Peruvian Among Goldman Environment Prize Winners

LIMA, Peru (AP) — An indigenous activist who led a campaign to halt two hydroelectric projects that would have flooded 35 square miles of Amazon river basin, displacing some 24,000 fellow Ashaninka, is among six environmental advocates being given this year's prestigious Goldman Prize. In addition to Ruth Buendia, the other winners include Ramesh Agrawal of India, who helped villagers fight a large coal mine; Russian zoologist Suren Gazaryan, who defended protected areas around Sochi from illegal land seizures for Olympic construction projects; and American lawyer Helen Slottje, who helped communities fight fracking in New York state by discovering a legal loophole that allows individual towns to ban the oil extraction method under zoning laws. The San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Foundation's other 2014 winners were South Africa's Desmond D'Sa, who won for helping to close down one of his country's largest toxic waste dumps, and Indonesian biologist Rudi Putra, who helped shutter 26 illegal palm oil plantations that were causing deforestation in northern Sumatra. Buendia, a 37-year-old mother of five, took on both the Peruvian government and Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, in forcing the halting in 2011 of the Pakitzapango and Tambo 40 projects on the Ene river.

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