ELAW Partner Wins 2018 Mary Robinson Climate Justice Award

We are thrilled to announce that, last week, former Irish President Mary Robinson presented Honduran attorney Laura Palmese-Henandez with a 2018 Climate Justice Award at the One Young World Summit in The Hague.
 
Laura has worked with ELAW for many years to protect coastlines in Roatán and the Bay Islands. She works as a legal advisor to the Bay Islands Technical Committee, the Bay Islands Tourism Bureau, and the Roatán Reef Guardians. She is an expert on waste management and legislation in Honduras and is a member of the drafting group on a new National Waste Management Law and Policy. Laura has organized events and workshops in Roatán on waste management practices for teachers, students, and community leaders.

Here is more information about Laura’s award:
 
Each year, at the One Young World Summit, the Mary Robsinson Climate Justice Award is presented to a young leader pioneering an innovative and impactful climate justice initiative that seeks to preserve the earth for future generations. The 2018 awardee is Laura Palmese-Hernandez, 27, an environmental legal consultant from Honduras.
 
Laura’s award winning project, “Waste to Opportunity”, seeks to empower the informal recyclers in municipal dumps around the Bay of Honduras. This is achieved by organising the workers, promoting labour safety and providing seed funds for alternative and innovative processes. Having identified the lack of organisation and capital as significant limits both the social and environmental outcomes from the work of informal recyclers, Laura began the project to push for alternative solutions that would enhancing the wellbeing and quality of life for the waste pickers while also enhancing recycling and waste management efforts.
 
Speaking about Waste to Opportunity, Laura said “The project will support a vulnerable sector of the population. The benefits are not only social but also environmental -the project will increase recycling which will reduce the amount of trash disposed in open dumps that can potentially end up in our ocean.”

 
Congratulations Laura!
 
Find more information here about ELAW’s work with Laura and other grassroots advocates tackling plastic waste around the world.
 
Maggie Keenan
Communications Director


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