The legendary American marine biologist Sylvia Earle is awarded the Norwegian Rachel Carson Prize 2017 for her groundbreaking work as oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer. She has a deep commitment to the marine environment and has been at the forefront of research of the vast oceans depths for more than 40 years. She has been given the nickname “Her Deepness” by The New Yorker, “Living Legend” of the Library of Congress and “Hero for the Planet” of Time Magazine.

Sylvia Earle has led more than 100 expeditions and clocked more than 7,000 hours underwater. She was captain of the first fully female team to live under water in 1970, and with her research colleagues received a reception at the White House. In 1979 she did a deeper solo dive than any other woman before or since. In the 1980s, she started Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies to design subsea vessels for previously unavailable depths. In the early 1990s she worked as Chief Scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Few people have done more to create engagement, strengthen research and knowledge, and contribute to a better marine environment than Sylvia Earle. She won the TED-talk award in 2009 and fights relentlessly to ensure that marine conservation areas cover 20 % of the world’s ocean by 2020.

Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani is an environmental toxicologist, originally from Iran, residing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Her research focuses particularly on birth defects due to war chemicals in Iraq.

Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani has been awarded the Rachel Carson prize for 2015 for her intensive work to improve public awareness on the devastating effects of war on the environment and on public health.

Sam Fanshawe is awarded this year's Rachel Carson Prize for her outstanding leadership of the Marine Conservation Society, and for her clear voice for the conservation of the marine environment. The prize will be awarded in Stavanger on June 2.

Marilyn Mehlmann receives the Rachel Carson Prize 2011 for her long-standing efforts to encourage individuals, businesses and organizations to act more sustainably.

Marie-Monique Robin is awarded the Rachel Carson Prize 2009 for contributing to focus on one of the most important environmental threats of our time; how genetically altered seed grains threaten the balance of nature.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, born 1953, is awarded the Rachel Carson Price 2007 for her contribution to show the world how climatic changes and environmental poisons affect human individuals and cultures in polar areas.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a Canadian Inuit, residing in Iqaluit, Nunavut. She has been president for the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, which is a general interest group for 155.000 Inuits in Canada, USA, Greenland and Russia. Through her strong engagement in several areas – ranging from the UN to the citizens of the Islands of the Pacific Ocean – she is calling attention to the changes that will appear globally, and which are already an established fact in Polar regions.

The Arctic regions have experienced a temperature rise twice as large as the rest of the world the last decades. When the ice is disappearing, the basis for the traditional Inuit culture is vanishing. Hunting on the ice is becoming too hazardous. For a people already living in the suspense between traditional and modern culture, the identity and belonging is additionally put to the test when their own history and foundation literally is melting away. "The Arctic is the world's barometer of climate change. We are the early warning system for the world,” says Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

In addition to the global warming, the Arctic regions are also experiencing concentration of environmental toxins such as DDT, PCB and other organic components. These are mainly transported over large distances, also as far as from South-East Asia, and they are concentrated and show the most prominent effects in the coldest regions. Such environmental toxins are poorly degraded, and accumulate in the fatty tissues of fish and mammals, including humans. Since the Inuit traditional diet includes a substantial amount of animals high up in the food chain, they are exposed to a high toxic stress. As a matter of fact, the content of environmental toxins in the breast milk of women in Greenland is so high that they are recommended not to breast feed their children.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier considers it a human right to be able to live in harmony with nature and the traditions, the way the Inuits have done for thousands of years. She has, in many fora, presented the Inuit cause and asserted their right not to be affected by the life style and high CO2 discharges of other societies to have the right to live the way they always have done. As an Inuit leader, she has also collaborated with minority groups on low-lying islands that face the risk of inundation by the rising sea water level, and made the world aware of their common, and undeserved, destiny. Through this she has elucidated the connection between ruining the environment and human rights.

“We are in essence fighting for our right to be cold”, says Sheila Watt-Cloutier. “Global warming connects us all. Use what happens in the Arctic as a vehicle to connect us all, so that we may understand that the planet and its people are one. The Inuit hunter who falls through the depleting and unpredictable sea ice is connected to the cars we drive, the industries we rely upon, and the disposable world we have become.”

http://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/index.php?ID=316&Lang=En

Professor Malin Falkenmark at Stockholm International Water Institute is awarded the Rachel Carson Prize 2005 for her long standing research for an ecologically defensible use of the resources of the earth, focusing at the same time on sufficient water supply for people all over the world. Her work has always implied a natural as well as a sociological scientific approach.

