Laureates by Category

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…

It might have been the neighbor’s monkey which came downstairs to join her for piano lessons, or the wildlife club that she started in primary school in Kampala, Uganda. But from a very early age, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation, knew she wanted to work with animals.

“Basically,…

If a picture is worth a thousand words, for Maria Kolesnikova, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Entrepreneurial Vision, a picture was worth starting a movement.

It was 2016 and Kolesnikova, a public relations professional, then aged 28, was volunteering for MoveGreen, a youth-led…

When Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley stood up in front of the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, she was not in a mood to pull punches. In front of world leaders, she decried the “faceless few” who were pushing the world towards a climate catastrophe and imperilling the future of small-island states, like her own.

To most people, fins, masks and neoprene wetsuits are recreational gear. But to the non-profit group Sea Women of Melanesia, this year’s Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, they are the tools of change.

Clad in diving gear, the group’s 30-plus members chart the health of the fragile coral reefs that surround Melanesia, a…