Over The Horizon

Environmental Prize for Kiwi

A New Zealander was one of six environmental workers from around the world who were recognised in the seventh annual Goldman Environmental Prizes. Each of the 1996 winners received a "no strings attached" award of US$75,000 from the Goldman Environmental Foundation of San Francisco.

Bill Ballantine, who works with the University of Auckland's Leigh Marine Laboratory, won the Island Nations category.

A marine biologist, Ballantine has been successfully promoting the establishment of "no-take" marine reserves, where no fishing, extractions, construction, or discharge are allowed, both in New Zealand and internationally. These unprecedented, and often controversial, reserves are widely considered to be a critical means of protecting marine resources which are quickly being depleted around the globe.

He was very active in a six-year fight to enact New Zealand's Marine Reserve Act in 1971, and then continued his campaign to create New Zealand's first marine reserve at Leigh Marine Laboratory in 1977, one of the first marine "no-take" reserves in the world.

Today there are 13 reserves in New Zealand and at least 25 further proposals are being considered. Ballantine's goal is to convert 10% of all of New Zealand's marine habitats to reserves by the year 2000. Internationally, New Zealand's reserves are being watched closely and are providing a model for protection of marine resources.

Other winners included:

• a Mexican from the Sierra Madre who, undeterred by local drug lords and three attempts on his life, is trying to create a five-million-acre biosphere reserve to protect North America's most biologically diverse mountain range
• a public interest attorney in India, who singlehandedly won 40 landmark environmental judgements from the Supreme Court, leading to a reduction of the industrial pollution that has fouled the Ganges River and eroded the marble facade of the famed Taj Mahal
• from Uganda, a reporter whose exposés have created greater environmental consciousness in the Ugandan public and have persuaded the government to create several national parks.

"This year's winners demonstrate that even for professionals -- journalists, scientists and lawyers -- going beyond what is normally anticipated in their careers to protect the environment can be very risky yet highly rewarding," says Richard Goldman, president of the Foundation.