The Goldman Environmental prize is the preeminent prize awarded annually for grassroots efforts to preserve and enhance the environment. Among the honorees profiled are:

SAMUEL LABUDDE, a San Francisco biologist who became a spy in order to document the indiscriminate slaughter of dolphins by fisherman; LOIS GIBBS, a housewife with no prior community organizing experience, who led efforts resulting in the evacuation and relocation of more than 800 families living on toxic waste dumps at the Love Canal; EHA KERN AND ROLAND TIENSUU, a Swedish elementary school teacher and student who organized a children's crusade that snowballed to raise $2.5 million to save 23,000 acres of the Costa Rican rainforest; and WANGARI MAATHAI, a Kenyan woman who planted seven trees in her backyard on World Environment Day in 1977 and went on to organize the Green Belt Movement resulting in the planting of more than 10 million trees.

The absorbing and inspirational stories of these courageous, determined, resourceful individuals serve as models for anyone concerned with accomplishing environmental change and preserving our natural world.