mongabay.com
- Environmental activist group Mother Nature Cambodia has been named one of Right Livelihood’s 2023 laureates.
- The award, established in 1980, recognizes groups and individuals striving to preserve the environment and those who protect it.
- Mother Nature Cambodia has played a key role in campaigns against environmentally destructive dams, logging and sand mining, resulting in the imprisonment of multiple group members and banishment of its founder.
PHNOM PENH — Mother Nature Cambodia, one of the country’s most prominent environmental activism groups, was named one of Right Livelihood’s 2023 laureates on Sept. 28, making it the first group of Cambodians recognized in the award’s 43-year history.
Born out of a refusal from the Nobel Foundation to issue awards recognizing changemakers who champion environmental and social justice issues, Stockholm-headquartered Right Livelihood rewards groups and individuals committed to advancing causes around the world. The award offers recipients “a megaphone and a shield” with what Right Livelihood calls “lifelong support” to activists striving to preserve the environment and protect those who depend on it.
“Mother Nature Cambodia is a group of fearless young activists fighting for environmental rights and democracy in the face of repression by the Cambodian regime,” Ole von Uexkull, Right Livelihood’s executive director, said in a statement. “Through innovative and often humorous protests, their activism defends nature and livelihoods, while upholding communities’ voices against corrupt and damaging projects. Despite arrests, legal harassment and surveillance, they continue to fight relentlessly for Cambodians’ environmental and civic rights.”
Right Livelihood’s jury said Mother Nature Cambodia was receiving the award “for their fearless and engaging activism to preserve Cambodia’s natural environment in the context of a highly restricted democratic space.”
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