[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 86 (Friday, June 24, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1342]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        HONORING THE 2005 GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE RECIPIENTS

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                         HON. RAUL M. GRIJALVA

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 23, 2005

  Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the winners of the 
2005 Goldman Environmental Prize, the world's most prestigious prize 
honoring grassroots environmentalists.
  Now in its 16th year, the Goldman Prize is annually awarded to 
environmental leaders from six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, 
Europe, Islands & Island Nations, North America, and South & Central 
America. The recipients are engaged in important efforts to preserve 
the natural environment, including protecting endangered ecosystems and 
species, combating destructive development projects, promoting 
sustainability, influencing environmental policies and striving for 
environmental justice. Goldman Prize winners often are figurative men 
and women from isolated villages and inner cities who are willing to 
endure great personal risks to safeguard the environment.
  To be given the award is a great honor. It is a recognition of the 
outstanding work that the activists do to ensure social and 
environmental justice in their communities and around the world.
  This year the recipient from Mexico is Isidro Baldenegro Lopez. Mr. 
Baldenegro is a subsistence farmer and community leader of Mexico's 
indigenous Tarahumara people in the country's Sierra Madre mountain 
region. He has spent much of his life defending old growth forests from 
devastating logging in a region torn by violence, corruption and drug-
trafficking. Tragically, Baldenegro is acutely aware of the grave risks 
involved in defending the forest. As a boy, he witnessed firsthand the 
assassination of his father who was killed for his opposition to 
logging. In the face of these serious risks and repeated threats 
against his life, Baldenegro has chosen to remain and defend the forest 
and ancestral lands his community has inhabited for hundreds of years. 
In 1993, Baldenegro developed a non-violent grassroots movement to 
fight the logging industry in the Sierra Madres. He later mobilized a 
massive human blockade which resulted in a special court order 
outlawing logging in the area. Following the blockade, Baldenegro was 
suddenly jailed on what later proved to be false charges of arms and 
drug possession. After 15 months of imprisonment, he emerged to 
establish an environmental justice organization, which currently has 
cases pending in the federal courts in Mexico. He has brought world 
attention to the beautiful, ecologically crucial old-growth forests of 
the Sierra Madre as well as the survival of the Tarahumara people.
  Father Jose Andres Tamayo Cortez, another Goldman Prize recipient, is 
a Catholic priest leading the struggle for environmental justice in the 
Olancho region of Honduras. He directs the Environmental Movement of 
Olancho, MAO, a coalition of subsistence farmers and community and 
religious leaders who are defending their lands against uncontrolled 
logging in the region. Logging has already taken more than half of the 
region's 12 million acres of forest in one of the most biologically 
diverse forest ecosystems. Father Tamayo has worked to exert pressure 
on the Honduran government to reform its national forest policy. He has 
been harassed and violently assaulted, and has had a bounty put on his 
life for his work in his community. Father Tamayo is selflessly 
committed to the peaceful protection of the forests and the people of 
Honduras. He has said, ``Natural resources and life itself are human 
rights; therefore, to destroy God's creation is to attack human life; 
our last remaining option is to defend life with our own life.''
  These are just two of the six leaders awarded the Goldman Prize this 
year, but I would like to commend all the winners for their incredible 
commitment to a better world for their communities. I urge my 
colleagues to join me in honoring them today.

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