The Brower Youth Awards are annual awards presented to six environmental and social justice leaders under the age of 23. The awards are in honor of David Brower and his work mentoring emerging environmental leaders. In addition to a $3,000 cash award and an all expenses paid trip to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the awards ceremony, winners receive ongoing support and mentoring from Earth Island Institute

Earth Island Institute

The Earth Island Institute was founded in 1982 by environmentalist David Brower. It organizes and encourages activism around environmental issues and provides public education. Funding comes from individual members and supporting organizations...

 staff and other environmental leaders.

North American activist leaders ages 13 to 22 are eligible to apply. Projects must have a measurable environmental and social impact and have demonstrated significant progress by the application deadline.

The awards ceremony is held each fall in the San Francisco Bay area, most recently at the Herbst Theatre

Herbst Theatre

The Herbst Theatre is an auditorium in the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in Civic Center in San Francisco, United States. The 928-seat hall hosts programs as diverse as City Arts & Lectures, SF Jazz, and San Francisco Performances....

 in San Francisco.

Outstanding Youth Leadership and Project Impact

“Outstanding leadership” means that you played a major leadership role in creating, organizing and implementing your project or campaign. We are looking for the person with the vision, motivation, and leadership skills that made the project or campaign work.

We gauge impact by how your efforts benefited the environment and community in terms of measurable results (e.g. acres of wildlife habitat protected or restored, number of people engaged in social issues because of the project, numbers of children no longer exposed to toxins, etc.), as well as movement-building and raising awareness.

Conservation

CONSERVATION is work to eliminate or decrease our use of natural resources and our negative impacts on ecosystems and communities. For example:

A campaign that plays a substantial role in organizing a local community to pass a public transportation initiative

A project that significantly reduces energy use on a school campus by requiring passive solar design and the use of efficient appliances in all school facilities.

"Conserve the golden eggs carefully. Preserve the goose or there will be no more golden eggs. If you've already damaged the goose, get going on Restoration."
~ David R. Brower

Preservation

PRESERVATION is work to protect ecosystems, species, indigenous cultures and other irreplaceable elements of the world's natural heritage. For example:

A project that secures protected nesting area for an endangered songbird

A campaign that plays a substantial role in blocking development of Native sacred sites via ongoing peaceful civil disobedience (demonstrations, street theater, marches)

Restoration

RESTORATION is work to re-establish the healthy functioning of ecosystems; parts of ecosystems; and human communities that manage ecosystems. For example:

A project that reclaims an abandoned urban lot, creates an organic garden.

A campaign that works to eliminate carbon emissions and mitigates the impacts of global warming.

Selection Process

The Brower Youth Award recipients are selected by an independent panel of judges, including activists, educators, journalists, and environmental advocates. The Selection Committee changes for each cycle of the Brower Youth Awards. Each jury is made up of experts from a range of disciplines. Supported by a committee of Brower Youth Awards alumni and the Earth Island Institute staff, the Selection Committee ensures that award recipients are engaged in bold, visionary, and powerful leadership and activism.

Since 2000, more than 50 experts have served on the Brower Youth Awards Selection Committee.

The 2009 Selection Committee consisted of Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben

William Ernest "Bill" McKibben is an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. He is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College...

, author-educator-environmentalist; Josh Dorfman, The Lazy Environmentalist; Lynn Hirshfield, Participant Media; Rha Goddess

Rha Goddess

Rha Goddess is a hip-hop artist and playwright who coined the term "floetry" and independently released a solo album, Soulah Vibe, in 2000. Rha Goddess has collaborated with artists like Zulu Nation, The Last Poets, and Chuck D...

, hip hop artist; Thao Pham, Clif Bar

Clif Bar

Clif Bar & Company is an American company that produces organic foods and drinks marketed towards active people. Their flagship product, CLIF BAR, was created in 1992 by owner Gary Erickson. The company's headquarters are in Emeryville, California....

; Barbara Brower, Professor at Portland State and daughter of David Brower; Angie Coiro

Angie Coiro

Angie Coiro is an American talk radio host. She is host of on KKGN in San Francisco. Prior to that, she was the host of Mother Jones Radio on Air America Radio...

, host of the Angie Coiro Show; Dave Foreman, Rewilding Institute

Rewilding Institute

The Rewilding Institute is an organization concerned with the integration of traditional wildlife and wildlands conservation to advance landscape-scale conservation...

; Phillipe Cousteau, EarthEcho Intl; and Dune Lankard, Redzone

Redzone

Redzone is a multi-genre band from London, England.They were pioneering in their use of real instruments that are then sampled and processed, and of the Internet to distribute music and video....

.

