Global 500 Roll of Honour

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The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) established the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1987 to recognize the environmental achievements of individuals and organizations around the world.

"The winners of UNEP's Global 500 Roll of Honour are members of a broad and growing environmental movement that is flourishing around the world. They have taken the path that most of us hesitate to take for want of time or caring. In honouring the Global 500 laureates, UNEP hopes that others will be inspired by their extraordinary deeds." Klaus Toepfer - UNEP's Executive Director 2001

The last Global 500 Roll of Honour awards were made in 2003. A successor system of UNEP awards called Champions of the Earth started in 2005.

[edit] Awardees

Since the inception of the award in 1987, over 719 individuals and organizations, in both the adult and youth categories, have been honoured with the Global 500 award. Among prominent winners are:

Anil Agarwal, the prominent environmentalist from India
Sir David Attenborough, producer of environmental television programmes
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway
Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French marine explorer
Dr. Frederick Gikandi, a Kenyan environmentalist
Jane Goodall of the United Kingdom whose research on wild chimpanzees and olive baboons provided insight into the lives of non-human primates
Chico Mendes, the Brazilian rubber tapper who was murdered during his fight to save the Amazon rainforest
Nikita Moiseyev a prominent Russian scientist, leading expert on consequences of nuclear war - "nuclear winter"
Ken Saro-Wiwa, the environmental and human rights activist from Nigeria who was executed for leading the resistance of the Ogoni People against the pollution of their Delta homeland
Harada Masazumi, Japanese medical researcher heavily involved in the study of Minamata disease