Environmental, health, and anti-poverty activists from four countries will share this year’s Right Livelihood Award, an annual prize known as the “alternative Nobel,” reports the Associated Press.

The $270,000 award will be split by Nnimmo Bassey of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria; Shrikrishna Upadhyay, a Nepalese antipoverty activist; Erwin Kraeutler, a Brazilian bishop who has fought deforestation and defended the rights of indigenous tribes; and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which provides health care to Palestinians.

The philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull created the award in 1980 to recognize work he believed the Nobel Prizes ignored. It is presented in Sweden in December, shortly before the Nobel ceremony.

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