The name of the prize winner is made public today, on Norway's centennial anniversary 1905-2005, which celebrates the peaceful dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905. The Prize ceremony will take place in Stavanger during the National Science Week in September. The prize was initiated in Stavanger, Norway in 1991, and the biennial prize is awarded to a woman who has distinguished herself in outstanding work for the environment, in Norway or internationally.

Malin Falkenmark was born on November 21st, 1925. She is Fil.Lic from Uppsala University, 1964, Ph.D. Honoris causa, Linköping University, 1975, and Professor of Applied and International Hydrology, 1986. She spent most of her scientific career as Executive Secretary of the very active National Committee for Unesco’s International Hydrological Decade Programme. This position, and her own research, made her internationally acknowledged and highly respected. Since 1976 she has been involved in interdisciplinary research at The Dept. for Water and Environment Studies at Linköping University, a school for Ph.D. students. After her formal retirement, she has continued her research activities.

Malin Falkenmark has also been a scientific adviser to Stockholm Water Company, where she for many years was Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee of the annual Stockholm Water Symposia. She has had a number of international positions, many of them administered by the United Nations. She has been invited as a key speaker to a large number of international conferences. She is a future-oriented water scientist, with focus on man/land/water/ecosystems and their political implications.

Similarly to Rachel Carson, she is both a scientist and a writer. Among her most important publications are: "Water for a Starving World" (1976), "World freshwater problems. Call for a new realism." (1997), "Freshwater as shared between societies and ecosystems" (2003), and "Balancing water for humans and nature" (2004).

Åshild Dale, born in 1944, has been awarded the Rachel Carson Prize 2003. She receives the prize for her long-standing contributions to nature and the environment in the broader sense, both locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Her most important achievements have been the realization of vital aspects in the field of nature- and culture conservation, where especially children and young people have been at center stage.

Through her work as a farmer and in her role as manager of natural and cultural resources from fjords to high mountains in central Norway, she has translated words like "Green Care", "watercourse conservation", "cultivated landscape and biological diversity", "mountain farming culture", and "international volunteering" into action. Her farm and mountain farm have been hosts to children and young people, Norwegian and foreign, who through practical work and active participation have acquired an understanding of biological diversity and green values. Nature and environmental management are central concepts in everything she shares.

Åshild Dale has initiated a series of projects, which in the end led to the establishment of the national organisation "Norsk Seterkultur" (Norwegian Mountain Farming Association). This is an organization that focuses on the crucial role of mountain farming in Norwegian agricultural traditions, and promotes an organic and biologically sustainable management of common grounds resources in Norway - and in many other mountainous countries - which has been dwindling in the last decades, and which is now encompassed with dawning interest.

Åshld Dale has published popular science articles in a series of newspapers, magazines and television programmes, yearbooks, research reports (Nordland Reasearch), FAO reports, a.o.

In 2000 she won the international "Prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life" presented by the Women's World Summit Foundation. Two years later, together with her husband, she received "Seterprisen 2002" (Mountain Farming Prize 2000) from the Royal Norwegian Society for Development.

Åshild Dale is a farmer and lives in Sunnmøre, she has studied business and tourism, and has work experience from tourism, Norwegian Trade Council and National Assosciation of Local Newspapers. She has promoted green values since 1970.

Renate Künast is Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in Germany. She was born December 15, 1955 in Recklinghausen in then West-Germany.

She went to the polytechnic high school in Düsseldorf, worked as a social worker at the penitentiary Berlin-Tegel from 1977 to –79, before she went on to university, earned a law degree and started practising law in Berlin.

Ms Künast actively joined the anti-nuclear movement in the late -70s and was particularly involved in the battle against a recycling plant and deposit for atomic waste in Gorleben.

In 1979 she joined the «Alternative List», the precursor to the Green party, and has since had various assignments within the party and in the local government in Berlin. She has been a fervent advocate for civil rights and citizens’ participation in democratic processes, especially after the German reunion. Equal rights and legal rights for minorities have also been causes close to her heart.

