The Goldman Environmental Prize, the most prestigious award for grassroots environmental work, [was awarded] in San Francisco to six activists who struggled against the odds to protect the world ecosystem. Profiles of winners: Aleta Baun, [of] Indonesia ... was born to a family ... on the western half of the island of Timor. [She] organized villagers against mining companies that started clearing the forests and taking marble out of the mountains. Her efforts led to threats and an assassination attempt by mining interests, forcing Baun, known by villagers as Mama Aleta, to hide in the forest with her baby. The movement grew despite the intimidation. In 2010, the mining companies caved to the pressure and halted mining on all four sites within the Mollo territories. Azzam Alwash, [of] Iraq ... led the effort to restore the Mesopotamian marshland in southern Iraq where he had spent much of his childhood. The marshland, a lush oasis that had been dubbed the Garden of Eden because it was teeming with birds, water buffalo, fox and otter, was drained and poisoned in the mid-1990s by Hussein in retaliation for a Shiite Arab uprising. Alwash ... founded a nonprofit called Nature Iraq and developed a master plan for restoring his beloved marshes. Despite constant threats from armed terrorists, the Alwash-led environmental movement has so far restored half the original marshland, which is scheduled this spring to become the nation's first national park. Alwash is now leading the fight in Iraq to block development of a chain of 23 dams along the border with Turkey and Syria that would reduce the flow of water in Iraq to a trickle.