Awards, May 03, 2001

The following awards have been presented for work in management, philanthropy, and volunteerism:

Education. Spelman College (Atlanta) has received the 2001 Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Award for Excellence, which recognizes overall excellence and significant improvement in an educational institution. The award is unsolicited and includes a $200,000 grant, and only former grantees of the foundations are eligible. Spelman, a historically black women’s college, was recognized for the outstanding education it offers to an underserved population and the strong sense of community it instills in its students and faculty.

Environment. The Goldman Environmental Foundation (San Francisco) has awarded eight individuals in six regions its 2001 Goldman Environmental Prize for grass-roots leadership on environmental concerns. Each regional prize carries a $125,000 award.

— Africa. Eugène Rutagarama, a Rwanda project officer at the International Gorilla Conservation Program (Kenya), who helped the Rwandan Office of Tourism and National Parks protect the land of the mountain gorilla in Volcano National Park, located in the Virungas mountains straddling Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The park was threatened by war and refugee resettlement.

— Asia. Yosefa Alomang, a community activist of the Amunge people of West Papua, Indonesia, who has been jailed repeatedly for her efforts to protect the area’s rain forests, water supply, and villages threatened by damaging mining practices.

— Europe. Giorgos Catsadorakis and Myrsini Malakou, biologists and founders of the Préspa Center for Man and Nature in northwestern Greece, a community-based organization dedicated to protecting and restoring regional wetlands. In February 2000, a proposal from the two biologists led the prime ministers of Albania, Greece, and Macedonia to sign an agreement establishing the first international protected area in the Balkans.

— Island Nations. Bruno Van Peteghem, who co-founded two organizations, Les Verts Pacifiques and Corail Vivant, to protect the coral reef of New Caledonia, in the South Pacific east of Australia, from being used as calcium carbonate to control acid produced in local nickel mining. The organizations are part of a coalition trying to get the reef listed as a World Heritage site by Unesco to ensure further protections.

— North America. Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, investigative reporters for WTVT-TV FOX 13 (Tampa, Fla.) and also a married couple, who were fired in December 1997 after trying to air a story, which dairy-industry leaders fought to block, on the effects on humans of consuming recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH. The genetically modified hormone has been banned in most of the world, but is still used in approximately 10 percent of U.S. cows. Ms. Akre is in the midst of a suit over her dismissal under Florida’s Whistleblower Law, which makes it illegal to retaliate against a worker who threatens to reveal employer misconduct.

— South/Central America. Oscar Olivera, executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers and spokesperson for the Coalition in Defense of Water and Life, known as La Coordinadora, in Bolivia, who led efforts against foreign, private control of the local water utility, which charged rates that were too expensive for many residents. In April 2000, the government turned over control of the water utility to La Coordinadora.