A retired special education teacher from Louisiana who led a successful grassroots campaign to stop construction of a toxic plastics plant in America’s Cancer Alley has won the 2021 Goldman prize for environmental defenders. Lavigne mobilised the community against the Wanhua plant through Rise St James – a faith-based environmental justice organisation she founded in 2018. St James parish was a sacrifice zone.”Despite this victory, the struggle is far from over. Nevertheless, the state has plans to build or expand more than a hundred petrochemical facilities, with St James parish at the center of the boom. We have to convince public officials that we want to live, we want to stay in St James and we’re not going to take it any more.”

Source: The Guardian June 15, 2021 07:30 UTC