Student research into a 41 km stretch of the Surabaya river that flows through Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, prompted 35-year-old Prigi Arisandi into discoveries that helped him become one of six winners of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s largest award for grassroots environmentalists.
Arisandi found that the river, which provides water for 3 million and is also used for bathing by people living along its banks, was contaminated with high levels of toxic effluent. Recently, mercury levels were found to be 100 times the limit set by the World Health Organization.
He and other activists created the first environmental education program in the region in 2000 to educate local communities about biodiversity and water pollution, teaching students about the dangers and using them to spread the word.
