Goldman Prize awarded to environmental activists

SAN FRANCISCO - A Shipibo activist who helped create a protected area for Amazonian people living in voluntary isolation and an Ojibway leader who has worked with her community to save 2 million acres of the Boreal Forest in Manitoba, Canada, were among six people awarded the 2007 Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco April 23.

The $125,000 award, now in its 18th year, is given to people from all over the world who have made a difference with their environmental work.

Shipibo activist Julio Cusurichi Palacios and Ojibway representative Sophia Rabliauskas both emphasized traditional indigenous respect for the land in their acceptance speeches, as well as the need for all people to work together to save the planet.

''The world doesn't have the authority to subject [un-contacted] peoples to a different way of life. We all have the right to live in peace in the Amazon territories,'' Palacios said, noting that the increasing presence of multinational oil and gas companies was adding to the problem of illegal logging in the Madre de Dios region of Peru where many isolated peoples live. These people are vulnerable not only to cultural change but to physical disease brought by outside contact, he said.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096414989

Click link to read full story.