By Jorge Chavez-Tafur The recipients of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize were announced three days ago. This Prize is awarded to individuals who have shown sustained and significant efforts to protect the world’s natural resources and the environment. First awarded in 1990, this prize is now recognized as “the world’s largest prize honoring grassroots environmentalists”, and among those honoured with it we find the previous Brazilian Environment Minister, Marina Silva, and the Kenyan Nobel-prize laureate Wangari Maathai. Here at ILEIA we are very happy to know that an old friend of ours, and a contributor to various issues of our magazines, is one of the winners this year. Humberto Ríos Labrada is a Cuban scientist and researcher, who for a long time has focused on the importance of biodiversity, and who has a very interesting experience of working with farmers to increase crop diversity and develop low-input agricultural systems. During the past few years, he has shared with our readers his experience in stimulating seed flows in Cuba. He has also described his country’s response to scarcity of inputs, in an article that was also published in Spanish and in Portuguese. He also helped us a lot last year when we were in Cuba, carrying out a study of the impact of our magazines. So from all us here at our office, and also from all our partners, felicitaciones Humberto! More information about the prize, and about Humberto’s work, can be found here: http://www.goldmanprize.org
Part of the coversation we had with Humberto last year, and with some of his colleagues, is also online, here.