Indian forest activist Alok Shukla awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize

Alok Shukla, was announced as one of the recipients of this year’s Goldman Prize, awarded to campaigners for “sustained and significant” efforts to protect the environment.

Deep in an Indian forest, activist Alok Shukla greets friendly faces among a small band of protesters sitting in the way of plans to turn the surrounding wilderness into coal mines.

Shukla has led a decade-long grassroots campaign against some of India’s conglomerates -- including one operated by Adani Group, helmed by Asia’s second-richest man -- seeking to tap one of the country’s richest subterranean stores of fossil fuels.

The movement had a major triumph in 2021 when, bowing to its demands, the government established an elephant reserve in a 445,000-acre (around 180,000-hectare) swath of the threatened Hasdeo Aranya forest, an area bigger than the size of London.

“It was a great achievement for our struggle,” Shukla told AFP this month from his base in the woodlands of central Chhattisgarh state.

“Our final fight is that no more mines should be opened and not even a single tree should be cut down here now.”

Shukla, 45, was announced on Monday as one of the recipients of this year’s Goldman Prize, awarded to campaigners for “sustained and significant” efforts to protect the environment.

Through a combination of protest marches, pressure on lawmakers and court cases, Shukla rallied support from thousands living in the forest’s isolated tribal communities to battle the mining giants.