Chimbote ; Quechua: Chimputi) is the largest city in the Ancash Region and the 10th largest city in Peru. With a population of 425,367, it is the capital of both Santa Province and Chimbote District.
Martha Beatriz Merino Lucero is a Peruvian lawyer, academic and politician who served as the first female Prime Minister of Peru, in 2003. She previously served as Senator and Congresswoman from 1990 until 2000. Following her tenure in Alejandro Toledo's cabinet, Merino was appointed by the Peruvian Congress as the national ombudswoman for Peru, serving from 2005 to 2011, a position officially known as the Public Defender, being the second to hold the position.
The Goldman Environmental Prize is a prize awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists.
Heffa Schücking is a German environmentalist. She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1994, for her works to protect the rainforests.
Maria Gunnoe is a native West Virginian who opposes mountaintop removal mining, and is a winner of the Goldman Prize and Wallenberg Medal.
Olga Speranskaya is a Russian scientist and environmentalist. She has been the Director of the Chemical Safety Program at the Eco-Accord Center for Environment and Sustainable Development in Moscow since 1997 and holds a master's degree in Geophysics from Moscow State University, and a doctorate in Environmental physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences. From 2010 to 2018, she was a co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network. Speranskaya has led many campaigns against the use of organic pollutants, fought to ban the burial and transport of hazardous chemicals, and provided information to government decision-makers for policy changes in many different countries.
Margie Eugene-Richard is an African American environmental activist. Richard’s childhood neighborhood, impacted by its proximity to a Shell Oil Company Chemical Plant, inspired her to fight for environmental justice. In addition to forming advocacy groups in her neighborhood, Richard has worked with other communities experiencing similar environmental injustices. Because of her advocacy work, Richard was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2004.
Sven Peek, best known as Bobby Peek, is an environmentalist and activist from Durban, South Africa. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1998, for his efforts on improvement of pollution problems in the region of South Durban.
Ruth Zenaida Buendía Mestoquiari is an Asháninka Peruvian activist and the first woman president of "Central Asháninka del Río Ene", an organization which aims to legally represent and legitimize the 18 indigenous communities of the Asháninka people around the Ene River and the 33 annexes around it. She was awarded the 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize for having led a campaign on behalf of the Asháninka people to oppose large-scale dams that would displace indigenous communities and endanger the environment.
The Fox From Up Above and the Fox From Down Below is the sixth and final novel by Peruvian writer José María Arguedas published posthumously in 1971. It is an unfinished novel, interspersed with some personal and intimate diaries where the author relates the torments overwhelming him while writing the novel, finally announcing his impending suicide. Complementing the work are two letters and an epilogue. The novel depicts the consequences of accelerated modernization of the port of Chimbote, motivated by the fishing boom; thousands of Andean immigrants arrive, attracted by the opportunity to earn a living in a thriving industrial city, while at the same time they assimilate themselves under the guise of 'modernity', all of which, from the point of the writer, brings dire consequences: loss of Andean cultural identity and its moral degeneracy, succumbing to the vices of the city in bars and brothels.
Máxima Acuña is a Peruvian subsistence farmer and environmentalist, who is known for her fight to remain on land wanted for a new mine, the Conga Mine, enduring years of violent intimidation by Newmont Mining Corporation and Buenaventura, for which she received the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize.
Liz Chicaje Churay is an indigenous Peruvian leader who has contributed significantly to the protection of rainforests and rivers in the Loreto area of northeastern Peru, safeguarding the rights of the Yagua people. Thanks to her efforts, the Yaguas National Park was established in 2018. In January 2019 in Lima, she was awarded the Franco-German prize for human rights by the French and German ambassadors.
Bayarjargal (Bayara) Agvaantseren is a Mongolian conservationist who has campaigned to save the habitat of the snow leopard in an area of the South Gobi Desert which has become a major mining hub. Thanks to her successful efforts to create the 8163-km2 Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve and to have the authorities cancel 37 mining licences, in 2019 she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.
Jacqueline (Jacqui) Evans is a marine conservationist from the Cook Islands. Her efforts to protect the marine environment surrounding the islands came to fruition in July 2017 when the government created the Marae Moana marine park. It provided for the sustainable management of 763,000 square miles of ocean territory, including 15 more highly protected exclusion zones covering 125,000. In recognition of her efforts, in April 2019 Evans was one of six environmentalists to be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.
María Soledad Pérez Tello de Rodríguez is a Peruvian lawyer, notary and politician. A former member of the Christian People's Party, she served as its general secretary from 2017 until her departure in 2022. She currently leads Lo Justo por el Perú, a self-described radical centrist party alongside Flor Pablo, annexed to First The People – Community, Ecology, Liberty, and Progress.
Destiny Watford is an American environmental activist. She won a Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016.
María del Carmen Alva Prieto is a Peruvian lawyer and politician who served as the president of the Congress of the Republic of Peru from 26 July 2021 until 26 July 2022, and a member of the Congress representing Lima. She is a member of Popular Action.
Delima Silalahi is an environmental activist from North Tapanuli, Indonesia, known for her efforts in safeguarding customary forests and Indigenous rights in North Sumatra. As the executive director of the NGO Kelompok Studi dan Pengembangan Prakarsa Masyarakat (KSPPM), she orchestrated efforts to reclaim over 17,000 acres of tropical forest that had been converted by a pulp and paper company.
Andrea Vidaurre is an American environmental justice advocate and policy analyst, recognized for her efforts in addressing air pollution and public health issues linked to California’s Inland Empire freight industry. In 2024, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for North America in acknowledgment of her work on air quality and zero-emission policy advocacy in one of the country’s most heavily polluted regions.
