Canadian activists to receive “alternative Nobel prize” in Sweden

Ottawa - Maude Barlow, National Chair of the Council of Canadians, and Tony Clarke, Director of the Polaris Institute, will receive the prestigious Right Livelihood Award (RLA) known worldwide as the “alternative Nobel Prize” on December 9, 2005. Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Award is presented annually in the Swedish Parliament. According to Jakob von Uexkull founder of the RLA, the award was introduced “to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today.”

Von Uexkull announced in September that the two Canadians would share the prize of approximately $300, 000 CAD with two other recipients from Malaysia and Botswana.

Longtime leaders in the global movement for social justice, Barlow and Clarke were chosen, among other accomplishments, for their recent work promoting the fundamental right to water.

In 2002, the pair combined their expertise and research findings in the bestselling book Blue Gold. The book documents the privatization and commodification of water around the world - a rapidly proliferating enterprise enabled by recent international trade agreements. It has been translated into 12 different languages and is sold in over 40 countries.

Unlike the Nobel Prize, the RLA has no categories. “We recognize that in striving to meet the human challenges of today's world, the most inspiring and remarkable work often defies any standard classification,” says von Uexkull.

Previous awards have been presented to such prominent international figures as former prime minister of New Zealand and nuclear disarmament advocate, David Lange, Indian feminist ecologist Vandana Shiva and world-renowned Filipino environmentalist and journalist, Walden Bello.

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For more information, please contact:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249; 1-800-387-7177, ext. 249; .