Congratulations to Maria Gunnoe, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition!

We congratulate Maria, 2009 recipient of the prestigious Goldman Prize for the Environment! DataCenter is proud, and humbled, to be a part of the historic effort Maria and other community residents led to halt mountaintop removal coal mining – a truly historic victory – by providing critical campaign support through research and analysis.

Maria is a fierce community resident-turned-organizer that fought to stop mountaintop removal coal mining in the Appalachian region. In 2007, DataCenter collaborated with a coalition of grassroots organizations from 5 Appalachian states, of which Maria was part, to produce a policy position paper that documents coalfield residents’ experience with mountaintop removal coal mining and presents concrete policy recommendations. A delegation of coalfield residents delivered the paper to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in New York City with the hope of shifting the UN definition of sustainable energy to take into account the experience of communities impacted by extraction. DataCenter also released a fact sheet on the economic impact of mountaintop removal that was widely used as an educational tool by the coalition members.

Hear more of Maria’s story in the video below or read the UN Position paper www.datacenter.org/reports/csdpositionpaper.pdf.