Laureates by Category

In a scene unchanged for generations, fishers rise before dawn to trawl the coastal waters of China’s Zhejiang province, hoping for a bountiful catch.

These days, many are just as likely to return to shore with a cargo hold full of plastic as they are with fish.

That is because since 2019, the Blue Circle environmental initiative…

On a sprawling campus in Pretoria, scientists, engineers and researchers are hard at work in South Africa’s biggest and best-resourced laboratory complex. Hunched over microscopes, peering into petri dishes and meticulously recording test results, they have a shared vision: to improve the quality of life for all South Africans, as…

Ellen MacArthur was only 24 when she secured a place in the history books by becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world in 2001. Four years later, she broke the record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe, taking just over 71 days to complete the voyage.

Her account of battling squally gales, skirting…

It was only when José Manuel Moller began living on the outskirts of Santiago in a low-income neighbourhood that he experienced what is known as "poverty tax" – the extra costs people incur due to their economic circumstances.

A university student at the time, Moller was in charge of buying groceries for the house he shared with friends.…

Quezon City Mayor Josefina “Joy” Belmonte’s commitment to environmental protection can be traced to the aftermath of the worst storm to hit the Philippines in decades. 

When Typhoon Ketsana struck in 2009, it unleashed ferocious downpours and floods that submerged roads and forced residents onto their rooftops for refuge. As the…

The massive explosion that ripped through Beirut’s port in August 2020 left behind a tangled mess of concrete, metal and broken glass. The force of the blast, in which a stockpile of ammonium nitrate exploded, was felt more than 20km away.

With the Lebanese capital facing a massive cleanup effort, arcenciel was one of many non-profit…

Growing up in a remote part of Cameroon, Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet was acutely aware of the hardships endured by rural women. She saw her mother and others labouring from dawn to dusk, growing crops, tending to animals and raising children. Many did back-breaking work on land that, because of traditional sociocultural practices, they could never…

Constantino Aucca Chutas’ interest in conservation began more than three decades ago with the fieldwork he did as a biology student in Cusco, Peru.

At the time, the breath-taking slopes of the Peruvian Andes that surrounded the city were under pressure from annual fires, illegal logging and expanding farms.

“Conservation became a…

Dr. Purnima Devi Barman, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Entrepreneurial Vision, was only a child when she developed an affinity for the stork, a bird that was to become her life’s passion.

At the age of five, Barman was sent to live with her grandmother on the banks of the Brahmaputra River in the Indian state of Assam. Separated…

When the United Kingdom Treasury approached Sir Partha Dasgupta in 2019 to carry out a review of the economics of biodiversity, the first time a finance ministry is believed to have commissioned such a study, the eminent Cambridge University economist did not think twice about saying “yes”.

Over the next 18 months or so, Dasgupta and his…