ECONOTES : Awards for Aid at the Grass Roots

JoAnn Tall, 40, an American Indian who led successful opposition to nuclear weapons testing and the dumping of toxic waste on North Dakota Indian lands, is the North American recipient of the fourth annual Goldman Environmental Prizes.

Tall, who co-founded the Native Resource Coalition, is one of seven winners nominated by a global network of environmental organizations. They will receive individual $60,000 prizes in ceremonies today at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Other winners:

* Dai Qing, a dissident Chinese journalist whose publications criticizing the sprawling Three Gorges dam project forced its suspension.

* Sviatoslav Zabelin of Moscow, who defied the former Communist government in the 1980s to form a network of environmentalists throughout the Soviet Union.

* Garth Owen-Smith and Margaret Jacobsohn of Namibia, who developed a wildlife conservation program that has become a model to combat the poaching of rhinos and elephants.

* Juan Mayr of Bogota, Colombia, who has united diverse groups to protect the rich Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta coastal mountain.

* John Sinclair of Australia, whose successful fight to protect Fraser Island--the world’s largest sand island--from mining, cost him his home and livelihood.