A Filipino environmental advocate was recently chosen, along with six other grassroots activists, for this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize organized by the US-based Goldman Foundation.
Manny Calonzo, 54, spearheaded the campaign against toxic chemicals in the Philippines when he was the president of the EcoWaste Coalition, a local waste-and-pollution watchdog. The recognition made him the third Filipino to win the prestigious award for grassroots activists engaged in environmental conservation and protection.
Calonzo was selected by an international jury from confidential nominations for his spearheading an advocacy campaign banning the production, sale and use of paints containing lead, a cumulative toxicant targeting the brain and the central nervous system and other body systems.
He was credited with spearheading the campaign that persuaded the Philippine government to enact a national ban on the production, use and sale of lead paint. His efforts have protected millions of Filipino children from lead poisoning.
Calonzo is currently an adviser of the Global Lead Paint Elimination Campaign of International POPs Elimination Network, an international non-governmental organization network for a toxics-free future. POPs stands for Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Calonzo is the third Filipino to receive the prestigious award. In 2003 Von Hernandez was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work, which led to the first national ban on waste incineration.
The second Goldman Environmental Prize awardee, Edwin Gariguez, a religious leader and environmentalist, received the award in 2012 for taking the cudgels on behalf of indigenous communities to protest large-scale mining projects in the Philippines.
Awarded annually to environmental heroes from each of the six inhabited continental regions, the Goldman Environmental Prize recognizes grassroots activists for significant achievements to protect the environment. Calonzo’s group’s advocacy prompted the Philippine government to push for the elimination of lead in paints. Currently, 85 percent of the paint market in the Philippines is free of lead, a harmful toxic heavy metal, exposure to which causes a number of health problems, especially to children.
Calonzo’s group also focused on making schools use lead-free paints to protect schoolchildren. The awarding was held at the San Francisco Opera House in San Francisco, California, on April 24.
This year’s other awardees include Colombia’s Francia Marquez, a leader of the Afro-Colombian community, who pressured the Colombian government and organized the women of La Toma, in the Cauca region, to stop illegal gold mining on their ancestral land.
Claire Nouvian from France, a defender of the oceans and marine life, led a focused data-driven campaign against the destructive-fishing practice of deep-sea bottom trawling.
Makoma Lekalakala and Liz Mcdaid from South Africa were recognized for building a broad coalition to stop South Africa’s massive nuclear deal with Russia. Their work resulted in a landmark legal victory against the secret $76-billion deal, protecting South Africa from lifetimes of nuclear waste.
For leading a citizens’ movement that tested the tap water in Flint, Michigan, and exposed the Flint water crisis, Leeanne Walters from the United States, joined this year’s awardees. The exposé compelled the local state and federal governments to take action to ensure access to clean drinking water.
Vietnam’s Khanh Nguy Thi, who used scientific research and engaged Vietnamese state agencies to advocate for sustainable long-term energy projections and reduction in coal power dependency in Vietnam, helped eliminate 115 million tons of annual carbon-dioxide emissions from Vietnam.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by the late San Francisco civic leaders and philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman.