Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari led a successful legal battle to protect the Marañon River in the Peruvian Amazon
Prize recognises seven activists fighting corporate power
An Indigenous campaigner and women’s leader from the Peruvian Amazon has been awarded the prestigious Goldman prize for environmental activists, after leading a successful legal campaign that led to the river where her people, the Kukama, live being granted legal personhood.
Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari, 57, from the village of Shapajila on the Marañon River, led the Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana (HKK) women’s association, supported by lawyers from Peru’s Legal Defence Institute, in a campaign to protect the river. After three years, judges in Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region, ruled in March 2024 that the Marañon had the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination, respecting an Indigenous worldview that regards a river as a living entity.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/21/2025 - 02:30
Seven winners of environmental prize include Amazonian river campaigner and Tunisian who fought against organised waste trafficking
Indigenous river campaigner from Peru honoured
Grassroots activists who helped jail corrupt officials and obtain personhood rights for a sacred Amazonian river are among this year’s winners of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.
The community campaigns led by the seven 2025 Goldman prize winners underscore the courage and tenacity of local activists willing to confront the toxic mix of corporate power, regulatory failures and political corruption that is fuelling biodiversity collapse, water shortages, deadly air pollution and the climate emergency.
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04/20/2025 - 09:00
Numbers have plummeted in recent years, but the problem is no one really knows why nesting pairs fail to rear young
Reaching the vantage point is a tricky business.
First, there’s a hop across a fence into Scratch Arse quarry – the stone workers used to find it such a cramped space to work in that their backsides would bump into the rock face. Then, a tiptoe through the slopes of early spider orchids and wild cabbage before a dizzying scramble down to the edge of the cliff.
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04/20/2025 - 07:00
Cuts to science, environmental and safety agencies are a rejection of hard-won knowledge gained from studying the disaster that occurred 15 years ago
Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.
In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.
Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel
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04/20/2025 - 03:30
Lack of investment and vision has dogged UK industry, while China has literally forged ahead
The fate of incoming Labour business and industry secretaries seems to be to launch emergency rescue packages for industries that would otherwise face imminent closure.
Witness Jonathan Reynolds at last Saturday’s extraordinary parliamentary recall arguing for the legal right to take over the running of British Steel from its Chinese owner, Jingye, in order to save up to 3,500 jobs and Britain’s strategic capacity to make steel. And witness Tony Benn, in 1974, offering a financial lifeline to 3,000 workers forming a cooperative to save motorcycle manufacture at the failed BSA plant in Meriden, near Coventry.
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04/19/2025 - 13:05
The energy secretary has accused Reform UK’s leader of peddling dangerous falsehoods about renewable power• Tories and Reform use the steel crisis to knock clean energy. They’re wrong: it will secure all our futures
Ed Miliband has torn into Nigel Farage and the Tories for peddling dangerous “nonsense and lies” by suggesting the UK’s net zero target is responsible for destroying Britain’s businesses, including its steel industry.
Cabinet ministers are determined to fight back against the way Reform UK and the Conservatives have unceremoniously lambasted the climate crisis agenda for what they believe are nakedly political reasons before important local elections next month.
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04/19/2025 - 11:30
If green policy is going to survive the culture wars, it needs a new pitch – cleaner air, cheaper bills and healthier cities
For a decade, green activists in Britain have been congratulating themselves on their luck. Unlike in many countries in Europe, where motorists, farmers and rightwing groups have been driving anti-climate action, the UK has long enjoyed a comfortable political consensus on the subject. But conditions for a greenlash are assembling.
Most Britons still say they support climate efforts, but the price of decarbonising may at last be about to hit our wallets. Meanwhile, the Conservative party has come a long way since it sported a little green oak tree as its logo. Last month, Kemi Badenoch declared a full culture war against net zero, which she said couldn’t be achieved “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
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04/19/2025 - 09:00
Native seed demand far outpaces supply for the state’s ambitious conservation plan. This group combs the landscape to address the deficit
Deep in California’s agricultural heartland, Haleigh Holgate marched through the expansive wildflower-dotted plains of the San Luis national wildlife refuge complex in search of something precious.
She surveyed the native grasses and flowering plants that painted the Central valley landscape in almost blinding swaths of yellow. Her objective on that sweltering spring day was to gather materials pivotal to California’s ambitious environmental agenda – seeds.
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04/19/2025 - 08:16
Bases in Norfolk, Devon and Hampshire face MoD investigation over possible leaching of dangerous PFAS into environment
Three UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats.
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04/19/2025 - 05:00
Peer-reviewed study’s findings raises fresh question on the toxic substances’ impact on fertility
Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility.
The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.
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