2010

• Freya Chay, 15, Kenai, AK: energizing the Alaskan legislature
• Marcus Grignon, 21, Keshena, WI: Encouraging Sustainability on the Menominee Reservation
• De’Anthony Jones, 18, San Francisco, CA: Fostering Service Learning
• Ana Elisa Peréz-Quintero, 20, San Juan, PR: Promoting Environmental Education
• Varsha Vijay, 22, Coralville, IA: Empowering Amazon Tribes with Information
• Misra Walker, 18, Bronx, NY: Getting People to the Park

2009

• Robin Bryan, 21, Winnipeg, MB: helped save nearly 1 million acres (4,046.9 km²) of boreal forest from industrial logging
• Sierra Crane-Murdoch, 21, Middlebury, VT: co-founded Power Past Coal to spotlight communities impacted by the mining, processing, and buring of coal
• Alec Loorz, 15, Ventura, CA: speaks to thousands about the impact of climate change on the next generation
• Diana Lopez, 20, San Antonio, TX: co-created an organic garden at a site in San Antonio, Texas as part of the struggle for environmental justic
• Adarsha Shivakumar, 16, Pleasant Hill, CA: created Project Jatropha for a biofuel solution in rural India
• Hai Vo, 22, Irvine, CA: transformed the food purchasing and eating practices at universities across California

2008

• Marisol Becerra, 18, Chicago, IL: mapping and inventory of industrial toxins
• Jessie-Ruth Corkins, 17, Bristol, VT: leadership of the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative
  Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative
  Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative is a non-profit organization that works to establish sustainability in the Vermont heating sector. The organization advocates biomass fuels over fossil fuels...
  
  
• Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, 21, St. Paul, MN: spearheading the creation of the Clean Energy Revolving Fund (CERF) at Macalester College
  Macalester College
  Macalester College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 as a Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian college. Its first class entered September 15, 1885. The college is located on a campus in a historic residential neighborhood...
  
  
• Kari Fulton, 22, Washington, DC: co-founding the Loving Our City, Loving Ourselves (LOCLOS) campus and community initiative, as well as training young leaders of color through the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative
• Phebe Meyers, 18, Woodstock, VT: co-founding Change the World Kids, which focuses on permanently creating a migratory corridor in the Costa Rican rainforest, restoring it with native trees, and inspiring others to protect the global environment
• Ivan Stiefel, 22, Mullica Hill, NJ: co-creating an alternative spring break for university students to stand in solidarity with communities affected by coal industry abuses

2007

• Rachel Barge, 21, Berkeley, CA: creating The Green Initiative Fund, a student fee referendum passed by the students at the University of California - Berkeley
• Erica Fernandez, 16, Oxnard, CA: mobilizing the youth and Latino voices in her community against a liquified natural gas facility off the coast of Oxnard
• Q'Orianka Kilcher
  Q'Orianka Kilcher
  Q'orianka Waira Qoiana Kilcher is a U.S. actress, singer and activist. She is best known for her role as Pocahontas in the 2005 film The New World, directed by Terrence Malick. Her second memorable film role is Princess Kaiulani in Princess Kaiulani.-Early life:Kilcher was born in Schweigmatt,...
  
  , 17, Santa Monica, CA: directing publicity and media attention from a recent film towards the plight faced by the Achuar
  Achuar
  The Achuar are an Amazonian community of some 18,500 individuals along either side of the border in between Ecuador and Peru. As of the early 1970s, the Achuar were one of the last of the Jivaroan groups still to be spared the effects of western contact....
  
   community of Peru
  Peru
  Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
  
  
• Alexander Lin, 14, Westerly, RI: collecting 21,000 pounds of E-waste and helping to draft and pass a state-wide bill banning the dumping of E-waste
• Carlos Moreno, 19, Boston, MA: addressing the increase of violence in Boston and creating more opportunities for summer youth employment with his Summer Jobs Campaign
• Jon Warnow, 23, Burlington, VT: developing an internet strategy for Step It Up 2007, a coordinated national day of climate action

2006

• Jessica Assaf, 16, San Rafael, CA: creating "Operation Beauty Drop" during which large bins were placed in public malls for teenagers to drop off their toxic beauty products
• May Boeve, 21, Middlebury, VT: traveling on The Road to Detroit, a 15000 miles (24,140.1 km) road trip around the country to collect over 11,000 pledges to buy union-made, clean cars when they're made available
• Karoline Evin McMullen, 16, Chesterland, OH: founding Save Our Stream, which advocated for the restoration of the Chagrin River
  Chagrin River
  The Chagrin River is located in Northeast Ohio. The river has two branches, the Aurora Branch and East Branch. Its name is believed to stem from what the local Erie Indians used to call it, the "Sha-ga-rin", or "Clear Water". Given the clear flowing nature of especially the East Branch of the...
  
