Kazakhstan

Founder and director of the Karaganda Ecological Center, an organization that promotes citizen democratic processes and environmental protection, Kaisha Atakhanova is a biologist that led a campaign to prevent a legislation that would have allowed nuclear waste to be imported commercially in Kazakhstan. Atakhanova organized a network of over 60 NGOs to fight the legislation and organized the campaign that stopped it from happening. With her efforts, the visibility of nuclear contamination issues increased and Kazakh civil society was strengthened. Photo credit: The Goldman Environmental Prize