Activist who fought for legal rights for Europe's largest saltwater lagoon wins 'Green Nobel'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Growing up, Teresa Vicente spent long days in Spain's Mar Menor swimming in transparent waters, cupping seahorses in her hands and partying under the moonlit sky. Out there, she recalled, time stood still.

But over the decades, chronic contamination from mining, development and agricultural runoff turned the once crystal-clear waters of Europe's largest saltwater lagoon into a graveyard. A mass fish die-off in 2019 prompted the professor of philosophy of law at the University of Murcia to take action.

Over the next several years, Vicente, now 61, led a grassroots campaign to save the region's ecological jewel from collapse. Her efforts helped lead to a new law passed in 2022, giving the lagoon the legal right to conservation, protection and damage remediation.

Vicente is one of this year's seven winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel," which honors grassroots activists and leaders from across the globe for achievements in protecting the natural world. The recipients were selected from about 100 nominees and the winners were announced Monday.

“(This prize) signifies an international recognition that we are facing a new stage in humanity," said Vicente in Spanish. It's a stage where “human beings understand they are part of nature. And this recognition means that it is not a local or national conquest, but rather a European and international one."

“They call Mar Menor the lagoon of magic," she added, "and all of us on this journey have seen a lot of magic.”

The other winners are:

— Marcel Gomes, executive secretary for the media nonprofit Repórter Brasil, who organized a campaign that alleged connections between beef from the world's largest meatpacking corporation, JBS, and illegal deforestation in Brazil and helped pressure retailers around the world to stop selling the meat.

— Indigenous activist Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, who helped stop development of a coal mine in Australia's Queensland state that would have devasted nearly 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of a nature preserve, spewed nearly 1.6 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over its lifetime, and endangered the rights and culture of Indigenous peoples.

— Alok Shukla, who led a community movement that saved nearly half a million acres (200,000 hectares) of forests from 21 proposed coal mines in Chhattisgarh, a state in central India.

— Andrea Vidaurre, who helped convince the state of California's air quality agency to establish two transportation regulations that limit emissions from trains and trucks. The rules include the nation's first emissions limit for trains.

— Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu, Indigenous activists who prevented seismic testing for coal and gas in a coastal area off South Africa's Eastern Cape.

Michael Sutton, executive director of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, called the winners “an incredible group of individuals laboring, sometimes in obscurity, against overwhelming odds to prevail against governments, against industry."

Vicente was born and raised in Spain's southeastern city of Murcia, home to the Mar Menor. When she learned about the 2019 fish die-off, she was at the University of Reading in England studying how other countries had successfully bestowed legal rights upon natural resources to protect them.

To save the lagoon, Vicente in 2020 helped write the first draft of a bill granting legal protection to the Mar Menor and submitted it to Spain's Parliament, which allows citizens to propose laws directly. But the process required her to gather 500,000 signatures during COVID-19 lockdowns.

By November 2021, with help from thousands of volunteers across Spain, Vicente had amassed nearly 640,000 signatures — and the law was passed in 2022.

She never doubted she would succeed. "People had understood that they were part of that ecosystem and were excited about the idea of ​​being able to defend their rights," she said. "When people forget their political differences, their religious differences or their economic differences, and give themselves over to a new idea of ​​justice, that is a sure success.”

The Goldman Environmental Prize was founded in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda H. Goldman to recognize common people working in their communities to protect and improve their environment.

AP video journalist Haven Daley contributed to this report from San Francisco.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

Teresa Vicente poses for a photo on Thursday, April 25, 2024, in San Francisco. Vicente, a professor who helped save Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, is one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel" and announced on Monday, April 29. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Teresa Vicente poses for a photo on Thursday, April 25, 2024, in San Francisco. Vicente, a professor who helped save Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, is one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel" and announced on Monday, April 29. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Teresa Vicente poses for a photo on Thursday, April 25, 2024, in San Francisco. Vicente, a professor who helped save Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, is one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel" and announced on Monday, April 29. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

FILE - A man collects dead fish that have appeared by the shore of the Isle of Ciervo off La Manga, part of the Mar Menor lagoon in Murcia, Spain, Aug. 19, 2021. Teresa Vicente, a professor who helped save the lagoon, is one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel" and announced on Monday, April 29. (Edu Botella/Europa Press via AP, File)

Teresa Vicente poses for a photo on Thursday, April 25, 2024, in San Francisco. Vicente, a professor who helped save Europe's largest saltwater lagoon, is one of the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel" and announced on Monday, April 29. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

HOUSTON (AP) — Astros starter Ronel Blanco received a 10-game suspension Wednesday for violating MLB’s prohibitions on foreign substances after being ejected from the game against the Oakland Athletics.

The suspension was announced by Michael Hill, MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations. The suspension will begin Wednesday night unless Blanco appeals the penalty, which also includes an undisclosed fine.

Blanco was ejected at the start of the fourth inning of the 2-1 win over Oakland on Tuesday after umpires found a foreign substance that first base umpire Erich Bacchus said was “the stickiest stuff I’ve felt on a glove.”

Third base umpire Laz Diaz ejected Blanco after a check of his glove before he threw a pitch in the fourth inning. The umpires, Blanco and Houston manager Joe Espada stood at the mound for a couple of minutes discussing the issue before the right-hander was ejected.

Bacchus said there was nothing on Blanco’s glove when he checked it in the middle of the first, but he discovered it when he did his second check before the fourth.

“I felt something inside the glove,” Bacchus said. “It was the stickiest stuff I’ve felt on a glove since we’ve been doing this for a few years now.”

After Bacchus discovered the substance he called the rest of the crew in to confer.

“Everybody checked the glove to make sure we all had the same thing and he had to get ejected because he had a foreign substance on his glove,” Diaz said.

Blanco denied using an illegal substance.

“Just probably rosin I put on my left arm,” he said in Spanish through a translator. “Maybe because of the sweat it got into the glove and that’s maybe what they found.”

Espada added that when he went to the mound he saw “white powder” inside Blanco’s glove.

“It looked to me when I grabbed the glove (that) there was some rosin,” Espada said. “You’re not allowed to use rosin on your non-pitching hand and that’s what it looked like to me. It was a little bit sticky with the moisture and the sweat but that’s what it looked like to me.”

Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut, allowed four hits and struck out one in three scoreless innings Tuesday. He has a 2.09 ERA this season.

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Houston Astros starting pitcher Ronel Blanco (56) talks with second base umpire Tripp Gibson after being ejected following a foreign substance check during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Houston Astros starting pitcher Ronel Blanco (56) leaves the field after being ejected following a foreign substance check during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Houston Astros starting pitcher Ronel Blanco (56) talks with second base umpire Tripp Gibson after being ejected following a foreign substance check during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)