  
• Alberta Nells, 16, Flagstaff, AZ: mobilizing youth to successfully halt the development of an Arizona ski resort on peaks held sacred by over 13 Native American Nations
• Elissa Smith, 21, Ottawa, ON: influencing U.S. policy and participating in bilateral climate negotiations with China, Brazil, India, and Kenya as a Canadian government delegate
• Ruben Vogt, 22, El Paso, TX: founding CYnergy Fellowship, dedicated to empowering students to tackle prevalent issues by devising effective community-based solutions

2005

• Kayla Carpenter, 17, and Erika Chase,17, Hoopa, CA: organizing the Salmon Run Relay to educate the community about the Klamath and Trinity Rivers, their fish populations, and native diet and cultures
• Andrea Garza, 21, Albuquerque, NM: founding Esperanza Unida, a group focused on social and environmental justice in her hometown Brownsville, Texas
• Jessica Rimington, 19, Cotuit, MA: launching the One World Youth Project to promote cultural exchange, youth leadership and community service around the world
• Daniel Rosen, 19, Flagstaff, AZ: organizing "All Peoples Power Summit: Building Communities of Hope, Strength and Sustainability," which brought 200 youth from around the globe
• La Constance Shahid, 18, San Francisco, CA: restoring the Yosemite Wetlands in Bayview-Hunters Point and working to combat the destructive effects of industrialization and landfills
• Zander Srodes, 15, Placidia, FL: publishing the Turtle Talks Activity book, curricula, and other materials to promote conservation of loggerhead turtles

2004

• Lily Dong, 16, South Pasadena, CA: protected and restored the last remaining undeveloped area in Los Angeles, the Arroyo Seco
• Hannah McHardy, 17, Seattle, WA: founded The Old Growth Project to persuade her high school to switch from using virgin fiber paper to 100 percent post-consumer-waste paper

• Billy Parish, 22, New Haven, CT: rallied students at hundreds of colleges around the Northeast to take on global warming with The Climate Campaign

• Eugene Pearson, 21, Boulder, CO: convinced administration to make CU-Boulder's building standards the greenest in the country

• Christina Wong, 21, Sacramento, CA: founded a local chapter of the League of Conservation Voters, a non-partisan watchdog organization at UC-Berkeley
• Shadia Wood, 17, New York, NY: spent years lobbying to pass legislation on New York's Superfund, even constructing a lemonade stand in front of the Capitol to raise money

2003

• Rachel Ackoff, 18, Claremont, CA: organized trainings to give activists tools to work for a global trade system that protected the rights of the environment and working people
• Andrew Azman, 21, Owings Mill, MD: founded CU Biodiesel, to switch University of Colorado buses and City of Boulder buses from petroleum diesal fuel to vegetable oil biodiesel fuel
• Whitney Cushing, 16, Homer, AK: founded Homer Alaskan Youth for Environmental Action (HAYEA) who successfully stopped oil and gas development near native villages
• Andrew Hunt, 22, Bethesda, MD: established a Maryland-wide network of college and high school student environmental activists to affect public policy
• Illai Kenney, 14, Jonesboro, GA: cofounded Georgia Kids Against Pollution in response to the growing numbers of local children with asthma in the Atlanta metro area
• Thomas Nichols, 14, Corrales, NM: conceived and implemented a program to preserve the fragile Rio Grande ecosystems

2002

• Jessian Choy, 21, Santa Cruz, CA: founded the Student Environmental Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz
• Max Harper, 20, Hotchkiss, CO: developed a Sustainable Living Theme House at Colorado College to engage students in environmental sustainability
• Stephanie Lacy, 17, Bandera, TX: initiated a paper recycling
  Paper recycling
  Paper recycling is the process of recovering waste paper and remaking it into new paper products. There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper: mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste. Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper...
  
  program that diverted 280 tons of paper from landfill and saved 4600 trees
• Amir Nadav, 17, Eagan, MN: initiated and led a campaign to reduce Minnesota students' exposure to dangerous diesel exhaust
• Ethan Schaffer, 21, Sagle, ID: created Organic Volunteers, a national outreach program for sustainability and organic food systems
• Nathan Wyeth, 17, Chevy Chase, MD: co-founded the Sierra Student Coalition's Student Action on the Global Economy (SAGE) Program

2001

• Deland Chan, 16, New York City, NY: became the prime mover of the Roots and Shoots project at the 92nd Street Y in New York City
• Angela Coryell, 19, Baring, WA: came up with the idea for, produced, and directed an award-winning documentary film called An Oily Sky
• Jared Duval, 18, Lebanon, NH: founded and coordinated Students for a Sustainable Future
• Robert Fish, 23, Bar Harbor, ME: led campus activists in a non-violent direct action campaign against old-growth forest product retailers
• Heide Iravani, 18, Charlotte, NC: founded and led a school-based chapter Free the Planet!, serving as a local organizer
• Grayson Schleppegrell, 13, Charleston, SC: led a campaign to rescue endangered swordfish populations off the coast of the East United States

2000

• Barbara Brown, 14, Victoria, TX: launched the "Don't be Crude" program to stop people from using oil as a weed killer
• Tamica Davis, 18, Dorchester, MA: organized an Anti-Idling March in memory of Walter Kirnon, a young boy who died from asthma
• Matt Ewing, 20, Chicago, IL: coordinated Iowa Students Toward Environmental Protection (IowaStep), a statewide network of college environmental groups
• Dave Karpf, 21, Philadelphia, PA: directed the Sierra Student Coalition
• Ariana Katovich, 22, Berkeley, CA: created the Shoreline Preservation Fund, a ballot initiative for the students at University of California Santa Barbara
• Bethany Larue, 16, Groveport, OH: set out to change Ohio's destruction of millions of acres of wetlands

More information

http://www.broweryouthawards.org/

Application Information