This year's prize winners, each of whom will receive 125,000 dollars, sacrificed themselves in their battle to protect nature, according to the Goldman Foundation, which runs the 14-year-old awards.

"It is a motivator to do more, to get more committed," said 46-year-old Odigha Odigha of Nigeria, who won the prize for his crusade to stop logging in his nation's last remaining rain forests. "We all have a stake in this."

Odigha says he has been followed, and his life threatened because of his work. "We should not be cowed into refusing to defend what we believe in," he said. "The fear of death should not prevent us from acting."

Filipino Von Hernandez, 36, won a Goldman prize for helping institute a ban on waste incineration in the Philippines, and for guarding the victory from being undone by corruption or industry pressure.

Waste incinerators are lambasted as the world's largest source of dioxins, toxic chemicals that linger in ground water for centuries.

"Our fight against incineration, landfills, and polluting technologies is actually a struggle against the negative and destructive forces of overconsumption and dirt industrial development," Hernandez said.

Spanish physicist turned economics professor Pedro Arrojo-Agudo received the award for his campaign to block plans to dam Spain's last free-flowing river and divert billions of liters of water to the Mediterranean coast.

"The results were so negative, I was surprised," said Arrojo-Aguda, 53, of the University of Zaragoza, who visited Ebro River towns as part of his study into the proposed 25 billion dollar project.

Aboriginal grandmothers Eileen Kampakuta Brown and Eileen Wani Wingfield were jointly honored for their drive to prevent Australia's government from building a radioactive waste dump in South Australia's central desert near Woomera.

The dump would be a shallow grave about the size of a soccer field and be a resting place for waste from Sydney's nuclear power plant.

The elders, both in their 70s who will share their 125,000 dollar prize, are among those who suspect the proposed dump would expand to welcome nuclear waste from other countries.

Peruvian Maria Elena Foronda Farro, 44, won the prize for tackling alleged environmental abuses by Peru's fish meal industry, which pollutes the coast with waste from drains and smokestacks.

Cholera, allergies, respiratory illness, and skin diseases have been traced to the discharges from fish meal, which is used in animal feed, fertilizer and preservatives.

US coal miner's daughter Julia Bonds, 51, won the prize for taking on President George W. Bush's administration in a quest to stop the practice of blasting off mountain tops to get at the minerals inside.

The process, called "mountaintop removal," is ravaging the Appalachian mountain range in West Virginia, annihilating forests and streams and unleashing noisome pollution.

Bonds, who worked as a waitress in a pizzeria, devoted herself full time to the cause after her grandson held up fists full of dead fish while standing in a stream.

The practice had been banned by a federal court, but the Bush administration successfully appealed the decision in January.

"When powerful people pursue profits at the expense of human rights and our environment, they have failed as leaders," Bonds said.

Philanthropist Richard Goldman created the award in 1989 to recognize grassroots environmental champions.

SPACE.WIRE