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Mozambique: Anabela Lemos wins Right Livelihood Award
9:09 CAT | 08 Oct 2024
File photo: Friends of the Earth International
Mozambique environmental activist Anabela Lemos and her organisation Justiça Ambiental! (JA!) were awarded one of this year’s Right Livelihood Awards for their dedication to environmental justice, the Sweden-based foundation behind the prizes announced on Thursday.
Lemos was recognised by Right Livelihood for her work opposing drilling projects in Mozambique, namely through the “Say No to Gas Campaign” – which drew international attention to environmental and human rights struggles in the country, the foundation explained in a statement.
“JA! is renowned for its effective global advocacy, particularly against Mozambique LNG, a 24-billion-USD gas extraction project in Cabo Delgado backed by TotalEnergies,” reads the statement on its website.
“The organisation has built alliances with civil society in over 23 countries to challenge this project. By providing critical on-the-ground evidence of the project’s harm to local communities, JA! has exposed human rights violations and corporate crimes, successfully delaying Mozambique LNG’s progress,” it goes on.
“Despite operating in a politically oppressive space,” it says, for over two decades “Lemos and JA! have fought corporate-led projects that displace communities, damage livelihoods and intensify climate change.”
Lemos and JA! are the foundation’s first award winners in Mozambique.
Quoted in the statement, she said that the award “will give us visibility and provide me and JA! with the assurance that the work we do is valuable and important.”
The prize “shows that we are not just a group of people who oppose development for no reason,” she explained. “We take risks because we believe in our work.”
According to the activist, while Mozambique is rich in natural resources, their extraction has largely benefited foreign companies and government elites rather than local communities.
Lemos was born in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1953, and her journey of activism began in 1998, when she led a campaign against a Danish-backed waste incineration plant near her home in Matola, an industrial centre close to the capital, the foundation recalled.
The work of Lemos and JA! is not without risks, in a country where civil society is shrinking and government repression is increasing, it stresses in its statement: “JA! faces constant threats and its office has already been burgled. Data and hard drives have been stolen, and friends, colleagues and partners have been killed.”
The struggle for environmental justice in Mozambique is far from over, it stresses. “Lemos believes that real change can only happen when we move away from a profit-driven development model and towards one that prioritises people and the environment.”
Among other recipients this year of a Right Livelihood Award were Joan Carling, from the Philippines, “for raising indigenous voices in the face of global ecological collapse and for her leadership in the defence of peoples, lands and culture” and Issa Amro, from Palestine, through the “Youth Against Settlements” project, “for his unwavering non-violent resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation, promoting Palestinian civic action through peaceful means.”
The UK organisation “Forensic Architecture” – founded and directed by Eyal Weizman – was also given the award “for pioneering digital forensic methods to ensure justice and accountability [in cases of] victims and survivors of human and environmental rights violations.”
This year’s winners are to be honoured during a televised presentation of the awards in Stockholm on 4 December.
The Right Livelihood foundation has been honouring and supporting “courageous people who solve global problems” since 1980, it recalls in its statement. “Every year, the foundation highlights agents of change through an award. To date, 198 recipients from 77 countries have received the honour.”
The Award was first handed out in 1980 following the Nobel Foundation’s rejection of a proposal to create two new prizes to honour individuals committed to advancing social justice and environmental causes, especially highlighting change-makers from the Global South, the foundation recalls on its website.
2024 #RightLivelihood Laureate Anbela Lemos/@JA4change fight for environmental justice and a fossil-free Mozambique.⁰⁰”The Award will give us visibility and assure me and @JA4change that the work we do is valuable and important.”⁰⁰Explore their work ➡️ https://t.co/pN5cVZXX1v pic.twitter.com/0bhsis5eNc
— Right Livelihood (@rightlivelihood) October 3, 2024
Source: Lusa
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