In June 2000 Renate Künast was elected spokesperson of the Green party by the Central Committee. After having been appointed Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in the red-green German coalition government in January 2001, she left her position in the Green party, because Bündnis 90/Green party in its by-laws requires a line between government assignments and party positions.

Ms Künast is the first female Minister of Agriculture in Germany. She took office in the midst of the foot-and-mouth disease crisis, and immediately set out to reform old-fashioned agriculture. She works doggedly to promote environmentally friendly farming methods, to improve consumer safety and food quality, and to protect biological diversity. Her goal is to increase organic farming to 20% of agriculture in the next10 years.

Renate Künast is today one of Germany’s most popular politicians and the most popular female politician.

Renate Künast has been awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for her great courage and hard work for a change of agricultural policy in her own country and within the European Union. She is a strong advocate of organic farming, which avoids pesticides, drugs and other manmade chemicals and feeds.

Here you can read the speech that Ms. Künast held from Berlin when she was awarded the Prize in June 2001 (in Word).

Theo Colborn received the prize for her long standing work in the field of environmental toxicology to promote awareness and knowledge for the implications of toxic chemicals. Dr. Colborn's work has triggered world-wide public concern about endocrine disruptors, and has prompted enactment of new laws by governments and redirection of research by governments, the private sector and academics.

The prize was given to her "in absentia" by Minister Guro Fjellanger in 1999, and by the County Prefect, Tora Aasland, in 2000, when she came to receive it.

Dr. Theo Colborn has served as Senior Program Scientist and directed the Wildlife and Contaminants Program at World Wildlife Fund in Washington, USA.

She is the author of numerous scientific publications on toxic substances that interfere with hormones and other chemical messengers that control development in wildlife and humans. She edited "Chemically Induced Alterations in Sexual and Functional Development: The Wildlife/Human Connection", published in 1992.

The information from this volume and numerous subsequent scientific publications was popularized in the 1996 book, "Our Stolen Future", co-authored with Dianne Dumanoski and J. Peterson Myers. "Our Stolen Future" has been published in more than a dozen languages around the world. Dr. Colborn's work has triggered world-wide public concern about endocrine disruptors, and has prompted enactment of new laws and redirection of of research.

Dr. Colborn has served on numerous advisory panels, including the US. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board. She lectures on the transgenerational effects of toxic chemicals on the developing endocrine, immune and nervous systems in the womb and early childhood.

In 1985 Dr. Colborn received a Fellowship from the Office of Technology Assessment, US.Congress, where she worked on human and ecotoxicological issues. She joined the Conservation Foundation in 1987 to provide scientific guidance for the 1990 book "Great Lakes, Great Legacy?" in collaboration with the institute for Research and Public Policy, Ottawa, Canada. She held a Chair for three years with the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and in 1993 was given a three year Pew Fellows Award.

Dr. Colborn earned a Ph.D. (distributed minors in epidemiology, toxicology and water chemistry),at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Zoology; an M.A in science (freshwater ecology) at Western State College of Colorado; and a B.S. in pharmacy from Rutgers University, College of Pharmacy.

Theo Colborn's first career was as a pharmacist, where she and her husband operated three pharmacies in New Jersey. They sold these businesses in 1962 and moved to Colorado, where they raised their four children on a ranch. Theo fought as a citizen an active but losing battle to protect the water of the valley. In 1978 she enrolled in a Masters Degree Program to become a more effective spokesperson for water quality issues. Theo continued her university education and was awarded a Ph.D in 1985 at the age of 58.

Here are some links to further websites about Theo Colborn's work:

• www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/ED-Chemicals-PBSFeb98.htm
• www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/MA98/snell.html
• www.indiana.edu/~animal/speakers/colborn.html

Professor in Social Psychology Berit Ås won the prize in 1997, and it was given to her by Managing Director Maury Devine of Mobil Exploration Norway Inc. Professor Ås' pioneering work for a better environment spreads over many fields of society: feminism, children's and family policy, traffic security, anti-smoking, peace movement, political leadership, education, a.o. For more than 25 years she worked as popular educator, lecturer in Norway and guest lecturer abroad. She became the first woman to chair a political party (Democratic Socialists (AIK)) in Norway and later the first leader of the Socialist Left Party; but the most important memorial to her efforts is the foundation of a Feminist University. Berit Ås is Honourary Doctor of the Universities in Copenhagen and in Halifax, and in 1997 she was made Knight of the Order of St. Olav of 1st. degree.

