Campaigner Sarah Finch wins prestigious Goldman Prize
A campaigner whose successful Supreme Court challenge against an oil development at Horse Hill in Surrey, which has set a precedent for the approval of all further fossil fuel projects, has today been awarded a prize which honours the achievements of grassroots campaigners around the world.
Sarah Finch was selected as the European recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, with winners hailing from five other regions globally.
Sarah campaigned as part of the Weald Action Group against the project for more than a decade, with the court battle taking place over five years. In June 2024, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the permission given for the oil development was unlawful for failing to account for the climate impacts that would arise from it – specifically the emissions caused from burning the oil extracted.
The Finch ruling means that authorities must now consider these impacts before granting permission to fossil fuel projects. The impact of this legal precedent has already proven significant, with plans for the UK’s first deep coal mine in 30 years and new oil concessions in the North Sea thwarted as a result.
Friends of the Earth is proud to have supported Sarah and the Weald Action Group in challenging the Horse Hill project over many years, including as a legal intervener during the court battle.
Katie de Kauwe, senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, who helped support Sarah’s Horse Hill legal challenge, said:
“The Finch ruling is one of the most significant legal breakthroughs this century in the fight against the climate crisis.
“It has fundamentally changed the rule book for granting new fossil fuel projects, as it forces developers to take responsibility for the full climate impacts of their planet-wrecking projects. The ruling resulted in the quashing of several other consents for fossil fuel projects in the UK, including a huge coal mine in Cumbria, and it is also making waves internationally.
“All of this was possible thanks to the determination of a local community group in Surrey, who were prepared to take on both the government and financial might of fossil fuel interests. Friends of the Earth was proud to intervene in support of their case from the very beginning right up to the Supreme Court.
“This award to Sarah is richly deserved and recognises the incredible power of grassroots action to change the world.”
Other recipients of the Goldman Environmental Award - which for the first time in the prize’s 37-year-history has seen an all-female list of winners - include:
Iroro Tanshi from Nigeria, who rediscovered the endangered short-tailed roundleaf bat in Nigeria and led a community-led campaign to protect it from its greatest threat: human-induced wildfires
Borim Kim from South Korea, who won the first successful youth-led climate litigation in Asia, which found the government’s climate policy to be in violation of the rights of future generations
Theonila Roka Matbob from Papua New Guinea, whose campaign against the world’s second-largest mining company, Rio Tinto, saw the company signing an agreement to address harms to people and the environment caused by its long-dormant Panguna mine
Alannah Acaq Hurley from the United States, led a campaign against the proposed Pebble Mine megaproject in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, safeguarding the bay and its greater watershed. She acted as leader of the Yup’ik Indigenous people and on behalf of 15 tribal nations
Yuvelis Morales Blanco from Colombia, who helped see off the threat of commercial fracking nationally by mobilising others in her Afro-descendant community in Puerto Wilches against two drilling projects
ENDS
Notes:
1. Full details about the award can be viewed on the Goldman Environmental Prize website.