Sunday, April 19, 2009

A Green Noble Effort

Juan Miranda
04/19/09
4:24


After being jailed for attempting to protect a natural wonder, Marc Ona Essangui was finally recognized and rewarded with the Goldman Environment Prize for this year; an award that has been described as “the Noble Prize for grassroots environmentalism”. Mr. Ona, who used to work with The United Nations Development Programme (where he invested his efforts to improve education as well as the communication structure of Gabon within the country as well as other parts of the world), has been fighting for the last three years to preserve the waterfalls in the Ivindo National Park. He has been campaigning against the government in Gabon as well as the Chinise Mining company that made a deal alled the Belinga mine project that will allowed CMEC, to drill iron ore in the area. Mr Ona claims that the government has not taken into account the opinions of the habitants in the area and that the environmental impact has not been thoroughly assessed, but still gave permission to the Chinese drilling company to begin its work. A damn is already being built, near the Kongou Falls, which Ona describes as “the most beautiful in central Africa”. I think this is great that he is being rewarded for his great actions. This can motivate people to take action, I feel like sometimes people are afraid to try anything because they think that they are alone in it, but this serves to teach us that there are plenty of people all over the world that truly care about the environment, and are willing to go to great extents to achieve the change they want to see. Its an inspiring story, that should push us to take action now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8000936.stm

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