""You have to go miles into another region and territory to find the trees, the forest," says Roka Matbob, who is now 35. She grew up hearing constant warnings about the environment."
"The mine near Roka Matbob's home was run through the subsidiary Bougainville Copper Ltd. While the mine had long been abandoned, between 1972 and 1989 it produced millions of tons of copper and hundreds of tons of gold and silver."
"The war claimed thousands of lives and wreaked havoc on the community. Just a few days shy of Roka Matbob's third birthday, her father was taken by a."
Theonila Roka Matbob, born near the Panguna copper and gold mine in Bougainville, faced environmental degradation from mining activities. Her upbringing was marked by warnings about poisonous water and unsafe food. Motivated by these experiences, she became an activist addressing the environmental and social damages caused by the mine, which had led to a devastating civil war. Roka Matbob's efforts to repair these harms earned her the Goldman Environmental Prize for 2026, recognizing her as a grassroots champion for the island nations.
Read at www.npr.org
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