Activist’s Death Sparks Project
The world’s first formal program dedicated to protecting the human rights of environmentalists has been launched by San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman. They announced Monday that they are contributing $200,000 to the Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Fund, which will be a special project of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
In April, poet and activist Saro-Wiwa won the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa in recognition of his work with Nigeria’s Ogoni people struggling to save their land from oil drilling. He was executed by the Nigerian military regime Nov. 10.
“We must make sure that the world never forgets this courageous individual who gave his life in a valiant struggle for a healthy environment,” Richard Goldman said. Goldman, president of Goldman Insurance Co.
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