PUERTO WILCHES — The Goldman Environmental Foundation awarded the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize to six grassroots environmental activists for their efforts to fight climate change and save biodiversity. For the first time since the prize was created, all recipients are women.

The recipients are Iroro Tanshi, Borim Kim, Sarah Finch, Theonila Roka Matbob, Alannah Acaq Hurley, and Yuvelis Morales Blanco. Each receives $200,000 in prize money, with winners chosen from each of the world's six primary regions. "The 2026 Prize winners are proof positive that courage, hard work, and hope go a long way toward creating meaningful progress," said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation.

Morales Blanco was selected as the winner for South and Central America after she fought major oil companies to stop the introduction of commercial fracking in Colombia. She grew up in a family of fishermen along the banks of the Magdalena River in the Afro-Colombian community of Puerto Wilches. After a major oil spill in 2018 forced the relocation of dozens of local families and killed thousands of animals, she began organizing protests. Her activism made her a target for intimidation and forced her to temporarily relocate. The campaign helped halt projects and raise fracking as an issue in Colombia's 2022 election.

Kim, winner for the Asia region, started the Youth 4 Climate Action organisation and won a ruling from South Korea's Constitutional Court that the government's climate policy violated the constitutional rights of future generations, marking the first successful youth-led climate litigation in Asia.

Finch worked with the Weald Action Group to fight oil drilling in southeastern England for more than a decade. In June 2024, the UK Supreme Court issued the "Finch ruling," requiring authorities to consider fossil fuels' impacts on the global climate before granting permission to extract them. Finch said she will use her prize money to keep fighting fossil fuels.

Roka Matbob, winner for Islands and Island Nations, led a campaign that resulted in Rio Tinto agreeing to address environmental and social devastation caused by its Panguna copper mine, more than 35 years after its closure. Hurley, winner for North America, worked with 15 tribal nations to stop a mega-copper and gold mining project threatening ecosystems in Alaska's Bristol Bay region, including the largest wild salmon runs in the world.

Tanshi, winner for Africa, rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat and has been working to protect its refuge at the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary from human-induced wildfires. The Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes described as the "Green Nobel," was created in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman.