On a January morning in 1969, an oil platform off the coast of Santa Barbara blew out. Over three million gallons of crude oil spread across swathes of California coastline, darkening beaches and killing marine life. It was the largest oil spill the United States had ever seen.

This catastrophe galvanised an environmental movement already gathering momentum around pesticides and pollution and helped spark the first Earth Day. On April 22, 1970 – 56 years ago today – 20 million people took to the streets, driven by a shared belief that collective, grassroots action could force change. It did: within a few years, the US had its Environmental Protection Agency and landmark Clean Air and Clean Water laws.

Earth Day is now marked in more than 190 countries. An estimated one billion people demonstrate their care for the planet by getting involved.

But caring is not the same as carrying the burden of protecting the Earth. While this falls most heavily on communities already living on the front lines of industrial extraction and environmental breakdown, activists everywhere who make caring for the planet their life’s work face real costs. It can mean relentless effort, day in day out, sustained risk and, sometimes, even violence.

And sometimes, they do win.

This week, the Goldman Environmental Prize honours six grassroots activists, all women, for the first time in its 37-year history. They have secured real victories for their communities and ecosystems, from landmark climate rulings in South Korea and the United Kingdom to stopping extractive projects in Colombia and the US, and protecting ecosystems in Papua New Guinea and Nigeria.

Their achievements deserve recognition. But they are part of a much larger, mostly unseen story. Thousands of others also carry out this........

© Al Jazeera