A.Bayarjargal awarded 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize
EnvironmentUlaanbaatar/MONTSAME/. Ms.Bayarjargal
Agvaantseren, head of the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation and Snow Leopard
Trust’s Mongolia Program Director, has been awarded the 2019 Goldman
Environmental Prize.
The Prize was presented to Ms. Bayarjargal in recognition of her valuable contribution to protect the snow leopard habitat in Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve in the South Gobi Desert. In 2007, Ms. Bayarjargal founded the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation Mongolia while also assuming the role of Country Program Director for the Snow Leopard Trust. Ms. Bayarjargal and her team worked closely with Tost’s local communities to help create the 1.8 million-acre Tost Tosonbumba Nature Reserve in the Gobi Desert—a critical habitat for the endangered snow leopard—in April 2016. In support of these efforts, the Mongolian government cancelled all 37 mining licenses within the reserve.
The Goldman
Prize, also called the
Green Nobel Prize, is the world’s most
prestigious award for grassroots environmental activists. Together
with Ms. Bayarjargal Agvaantseren, this year’s winners are Alfred
Brownell from Liberia, Ana Colovic Lesoska from North Macedonia, Jacqueline
Evans from the Cook Islands, Alberto Curamil from Chile, and Linda Garcia from
the United States.