[music] [indistinct chatter] [chanting] robert: many of us are trying to find ways to build a me sustainable rld for future generations. we are concerned that our planet's well-being isn't as secure as it once seemed. but on every continent there are new environmentalists who are committed to change. whether it's an individual, small group, or a grassroots organization.

they have made personal sacrifices that most of us couldn't even imagine. you're about to meet seven of these most passionate and dedicated individuals. "tne new environmentalists"-- ordinary people affecting extraordinary change. announcer: funding for "the new environmentalists" was provided by the goldman environmental prize, an award to honor and inspire grassroots environmental activism around the world. changing the world starts at home. learn more at goldmanprize.org. robert: nestled in the rolling hills and steep ravines of boone county, west virginia sit small communities and old towns. the people here have called the hollows home for generations. [whistling] maria: we grew up in the mountains.

myself and my three brothers, we had calls, and that's the way we communicated back and forth at each other was through our whistles. and mine was the call of the bobwhite quail. that's--that's the name of the town i live in. robert: maria gunnoe was born here. she still lives in the house her grandfather built. on the same land, maria is raising her own children. yet coal mining, the very thing that helped her family prosper, now threatens it. the landscape of appalachia is blanketed with the most diverse hardwood forest in america. but mountaintop removal coal mining is causing irreversible damage to this ecosystem and a water source for millions. maria: one day in 2007, there was a blast that i had watched them prepare for for five days that went off close to my home. watch right here. woman: oh, my god.

that is a hell of a blast. maria: and all of this dust of course ends up right on top of my home. people are forced to deal with these conditions all day long every day. they're covered up with dust. their water is poisoned. and no one is listening to what they're saying. robert: the legacy of coal mining is strong and deep rooted in the people of west virginia. it permeates the local culture. maria: we have a lot of what i refer to as real coal miners that are very proud people. then you have the other folks, and they're not coal mine, they're equipment operators. they put that former mountaintop, which is basically waste, into the valley and create what they call a valley fill. robert: waste from valley fills often contain toxic elements like cadmium, chromium, lead, anarsenic. and after a valley fill adjacent to maria's home

contributed to a series of devastating floods, it was clear that she had to take action. so in 2007, when a mining company defied a repeal of permits and started two more valley fills in maria's community, she testified against them at huntington's federal court. dianne: as a result, those valley fills were not allowed to move forward as the company had planned. robert: her efforts paid off in a decisive victory. the presiding judge ruled in her favor, stating that... dianne: it's a very good victory, but it ushered in at least three months of absolute hell for maria. maria was facing threats, harassment. it was necessary to have 24-hour a day security guards. don: i stand in awe of people like maria gunnoe.

she has risked a lot. i know she's sacrific a very great deal. and i have to applaud her a west virginian of renown. robert: maria sees the issue of mountaintop removal as just one symptom of a larger challenge regarding america's energy future, particularly regarding coal-fired power plants. maria: most americans have no idea where their electricity comes from. and when you flip the switch on, there's a 52% chance that you're destroying the water, air, and land of where i live. [music] robert: bali is the crown jewel in the islands that make up indonesia. its beautiful beaches and unique hindu culture make it a destination for millions of tourists each year. in turn, thousands of poor indonesians flock to southern bali, hoping to work in the lucrative tourism industry.

but without a framework for recycling or sanitation management, this population pressure reveals the dark side to bali's success. yuyun: as an international island, bali has no proper public services. in some areas you will see mountains of garbage piling up here. the speed or the rate of the services provided by local authorities do not match with the increased number of populations and tourists. robert: as an environmental engineer, yuyun ismawati recognized the complexity of sanitation and solid waste problems for poor communities. in 2,000 she founded the ngo bali focus and began working with a fledgling company that collected trash from hotels. she taught them the value of sustainable waste management. in the process, she created the first viable garbage collection and recycling company on the island. yuyun: garbage from hotels are

not taken care of properly. the hotels didn't hire proper waste collectors and ended up in a chaotic situation. in some areas, mountains of garbage ended up in rice fields or ended up in empty space. ni: initially we were collecting trash for our pigs. we just took what we needed and dumped the rest wherever we could. yuyun taught us to professionally process the trash. we've gone from paying for the waste to being paid as waste managers. robert: the facility now employs over 200 workers and reduces the amount of hotel waste to dump sites by 70%. yuyun's approach has proven the solution to waste management problems begins at the source, whether it's from a large hotel or an ordinary household. eva: praise god.

