Nigeria Content Online

The recipients of
the Right Livelihood Awards, otherwise called the Alternative Nobel
Prize, were formally conferred with the honours in a ceremony in
Stockholm, on Monday.

The ceremony,
preceded by a press conference which held at the Swedish Parliament and
presided over by Jakob von Uexkull, Founder and Co-Chair of the Award,
was the climax of the announcement of the conferment of the awards to
the four laureates whose activities cover human rights in the Middle
East, environmental destruction through oil production, the survival of
the Amazon and its people, and an inspiring example for how to overcome
poverty. The recipients include a Nigerian, Nnimmo Bassey, the
Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth
International; Shrikrishna Upadhyay, of the organization SAPPROS;
Ruchama Marton, the Founder and President of Physicians for Human
Rights-Israel; and Erwin Kräutler.

Their work

Mr Bassey was
honoured “for revealing the full ecological and human horrors of oil
production and for his inspired work to strengthen the environmental
movement in Nigeria and globally.” Erwin Krautler, from Brazil, was
honoured “for a lifetime of work for the human and environmental rights
of indigenous peoples and for his tireless efforts to save the Amazon
forest from destruction.” Shrikrishna Upadhyay, and the organisation
SAPPROS in Nepal, were recognised “for demonstrating over many years
the power of community mobilisation to address the multiple causes of
poverty even when threatened by political violence and instability.”
Due to the loss of a family member, Mr Upadhyay was represented by
Jyoti Bhattarai, his daughter, and Narendra Bahadur, the Executive
Director of SAPPROS. The organisation, Physicians for Human
Rights-Israel, was awarded “for their indomitable spirit in working for
the right to health for all people in Israel and Palestine,” and
represented in Stockholm by its president and founder, Ruchama Marton.

Uniting against environmental degradation

Mr Bassey, in his
statement at the press conference, urged people around the world to
join hands and stand against rampaging corporate interests to defend
our planet and build a sane future.” “With about 60 percent of the
world’s crude oil reserves already exhausted, it is stunning to see
policy makers believing they can run into eternity on less than half a
tank,” he said. “As the world seeks cheap energy, someone has to pay
for it. With regard to the fossil fuel sector, those paying the price
for others to enjoy are the communities on whose territories oil is
found, the degraded environments and of course the global atmosphere.”

While describing
the extent of poverty in Asia, Mr. Bahadur insisted that ‘the poor must
become subjects of development rather than objects’. “Nepal has the
highest level of poverty in South Asia,” he said. “Two-thirds of our
population are poor, which contributes to the persistence of conflict.
Yet, Nepalese experience has shown that we can make poverty history if
we trust the ingenuity of the poor. To help the poor overcome poverty,
we need to adopt a holistic model of social mobilisation, which
includes technology, institutional development, infrastructure, market
access, and above all capacity-building to manage local resources. The
poor are not the problem but part of the solution. Thus, we need to
trust them.”

In a congratulatory
letter by the United Nations Environment Programme, signed by its
Executive Director, Achim Steiner, the agency said Mr Bassey’s “work in
bringing serious environmental and human rights issues to the
forefront, in particular campaign on the impacts of the oil industry in
Nigeria is admirable,” adding, that, the UN agency would welcome advice
from ERA on its work in Ogoniland.

The Right Livelihood Award was founded in 1980 and presented
annually in the Swedish Parliament to honour and support those offering
practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing
the world. It is often referred to as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize.’