Congratulations to our 2022 Force of Nature Honorees:
International Women’s Day at Pure Earth
Read Press Release here
Pure Earth’s 2022 International Women’s Day celebrations took place in an intimate ceremony at the offices of Covington & Burling in New York City, with a simultaneous event in Mexico, and mini watch parties around the world.
In Mexico, the event featured celebrity chef Graciela Montaño introducing the new Pure Earth’s Kitchen cookbook that she curated. The cookbook contains recipes from Mexican and Indian chefs, and tips on how to keep your food and kitchen safe from toxins.
Our Force of Nature event included a preview of a powerful video spotlighting the impact pollution has on maternal and child health. The mini documentary tells the story of a village in Senegal, which lost 18 children to lead poisoning, and how Pure Earth worked with the village’s mothers to stop the lead exposures. Look out for the full video later this summer.
Pure Earth’s Force of Nature awards celebrate the strength and achievements of our honorees as well as countless women the world over working everyday to solve pollution, protect their families and communities, and advocate on behalf of the most vulnerable. Congratulations to all.
Learn more about our International Women’s Day Force of Nature awards.
Carol Browner
Carol Browner was the longest serving Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is currently Senior Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP. She has demonstrated a lifelong dedication to protecting vulnerable populations and promoting environmental equity.
Browner’s visionary leadership changed the way the U.S. and the world approach pollution and public health. Among her numerous achievements, she championed the EPA’s first policy effort to address health risks to children from exposure to environmental hazards, and established EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection.
“The most at risk population is frequently children, pregnant women, poor communities. So we… began a whole effort to change how the EPA would set a standard to focus on the most at risk population because we knew that if we protected them, we would protect everybody. This was sort of revolutionary for the time…. Out of that came the creation of the children’s office, and an executive order… directing the entire government to think differently about how we protect children and how each agency had a role to play.
When it comes to lead poisoning, we know exactly what lead does to children, our environment, to adults. We know what to do about it. We need to be about making that happen. And that’s Pure Earth, UNICEF, Clarions, and that’s all of you… who work so diligently on this matter. No child, should no community, should experience lead poisoning.”- Carol Browner
Thanks to Rep. Debbie Dingell and Rep. Jerry McNerney for their Congressional Record Statements in Carol Browner’s honor:
“I rise today to recognize Ms. Carol Browner on being awarded the “Force of Nature” award by global non-profit Pure Earth…She was named winner of the “Force of Nature Award” for this year because of her ongoing efforts to protect children from environmental hazards, and for her recent establishment of the Protecting Every Child’s Potential lead contamination prevention initiative.”- Read the full Congressional Record Statement from Rep. Debbie Dingell.
“Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Carol Browner, who is this year’s recipient of the Pure Earth Force of Nature Award… She continues to work to combat environmental risks to children’s health through a public-private partnership that is tackling the global lead poisoning crisis, which impacts 800 million children in low- and middle-income countries.”- Read the full Congressional Record Statement from Rep. Jerry McNerney.
Christina Malle
Christina Malle is a former human rights lawyer turned goldsmith and advocate for a traceable and transparent jewelry supply chain. Malle has been a firm supporter of Pure Earth’s work training artisanal gold miners to go mercury free, and helping them to restore and reforest areas of the Amazon rainforest damaged by gold mining.
Read her Press Release here
“One advantage of switching careers is that we bring along, perhaps, a fresh set of questions. As an attorney who had represented asylum seekers (including an artisanal gold miner), it made sense to ask: Where is the gold from? How did it get here? Who benefitted from the extraction, processing and sale? And if those transactions were opaque, who has benefitted from that opacity? Same questions for gemstones.”- Christina Malle
Netzy Peralta
Dr. Netzy Peralta is an anthropologist by training, and also a member of the Nahua community, the largest indigenous group in Mexico. Her personal connection to the indigenous community and insight into local cultural traditions is critical to Pure Earth’s work transitioning artisanal potters to using safe, lead-free glazes under the Barro Aprobado program.
“To talk about Barro Aprobado is to talk about Dr. Netzy Peralta.” That was the moving tribute paid by Rosario Crespo, an artisanal potter who is part of the Circle of Women program and community to which Dr. Netzy Peralta is dedicated.
The mutual trust and admiration between Dr. Peralta and the potters go both ways.
“It is in the strength of the women, of the potters, of the work that is done with each one of them on a daily basis that we have found the strength to gradually change things from a local level towards a global one. It is important to understand that the work is not the work of a single person, but the work of many women behind a project, an idea…. Even the very project of Barro Aprobado is based on this idea. It is based on the firm belief that women’s collective work at a local level can make the difference. Thank you for believing in us, thank you for wanting another possible world, a world with the eyes of a woman.”– Dr. Netzy Peralta