Last night we had the pleasure of attending the annual Brower Youth Awards. The BYA’s were started by the legendary David R. Brower to recognize outstanding efforts to protect the planet. 

Staged by the Earth Island Institute, the evening was a resounding success.  The winners were exuberant, wonderful and downright inspirational. David R. Brower, served as the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, founded Friends of the Earth (FOE), co-founded the League of Conservation Voters, and founded Earth Island Institute in 1982.  The BYA’s were founded in 2000.  Brower said "People have alleged that I have inspired many young people over the years, but I say it was just the opposite." That sentiment was much in evidence last night.

The 2007 Brower Youth Awards:  A teenage Hollywood actress who uses her celebrity to raise awareness about the dangers of oil production in the Amazon rainforest, a recent college graduate leading the campus movement to halt climate change, and a high school student who launched a drive to recycle e-waste are among the winners of the 2007 Brower Youth Awards, the premier environmental youth prize in North America.

“These young heroes are inspiring examples of the grassroots citizen activism that fueled David Brower’s decades of environmental leadership,” says David Phillips, Executive Director of the environmental organization Earth Island Institute, which gives away the youth award every year. “Our honorees are smart, impassioned and, above all, energetic. They aren’t waiting for environmental solutions to come down from those in power. They are taking action now in their communities to conserve, protect and restore the Earth.” 



Each year, after a competitive application process, the Brower Youth Awards are given to six environmental leaders ages 13 to 22 from North America. The winners each receive a $3,000 cash prize, are honored at a formal awards ceremony in San Francisco, and participate in skills-building and mentoring workshops geared toward furthering their leadership development. Past winners have launched their own environmental organizations—such as the campus climate coalition Energy Action—and found prominent positions in some of the country’s largest environmental groups.

The 2007 Brower Youth Award winners are:

Erica Fernandez, 16, Oxnard, CA 
When Fernandez learned that a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility was proposed for the coast of Oxnard and Malibu that would include a 36-inch pipeline routed through low-income neighborhoods, she was outraged. She worked in concert with the Sierra Club and the Latino No on LNG group to mobilize against the plan. Her passionate testimony at the California State Lands Commission meeting was widely quoted in news articles, and helped convince the Commission to deny the project. Next, she helped convince the California Coastal Commission to vote 12–0 against the pipeline, and worked on a campaign to the governor asking him to veto the project. 



Q’orianka Kilcher, 17, Santa Monica, CA 
Kilcher is an actress of Peruvian indigenous ancestry who has used her celebrity to draw attention to pressing human rights and environmental injustices. Of special concern to her are the practices of Occidental Petroleum, which was responsible for pumping 800,000 barrels of toxic wastewater into the Corrientes River basin in the Peruvian Amazon. On a trip to Peru to promote a recent film, Kilcher invited indigenous leaders to participate in a red carpet event, toured communities, conducted interviews with affected peoples for a documentary, collaborated with US-based campaigners Amazon Watch, and met with employees of oil companies. 



Alexander Lin, 14, Westerly, RI 
In 2004, Lin read a Wall Street Journal article about the growing electronic waste crisis. When he was nine, Lin had co-created a community service team called Westerly Innovations Network (WIN) and it seemed fitting to motivate his team to tackle e-waste. Lin spurred a recycling drive that collected 21,000 pounds of e-waste and created a permanent e-waste receptacle in town that has collected more than 60,000 pounds of waste. WIN ’05 helped pass an ordinance in Lin’s town and a statewide bill banning the dumping of e-waste. Lin recently helped build an Internet café in Cameroon, and is now setting up a pilot system for providing refurbished computers to youth internationally through the United Nation’s Environment Program. 

Jon Warnow, 23, Burlington, VT 
Warnow was one of the Internet whizzes behind Step It Up 2007, a project that used the Web to stage a highly coordinated National Day of Climate Action involving 1,400 communities in all 50 states. Every action was united by a common message: “Step It Up Congress! Cut Carbon 80 Percent by 2050.” For Step It Up 2007, Warnow developed the Internet strategy and tools that were vital to making the effort possible—in just three months.  One month after Step It Up 2007, all of the top Democratic presidential candidates came out in support of the Step It Up goal.

Carlos Moreno, 19, Dorchester, MA 
Moreno understands youth violence as an environmental justice issue because of its tremendous impact on where and how we live. In 2001, the state funding for after-school programs in Massachusetts dropped from $14 million to zero, and youth violence increased. Through the Summer Jobs Campaign, Moreno addressed the violence in Boston and helped create more opportunities for summer youth employment. The Summer Jobs Campaign has initiated a crucial dialogue between the youth and city officials, resulting in an increase of $750,000 for summer jobs.  

Rachel Barge, 21, Berkeley, CA 
By the beginning of her first year at University of California, Berkeley, Barge was an avid participant in environmental initiatives. She soon realized that one factor preventing her campus from becoming more sustainable was a lack of funding. To overcome this challenge, Barge co-created The Green Initiative Fund, a student fee referendum passed by the students at Berkeley that secured more than $2 million over 10 years for sustainability projects on campus, including clean energy, sustainable transportation, improved energy efficiency, water conservation, “green” internships, and improved recycling and composting programs.