Inside Climate News: Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Protecting Colombia’s Magdalena River From Fracking

As a child growing up along the banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River, Yuvelis Morales Blanco learned to read the water. “Dark spots (oil spills) on the river meant that we were not going to eat,” she recalled. Now Morales Blanco, 24 y/o, has been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize — often called the “Green Nobel” — for her role in helping halt hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Colombia. (Her work is inspired by) a broader legal and moral argument: that ecosystems like the Magdalena River should be treated not as resources to exploit, but as living systems with rights - the "rights of nature" movement. Learn MORE.