Congolese activist Rene Ngongo, Alyn Ware of New Zealand and Australian-born Catherine Hamlin, who has been based in Ethiopia for five decades, each will receive 50,000 euros (US$74,000), the Right Livelihood Foundation said. The honorary part of the award -- without prize money-- went to Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki, 73, for raising awareness of climate change. Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull founded the awards in 1980 to recognize work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Prizes. The foundation said Ngongo, 48, was honored “for his courage in confronting the forces that are destroying Congo's rain forests.” Ngongo founded the OCEAN environmental group in 1994, exposing the impact of deforestation and monitoring the plunder of minerals by warring factions during Congo's 1996-2002 civil wars. He also has been working for Greenpeace in Congo.
Ngongo told The Associated Press by telephone from Kinshasa that the award came at a “great time,” as negotiators prepare to meet in Copenhagen in December to try to draft a global climate pact.
Right Livelihood Award “is a clear message that the campaign we started in is starting to be heard around the world,” Ngongo said. “It's important to save our forests.”
Ware, a peace activist from New Zealand, was recognized for “initiatives over two decades to further peace education and to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”
The citation said the 47-year-old Ware has campaigned against nuclear weapons at the UN and through a network of lawmakers worldwide that he established in 2002.
Nuclear nonproliferation also was a key theme when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday to President Barack Obama, citing in part his vision of a world free of atomic weapons.
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