Samoan Chief Honored with Goldman Environment Prize
San Francisco, California, 14 April 1997: Fuiono Senio. a Samoan chief from the village of Falealupo on the island of Savaii. was awarded a prestigious Goldman environmental prize in front of the audience of 900 at a gala ceremony in San Francisco. Referred to by TIME magazine as an alternative Nobel prize for the Goldman Prize was awarded to Chief Fuiono for his work in establishing the Falealupo Rainforest Reserve one of the world's first rainforest preserves controlled, managed, and administered by indigenous people. He shares the prize with Nafanua Paul Cox.
After the ceremony the group traveled to New York and Washington for press conferences and meetings with high-ranking United Nations and American government officials. News of Fuiono's prize was carried on the front page of most American Newspapers and garnered full page notice in New York Times, the Washington Post, and the International Herald Tribune. The Ceremony was also carried on CNN and television networks throughout the world.
Fuiono and Cox are among the seven environmental heroes from around the globe received the prestigious Goldman prize, given annually to grassroots heroes from each of the six continental regions making the Goldman Prize the world's premier award for grassroots environmentalists. In the award presentation, the Goldman Foundation specifically noted Fuiono's and Cox's efforts to save the Falealupo Rain Forest. In 1988 the Samoan government informed Falealupo that a new school house was needed. The village was forced to accept an offer from loggers to secure the needed funds.
Seacology founder Paul Cox learned of the village's difficult decision when he heard the bulldozers in the bush beyond the village. He asked the village chiefs if they would put to halt to the logging if he could raise the money needed to build the school Chief Fuiono Senio, 66, became the primary advocate for preserving the forest. After a lengthy debate, Fuiono persuaded his fellow villagers to accept Cox's unusual offer. He then ran 3 miles with machete in hand to stop the loggers.
After six months Cox, Ken Murdock, and Rex Maughan raised the necessary funds pledging to pay for the school in exchange for the village's promise to continue to protect the rainforest for a 50 year period. It allows the villagers to continue to use the forest for medicinal plants, kava bowls, canoe construction, and other cultural purposes but forbids logging and any activities that damage the forest.
Cox and Seacology Scientific Advisory Board member, Thomas Elmqvist, subsequently helped create the 20,000 acre rainforest preserve in Tafua, while Chief Fuiono continues to guard the forest from would-be loggers and maintain the popular reserve. According to Chief Fuiono, "It was not an easy decision for the chiefs or our village to protect the rainforest. The Goldman Prize demonstrates that the difficult decision is one of international significance.
In his last speech, delivered on April 19, 1997, at Sundance, Utah, Fuiono Senio urged the worldwide conservation of tropical rain forests. Considered the Chico Mendez of the South Pacific, Fuiono died one month later on May 17, 1997 after hosting the Falealupo rain forest canopy aerial walkway dedication from his sickbed.