Selected works: "Our Means of Transportation And Its Costs" (1971), "On Female Culture" (1975), "The 5 Suppression Techniques" (1976), "Influencing Social Climate with Regard to Smoking" (1979), "The Feminist University" (1985), "Managing Visions from Invisibility to Visibility" (1988).

Berit Ås was awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for her lifelong pioneering work for justice and quality of life for the weakest in our society, physically, mentally, economically and environmentally.

Psychiatrist Anne Grieg, specialist in child and juvenile psychiatry, received the Rachel Carson Prize in 1995. Rogaland County Governor Tora Aasland presented it to her. Grieg has during the years written articles, given papers and lectured in various fora on health hazards caused by nuclear testing and the effects of low radiation dosages on children's health. She has built up an archive of documentation on health and environmental risks associated with nuclear technology. She has worked in many fields and led numerous campaigns.

Selected works: "En verden i frykt. Fra fortvilelse til fellesskap. Omkring atomtrusselens psykologi" (A World in Fear. From Despair to Solidarity. On the Threat of the A-bomb and Its Physiology, 1984); "Resepter For A Sick World" (Prescription For A Sick World, 1985); "Barn i atomalderen" (Children of the Nuclear Age, 1987); "Helsevirkninger av miljøforurensing med radioaktive stoffer" (Health Hazards Caused By Radioactive Pollution To The Environment, 1990); "Aldri mer Hiroshima? (Hiroshima - Never Again?, 1992).

Anne Grieg was awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for her literary research and educational work on the consequences of pollution from radioactive substances, with particular reference to affected areas all around the world.

Dr. Med. Vet. Bergljot Børresen was the winner candidate of the Rachel Carson Prize in 1993 and Dr. Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian Scientist and Explorer, presented it to her. Mrs. Børresen is Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in the field of clinical patophysiology.

Her global consciousness was awakened in the early sixties when she got involved in an educational project for your women in Lima, Peru. As a young veterinary scientist she co-authored a political report on the environmental consequences of the incipient offshore oil industry.

Her work as a teacher in population genetics as well as her research in the field of clinical patophysiology made her well equipped for her membership in the Norwegian government's Commission on Nuclear Safety during the 1970s. Here she was assigned the study of the environmental consequences of major accidents. Thus in 1968 she was the first to alert the Norwegian community to the seriousness of the Chernobyl accident. As a follow-up of this work she was on the Board of the Norwegian Organization against Nuclear Weapons, as well as a co-founder of Norwegian Physicians against Nuclear War.

Børresen was editor's consultant on the books "Med atomvåpen som pressmiddel" (Nuclear Arms As Deterrent, 1987), "Sunken Nuclear Submarines" (1990), and "Kjernevåpen - Hva nå?" (Nuclear Arms - Now What?, 1995)

Selected works: "Kunsten å bli tam" (the Art of Domestication, 1994); "Den ensomme apen. Instinkt på avveie" (The Lonely Ape. Instincts astray, 1996).

Bergljot Børresen got the Rachel Carson Prize for many decades of perseverant work to promote environmental awareness for the implications of nuclear and chemical pollution, through books, articles and the mass media - a work permeated by insight, wit and love for the ecological wholeness of which we are a part.

Sidsel Mørck received the Rachel Carson Prize of 1991. Norwegian Minister of Culture Åse Kleveland presented it to her. Through books, papers, more than a hundred articles and editorials on environmental conservation, as well as speeches and poetry, Sidsel Mørck has battled for the protection of our environment. As Rachel Carson herself she has been portrayed as a prophet of the Day of Judgement, but this has never made her loose footing.

In 1988 she was awarded the Norwegian Leftist Party's Environment Prize, and in 1990 she won the Honour of Free Speech for "brave use of the word in the combat for the environment".

Selected works: "Stumtjenere" (Silent Servants, 1978); "Framtida er nå" (Future Is Now, 1979); "Ingen røk uten ild" (No Smoke Without Fire, 1982); "Ikke til salgs" (Not For Sale, 1983); "Heia Gamleparken" (Come On Old Park, 1990).

Sidsel Mørck received the Rachel Carson Prize for courageous and tireless environmental struggle for more than 20 years, particularly directed at industrial pollution.