Whether it's taking on Russia's petroleum industry to save the world's oldest and deepest lake or replanting the forests that once blanketed Mount Kilimanjaro, protecting the planet from destruction and exploitation is a full-time and often thankless job. That's why, for the seventeenth year running, Condé Nast Traveler celebrates an unsung few who are fighting to safeguard some of the globe's most spectacular destinations, which for these heroes also happen to be home. This year's honorees are working in Bali, Tanzania, Micronesia, and Siberia—all places that deserve a spot on any traveler's wish list. Thanks to the tireless efforts of these individuals, and to their achievements in the face of formidable opposition, the natural treasures that they are protecting are safe for now. For that, we salute them. 

Winner: Marina Rikhvanova
Waging a battle to protect a Russian national treasure

Walking along the shore of Siberia's Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest freshwater body in the world, I am musing over the lake's changing colors, from fluorescent turquoise to jade green to gray, when I suddenly realize that my guide, Marina Rikhvanova, is no longer with me. I turn around to find her far behind, stooped over a cluster of bushes. It turns out that she is examining a delicate purple flower, from which she plucks a handful of seeds and tucks them into her recycled plastic bag. "For my dacha," she says with a cherubic smile. On our walk, Rikhvanova has accumulated a collection of blooms and seeds and a branch of greenery called kakalya, which she says is good for a sore throat when—remember, this is Russia—brewed with vodka. You would never know that just a few months ago, this dreamy-eyed, 45-year-old woman was on the front line, leading a risky battle against Russia's increasingly authoritarian government and a multi-billion-dollar oil pipeline that was to be built within half a mile of the lake. With her boyish haircut, sweet voice, and schoolteacher's demeanor, she seems more like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music than an environmental activist. At Lake Baikal, Rikhvanova is so exhilarated by the nature around her that I half expect her to break into a Russian rendition of "The hills are alive…" Leah Zimmerman, head of the Russia program at San Francisco–based Pacific Environment, which has worked with Rikhvanova for 14 years, calls her the "soccer mom environmentalist."

But Rikhvanova has fire in her belly. Last March and April, the biologist and her NGO, Baikal Environmental Wave, organized a series of anti-pipeline demonstrations in her Siberian hometown of Irkutsk—protests that spread like wildfire across Russia. That was surprising enough. Then came the real shocker: President Vladimir Putin's decision to have the pipeline built at a safe distance from the lake. This reversal might never have happened if Rikhvanova hadn't helped lead the struggle. "Marina's gentle, nonaggressive manner and her beautiful smile are disarming," says Lena Tvorogova, director of Rebirth of Siberian Land, an über-NGO that advises environmental and social organizations. "But she is firm in her beliefs. Many government officials don't like her because she doesn't compromise."

For the past 16 years, Rikhvanova has used her iron will to protect Lake Baikal, a 25-million-year-old lake that Russians consider a national treasure. Locals, including the indigenous Buryat people, call it the Sacred Sea, and standing on the shore, gazing at its waters, which extend far beyond the horizon, I can almost feel its mystical power. The lake is so clear that from a boat, you might think you can reach down and pick up a rock that turns out to be 30 feet below the surface. Almost 400 miles long and 5,700 feet deep in the center, Lake Baikal is home to more than 2,500 animal species, some 80 percent of which—such as the nerpa, a Siberian seal—can be found only here. Because of the water's high oxygenation level, there are living creatures even at the bottom. For decades, scientists from all over the world have come here to study ancient species and deepen our understanding of evolution.