A schoolteacher was among seven activists honored yesterday by a prestigious environmental award for his relentless efforts to protect the Mekong River.
Niwat Roykaew, who is known around his northern border community as Teacher Tee, was awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for his role in convincing Thailand to cancel a devastating project.
Niwat along with other local river advocates along the Thai-Laos border, successfully stopped a blasting project that would have devastated about 400 kilometers of the Mekong – all its biodiversity, fisheries, and wetlands – to make way for passage of large Chinese cargo ships.
It marked the first time Thailand’s government canceled a transboundary project for environmental reasons.
“The official cancellation of the Mekong rapids…