with the help of bali focus, my friends and i learned how to make these bags. recycling has improved our lives. i have learned that trash can be useful. robert: inn initiative designed to reduce household waste, yuyun looked to urban housewives as her partners. 500 families now participate in this program. yuyun: by having a household composting and recyclables collection, we can reduce the amount of waste by 50%. robert: with eacsmall project, yuyun creates a larger statement--that ordinary people can learn to be self-reliant and safeguard the environment at the same time. mira: yuyun has such an incredible passion for her work. she inspires people by seeing prlems as opportunities. robert: in 2003, yuyun and her ngo colleagues introduced sanimas, or sanitation by communities.

the project is a series of replicable sanitation management systems for poor urban neighborhoods. yuyun: before sanimas, most of the houses have no septic tanks. that situation has to be changed because otherwise you contaminate your groundwater, and it very much endangers the children's health. robert: sanimas offers three options-- public toilets, septic tanks, and simplified sewer systems. the program's success is measurable with more than 300 projects in urban slums across indonesia. yuyun: so it works. i mean, people love it, especially the beneficiaries in the poor because they are able to show that they can take of themselves. man: we alized that human empoweent is the government's ultimate job. it's helping people to become self sufficient.

this is a difficult thing for governments to comprehend. we need help from ngos like bali focus to empower people. yuyun: i have concerns that the future for my children and the future generations, they might not enjoy the same beautiful nature we have today. robert: to safeguard the future, yuyun succeeded in adding language to indonesia's first national waste management law that included banning the practice of incineration. internationally, she now consults key organizations on sustainable sanitation and waste management programs. [man singing] wanze: our whole life is centered around the forest. it's where we get our food. where we get our medicines. that's why the land mea so much to us. robert: on the northern coast of

south america is suriname, a former dutch colony. the immense tropical rain forests are home to the saramaka maroons, descendents of african slaves who escaped into the forest. now their lifestyle is being threatened, and they are fighting for their land once again. hugo: in the 90s, the government decided to allow chinese companies to come to do logging on the land of this saramaka. and they just moved to the area and started working, without inform the people, without environmental assessment. silvi: the first time the chinese came, i was working in my peanut garden. i heard the sound of the earth-moving machines. the chinese really had it in for me. they dug up my entire farm to build a road. when it rained, everything flooded. it'd make you cry if you saw it.

wanze: that's when i decided it was time to be strong, to fight for our land rights. robert: in the capital city of paramaribo, [indistinct] a law student, and wanze edwards, a tribal leader, have waged a court battle to prevent destructive logging in the rainforests. over the past decade, the pair have become a powerhouse of tribal authority and legal expertise. the government told the saramaka they would be imprisoned if they tried to stop the logging. hugo: it was hard to bring all the saramaka people together to inform them because we have more than 60 villages in a distance of 200 kilometers along the river. no phone communication. so we need to go village by village. robert: the saramaka had no real legal recourse in suriname because the law did not

recognize their collective land rights. finally, in 2,000, hugo and wanze filed a complaint with the inter-american commission on human rights. they realized that mapping to document the use of traditional lands would be a key element in their case. man: to make the map, we have to use three techniques-- gps technology, aerial photography, and oral tradition. robert: logging continued for five years as the government refused to comply with the commission's recommendations. hugo and wanze took the case to the legally blinding inter-american court of human rights in 2006. the judge's groundbreaking decision recognized land rights for all tribal and indenous people in suriname. in 2007, the government ended logging and mining operations in saramaka territory. as a result, 9,000 square kilometers of rainforest were saved.

