Puerto Rico's clean-up woman

“I’m just a housewife. I work to protect my family and my community against pollution,” Rosa Hilda Ramos explains. Of course, the Puerto Rican activist, one of the winners of this year’s prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, is selling herself short.

During the 1990s, Ramos’ hometown of Cataño had the highest rates of respiratory disease and cancer on the island. This densely industrial community of 35,000 borders Las Cucharillas marsh, a tropical estuary home to many species of birds and butterflies that, once choked with warehouses, sent displaced storm water flooding into neighbours’ homes. Thanks to the efforts of Ramos and the group she helped found in 1991—Communities United Against Contamination (CUCCo)—the air is clean and the wetlands protected under federal law. “Now you can walk out of your home knowing you can breathe the air without fear—and that has no price,” says Ramos.

Ramos founded CUCCo after her parents died of cancer and decided to donate their medical equipment to neighbours in need—some of whom had to share respiratory therapy machines and oxygen tanks. That’s when she understood how dire the health situation was in Cataño.

While the Puerto Rican government and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knew the responsibility for most of the air pollution in Cataño came from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), they only filed suit after Ramos swung into action. Ultimately, PREPA paid a $7 million fine to the EPA, which CUCCo convinced the agency to spend on purchasing Las Cucharillas to protect it.

Now that Cataño has been cleaned up, Ramos has grand plans for her city. She wants to help create art installations and construct a wetlands garden. “We want to be the nicest place to live in Puerto Rico,” she says. “We want to be the crib of butterflies and the house of artists.”