Maida Bilal, the woman from Bosnia, who spent more than 500 days guarding the Kruscica river in the country against being exploited has now been awarded a green Nobel. She gathered a team of women from her village and fought against the hydropower project that was to be established in the village which would completely rupture the river’s ecosystem.
The Goldman Environmental Prize is called the ‘green Nobel’, and is awarded to those who guard and preserve the environment, and is awarded across the 6 continents. Bilal is the European winner of this year’s prizes.
“We have defended the river for 503 days, physically 24 hours a day,” Bilal told Reuters. “If needed, we’ll guard her for another 5,300 days.” Bilal, a trained economist, said, “I lost my job, I lost my friends, my daughter was bullied in school. I would lie if I said it was easy, but then I did it in spite of everything. I have a daughter and don’t want her as a grown-up to face the same problem as her mother.”
Maida is now all the other plants that are to be established all across the country and has been enduring a lot of violence during her fight. Although her fight would have originally gotten over in 2018, the parliament has still not approved the bill that was proposed to ban construction of mini plants. This is getting delayed due to conflict in interest by political parties and pressure from investors.
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