Taking On Dirty Business

For the Slovenian shepherd, clean air is a basic right; he knew he had to fight the polluter

 

- Eleanor Rose With Maja Lihten Valner

THE WINNER’S MUSIC ROLLS from giant speakers, and in the crowded auditorium a spotlight falls on a tall, goateed man in the front row. As a nervous smile spreads across his long, angular features, Uroš Macerl climbs the steps to the stage. It’s April 24, 2017.

Unfurling a folded piece of paper, the 48-year-old says a brief “thank you” in English—which he can barely speak—then reverts to his native Slovenian to deliver a speech. You cannot defeat a multinational corporation alone, he tells the audience. But, he adds sternly, “Even if you are just a simple shepherd, you can win.”

The stage of San Francisco’s grand War Memorial Opera House—where Uroš holds aloft his prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize to passionate applause—is a long way from this sheep farmer’s hometown.

Uroš hails from the village of Ravenska vas in the hills above the towns of Zagorje and Trbovlje; his farm lies with the boundaries of both towns which are about six-and-half-kilometers apart. The area is in hilly central Slovenia, 60 kilometers from the capital Ljubljana. It nestles in the narrow valley carved by the river Sava, amid two beautiful mountain peaks.

This lush basin should have been an idyllic place to grow up, but by the time Uroš took over his grandparents’ farm in 1990 the once-picturesque area had been transformed by more than a century’s pollution from coal mining and heavy industry. Fruit withered on the trees, lambs were often stillborn and cancer rates among locals soared. Worse was to come.