the court's unanimous ruling in the saramaka case was precedent-setting. nearlyvery major development project in the western hemisphere must now have tribal and indigenous free, prior, and informed consent. [applause] wanze: as captain, i was delighted with the verdict. what's rightfully hours has finally been given back to us. that's why the saramaka, my people, all of us, stood together until we won this fight. [singing] [music] robe: bangladesh is a land of rivers tucked into a notch of the indian subcontinent. its deltas spread southward into the bay of bengal like a

great wide fan. yet with few natural resources of its own, bangladesh has had to resort to some drastic measures. [horn honks] in the coastal city of chittagong, a once thriving fishing community has been eclipsed by the practice of ship breaking and its related coerce. riswana: when the developed countries decide not to run their ships anymore, this end of line vessels are sold to countries like ours, who break the ships and get the iron and other equipment and sell them in the open market. robert: riswana hassan practices law. her organization is the bangladesh environmental lawyers association, or bela. she along with 60 other attorneys work in offices around the country on various environmental cases, including ship breaking. decommissioned vessels, many weighing up to 40,000 tons and

contaminated with toxic materials are run aground on the beaches of chittagong. here men and boys toil in their shadows. the people live and die among the salvage. riswana: i would define ship breaking as the trade of hazardous waste in disguise. since the ships when they come to bangladesh are not pre- cleaned,hey are directly broughto our beaches, and all the toxics run directly into the coastal area. kushi: this industry is extremely hazardous as an industry for its workers. people are there without any protection, and there's no laws pertaining to them or to the environment. and yet it's been going on for decades. man: we have yet to know the long-term effects of the ship breaking on our environmt, ecology, and lives. many old ships still have asbestos and other toxic elements.

riswana: once every month is minimum that we hear that somebody has died in a shipbreaking yard. and that is why we are finding cases whenever he we think violations are not being redressed. her name is naseema. her husband received injury from the fall of a heavy iron plate on his chest, and he died instantly. his name is mohamed. he was cutting some blocks, and one part fell on him. and now he's not in a position to undertake any manual labor. this is certainly in violation of fundamental rights of every citizen of bangladesh. this is polluting the coastal environment, affeciting the fishermen, killing so many laborers. so on that ground we move against this very hazardous operation of the industry.

robert: in a landmark legal case in 2006, riswana and bela successfully petitioned bangladesh's supreme court to prevent two ships, the "ss norway" and another ship which contained toxic materials, from entering the chittagong shipbreaking yard. on the heels of this major victory, in march 2009, the court made an unprecedented ruling to close no fewer than 36 shipbreaking yards. riswana and her organization have redoubled their efforts as environmental degradation and the physical danger to the shipbreaking workers continue. her success with shipbreaking law is expected to influence similar practices beyond bangladesh to india, vietnam, and the philippines. riswana: i will try to do whatever changes i can to see that the image of bangladesh is portrayed in the outer world as a country that can really make positive things happen.

[music] robert: in 1992, olga speranskaya wrote an article entitled, "what will the collapse of communism do to the environment?" it drew international attention in journalistic and governmental circles, and also charted the course for olga's future in the environmental movement. olga: there are 10,000 industrial enterprises which are considered to be the source of pollution, and 70% of them are built in 146 cities with population more than 100,000 people. so they pose a real threat to the environment and to people's health. robert: since she wrote her landmark article, she has compiled extensive scientific data on toxic waste from surrounding countries, including

ukraine, georgia, armenia, and kazakhstan, as well as regions within russia such as volgograd. olga: the volgograd region is one of the most polluted regions in russia. lots of huge chemical enterprises and industrial enterprises in the region, and they have wastewater treatment facilities which occupy huge territories. toxic chemicals evaporate into the air, into the soil, and ground waters. dmitri: we are standing near the chemical plant, power plant, and oil refinery. they took soil samples here and found very high levels of mercury, lead, and cadmium. we have a very high rate of morbidity here compared to other nearby regions. i worry a lot about my health and my family's future. olga: we had several projects here in volgograd, and among one of our projects was we tested pesticides and locally produced food.

