The Fritt Ord Foundation Prize for 2019 awarded to Nature and Youth and to Greta Thunberg

The Fritt Ord Foundation Prize for 2019 has been awarded to the environmental organisation, Nature and Youth and to prominent climate protester, Greta Thunberg.

The annual prize will be awarded on the 8 May and is the Fritt Ord Foundation‘s highest honour, and in addition to a statuette is worth NOK 500,000.

Nature and Youth are being recognised for their work in the Norwegian school strikes, which in March alone involved approximately 40,000 pupils across the country going on strike to protest for the climate, and to draw attention to the lack of work locally, nationally and internationally to find solutions to the issues facing the climate.

Greta Thunberg is also being recognised for her role in the school strikes, that began in August 2018 with Greta striking outside of the Swedish Parliament and had by March 2019 grown to approximately 1.6 million pupils worldwide striking for the climate, one of the largest climate demonstrations ever.

Grete Brochmann, Chair of the Fritt Ord Board remarked that “Nature and Youth and Greta Thunberg are making invaluable contributions to the most important debate of our time by insisting that it is not primarily more knowledge and better analyses that are needed at this point, but rather action and initiatives”

For more information on the awards visit here.