"Alternative Nobel" For Environmental Activists

The Right Livelihood Award Foundation, which aims to promote global ecological balance, eliminate material and spiritual poverty and contribute to lasting peace and justice in the world, has announced its 2009 Right Livelihood Award, often described as the "alternative Nobel Prize."

This year the Foundation has honored, among other people, Canadian environmentalist and television personality David Suzuki "for his lifetime advocacy of the socially responsible use of science, and for his massive contribution to raising awareness about the perils of climate change and building public support for policies to address it," and René Ngongo of Greenpeace "for his courage in confronting the forces that are destroying the Congo's rainforests and building political support for their conservation and sustainable use."

Suzuki received an honorary award, which does not include a cash prize. The other three winners -- Ngongo, Australian doctor Catherine Hamlin who works in her adopted country of Ethiopia benefits Africa's poorest women, and nuclear-disarmament activist Alyn Ware of New Zealand -- will receive 50,000 euros ($74,000). The awards ceremony will occur in December in the Swedish parliament.

In a video interview with Greg Bourne of WWF-Australia, Suzuki reflected on the devastating changes in the natural world that have occurred since he was a boy. "The change has been absolutely dramatic in my lifetime. The fish I took for granted as a child are simply not there," he said. (See a collection of videos on the award winners here.)

People often say that's the price of progress, he reflected, but "I don't think it's progress to use up the rightful legacy of future generations."

Photo courtesy of environmentnorth on flickr