and we took samples to the lab and found high levels of ddt. they took these data to the local authorities, so they know how dangerous it is when locally produced food is contaminated. robert: olga felt that knowledge would be an essential tool i addressing some of these critical issues. with her organization, the eco-accord center, she establhed an international web-sed network to disseminate information about toxic waste issues and solutions to those prlems. she has fostered more than 70 programs that have had concrete results with more than 200 organizations throughout russia and the surrounding soviet bloc countries. woman: eco-accord developed a wonderful website that explains the application of an environmental technologies to process industrial waste. when an issue arises, we go to

them and work together to solve it. without olga's help, further progress on reducing the negative impact of toxic waste just wouldn't be possible. olga: you can't work without hope. you know, of crse we hope for the best. but nongovernmental organizations alone will not achieve succs, and the same with the governmental authorities, the same with the industry. working alone, they will not be able to get real results to improve the environment. only cooperation and global partnership, comprehensive work will make a change. we have many translating to georgian, armenian, kazakhstan, everywhere. and we're proud of supporting them. 's very personal because you work with friends and you try to make their life a little bit easier. [music]

robert: president omar bongo of gabon has presided over the central african nation and its extensive logging and l resources for years. he has recently been heralded for helping to create a national park system in his country that protects 10% of its vast landmass. the 3,000-square-kilometer park system is a habitat for some of the richest and most diverse wildlife in central africa. ivindo national park is home to the kongou falls, one of the most spectacular waterfalls on the continent. however, president bongo is also responsible for forging a deal with the chinese government corporation to develop a massive venture that includes an iron mine and hydroelectric dam within ivindo national park. marc: industrialization africa without ecological conscience will bring ruin to the african continent.

today africa is still spared from catastrophes like the katrina hurricane or tsunami because we still have the vegetation that protects us from these phenomena. parfait: a lot of people living north of the falls are going to be evacuated. they can only survive from fishing. the river will be destroyed, and the villagers won't be able to fish or have clean drinking water. the river wille contaminated because of the chemicals from the iron excavation. robert: marc has managed with his organization brain forest to keep the government of gabon and the chinese development corporation in check. he uncovered contracts that should have been made public and insisted that environmental imct studi be conducted. his efforts resulted in cutting back the area to be mined by hundreds of miles and the subsequent questioning of the project by a chinese bank that was financing it.

marc: without our intervention, the chinese would be already exploiting the mine and ignoring the gabonese law. now they're trying to figure out if there's a real necessity to exploit the iron mine. i am very hopeful because the retreat of the government in this case proves that when you have the law on your side, you are stronger. this is why we think we are going to win. robert: but marc's success has led to extreme measures from the government. on new year's eve, marc and five of his associatewere arrested for threatening the power of the ganese presidency. marc feels the arrest is because of his efforts to prevent the kongou falls dam from being built. they were released after 10 days, but charges are still pending. marc: no matter how i was

treated in prison, my resolve not weakened. i think that even if i had to end 10 years in there, it is worthwhile to save what has to be saved. martin: marc is taking a big risk. i mean, what we know already is that he's been harassed, threatened, his office has been ransacked. i'm worried for him. i'm worried for his family. it's not beyond consideration that somebody could well want to put him out of business once and for all. marc: carrying this fight gives meaning to my life. it is not a personal fight or a gabonese one, but it is a global battle. this is about the future of our children. i do have convictions about this humanitarian fight, especially for the african continent. and i am ready to do what i have to do. robert: each of these stories is another indication that individuals can make an

important difference. it's inspiring to see what one person armed with courage and commitment can accomplish. i'm robert redford. thank you for watching "the new enviroentalist" announcer: funding for "the new environmentalists" was provided by the goldman environmental prize, an award to honor and inspire grassroots environmental activism around the world. changing the world starts at home. learn more at goldmanprize.org. [music] oggccccc''''''wwwwwww

>> welcome to "global 3000!" ♪ one household, one garden. alberta akosa is on a mission to help women in ghana grow their own fruit and vegetables. in china, care services for the elderly are going high-tech. what does that entail? and, the controversial music from egypt's streets that won't be silenced. ♪