hadwanted to build a luxury home in a nature reserve in forested land near the Black Sea.President Vladimir Putin had stripped the area of its protected status to allow the project to goahead. Gazaryan organized a blockade to halt it.

　　“We started a social media campaign against the project that recruited 10,000 people,"Gazaryan said. "This showed the public that the very people responsible for creating these lawswere the first to violate them."

　　Gazaryan won that battle and returned again to the Black Sea to fight construction of asummer house for Putin, in a protected old-growth forest. Here, he was falsely accused ofthreatening security guards. Rather than face prison time, Gazaryan fled to Estonia where hecontinues his environmental work.

　　"Looking forward my main goal is to continue to try to change people’s consciousness, so thatthey better understand that nature isn’t something we can just sell off and get rich on. Wehave to preserve these places for future generations.”

　　Other Goldman prize winners include Ramesh Agrawal from India who, from his small Internetcafé, began a successful campaign to halt a huge coal mining project in an area alreadydistrurbed by pollution; Ruth Buendia from Peru, who stood up to dam construction thatwould have uprooted indigenous people; and American attorney Helen Slottje, who used thelaw to defend many towns targeted by gas drilling operations.

　　Now in its 25th year, the Goldman Environmental Prize has been awarded to 163 activists from82 countries.

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