Every year, the world loses enough forest trees to fill Portugal. Much of that deforestation happens on Indigenous lands and often without their prior and informed consent. But these communities are demanding change and fighting to protect their ancestral lands.

Indigenous groups are doing this by demonstrating effective conservation, patrolling forests, and at times, even taking governments and developers to court with the ultimate goal of protecting fast-disappearing forests.

In recent years, many Indigenous community leaders, such as Nemonte Nenquimo of Ecuador's Indigenous Waorani, have taken on governments and powerful corporations to protect their ancestral land and way of life.  

In 2019, Nenquimo, a UN 2020 Champion of the Earth, fronted a lawsuit that banned resource extraction on 500,000 acres of her ancestral lands. The victory of that court case has brought new hope to Indigenous communities around the world.

Securing the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities is one of the major ambitions of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a landmark agreement signed in December 2022 to guide global action on nature through 2030. 

Advocating for people fighting to protect forests and nature as a whole is also an important part of the work of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Conservationist and environmental human rights defenders are critical agents of change in conserving, protecting and restoring forests,” said Patricia Mbote, Director of UNEP’s Law Division. “UNEP has committed itself to supporting the promotion and protection of these defenders through its work on advancing human rights obligations relating to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment,” she added.

Many see Indigenous people’s push for protection of their rights to lands and territories as critical to slowing deforestation. There is a good reason for this, said Constantino Aucca Chutas, co-founder of the Association of Andean Ecosystems and the United Nations 2022 Champion of the Earth, who is also of Indigenous Quechua ancestry.

“Indigenous communities do not clear entire forests,” he said. “They cut a few trees or branches but never entire forests…the forest and the creatures that live in it are like family to them.”

The unsung heroes of conservation,Indigenous peoples make up about 476 million of the global population. Together, they own, manage or occupy one-quarter of the world’s land that is home to 80 per cent of the world’s biodiversity.

However, extractive practices such as large-scale logging, industrial farming and mining are risking both the rights of Indigenous peoples and critical forest ecosystems.

Indigenous communities are not just fighting to remain the stewards of the ecosystems on which their way of life depends. They are also demanding fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of the genetic resources derived from the forests they call home.

Genetic resources refer to the genetic material of plants, animals, and microorganisms that are used to develop new and lucrative medicines, agricultural crops, and cosmetic products, among others.

Access to and equitable sharing of benefits is one of the major goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework, recognizing that alongside the urgent need for the sustainable use of nature, is the necessity that communities benefit from what is derived from their land.

Forests are some of the most valuable resources for people and the planet. They support the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people and are home to more than half of the world’s terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects. They cycle and recycle water, maintaining steady and healthy moisture and precipitation.

Forests also play a critical role in mitigating the climate crisis thanks to their capacity for absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and helping offset greenhouse gas emissions.

However, through deforestation, 12 million hectares of forests are destroyed annually, mainly as a result of the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, beef, soy, timber, and pulp and paper. Halting this trend requires decoupling commodity production from deforestation.

One of the biggest impediments to decoupling commodity production from deforestation thus far has been financing for sustainable farming, nature-based solutions and conservation.

In order for Indigenous peoples to continue fulfilling their role as custodians of forests, access to greater finance is needed, commensurate with their role in helping avoid deforestation and associated climate and nature crises.

According to UNEP’s State of Finance for Nature 2022 report, finance going to nature-based solutions is currently US$154 billion per year. But this is less than half the US$384 billion per year needed by 2025 to meet climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets.

To help address the funding gap, the Global Biodiversity Framework calls for at least US$200 billion per year in domestic and international biodiversity-related funding from both public and private sources to be mobilized by 2030. The framework also calls for a marked increase in international financial flows from developed to developing countries to at least US$20 billion per year by 2025 and to US$30 billion per year by 2030.

The lack of adequate financing is something Constantino Aucca Chutas know all too well in his 30-year career in forest conservation.

“If you want to do meaningful conservation and restoration of forests, you need five years minimum,” he said, “But, most of the finance we get for conservation projects are for one or two years. That’s not realistic.”

For Chutas, forests are not just valuable ecosystems for all of humanity; they are also home to millions of Indigenous people around the world. And he has message for those who wish to work with them to protect and restore forests.

“Forests are something that need to be understood and respected. That can only be done with the help of Indigenous communities,” he said. “I have been successful in working with Indigenous communities on restoration because I respect them, I talk with them, I listen to them and I learn from them.”

About the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems, and restore them to achieve global goals. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade and it is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future. Over 100 organizations – ranging from global institutions to restoration implementers on the ground – have since joined the effort. That will include building political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.

• The Champions of the Earth award honours individuals, groups, and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment.
• This year, UNEP seeks nominations of individuals, organisations, and governments working on sustainable solutions to eliminate plastic pollution.
• Nominations are open from 14 March to 14 April 2023.

Nairobi, 14 March 2023 – The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) today launched a call for nominations for its annual Champions of the Earth award – the UN’s highest environmental honour – to recognize outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector for their transformative impact on the environment.

This year, UNEP seeks nomination of individuals, organisations and governments developing and implementing innovative and sustainable solutions and policies to eliminate plastic pollution.  

Following a historic UN Environment Assembly resolution in 2022 to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment with the ambition to complete the negotiations by end of 2024, the year 2023 is critical to ensuring the world comes together to end the scourge of plastic pollution. This year’s World Environment Day, hosted by Cote d'Ivoire, will also focus on efforts to #BeatPlasticPollution.

The challenge of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution and waste is not insurmountable. People around the world are stepping forward every day to innovate and implement ways to support nature’s extraordinary capacity for renewal. The Champions of the Earth help lead that push. They remind us that environmental sustainability is key to achieving sustainable development.

Since the award’s inception in 2005, a total of 111 laureates have been honoured as Champions of the Earth: 26 world leaders, 69 individuals and 16 organizations.

In 2022, the Champions of the Earth Award received a record number of nominations from all over the world. The growing interest over the years reflects the increasing number of people standing up for the environment and greater acknowledgement of the value of this work. 

UNEP’s 2022 Champions of the Earth laureates are:

• Arcenciel (Lebanon), honoured in the Inspiration and Action category, is a leading environmental enterprise whose work to create a cleaner, healthier environment has laid the foundation for the country’s national waste management strategy. Today, arcenciel recycles more than 80 per cent of Lebanon’s potentially infectious hospital waste every year.

• Constantino (Tino) Aucca Chutas (Peru), also honoured in the Inspiration and Action category, has pioneered a community reforestation model driven by local and Indigenous communities, which has led to three million trees being planted in the country. He is also leading ambitious reforestation efforts in other Andean countries.

• Sir Partha Dasgupta (United Kingdom), honoured in the Science and Innovation category, is an eminent economist whose landmark review on the economics of biodiversity calls for a fundamental rethink of humanity’s relationship with the natural world to prevent critical ecosystems from reaching dangerous tipping points.

• Dr Purnima Devi Barman (India), honoured in the Entrepreneurial Vision category, is a wildlife biologist who leads the “Hargila Army”, an all-female grassroots conservation movement dedicated to protecting the Greater Adjutant Stork from extinction. The women create and sell textiles with motifs of the bird, helping to raise awareness about the species while building their own financial independence.

• Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet (Cameroon), honoured in the Inspiration and Action category, is a tireless advocate for the rights of women in Africa to secure land tenure, which is essential if they are to play a role in restoring ecosystems, fighting poverty and mitigating climate change. She is also leading efforts to influence policy on gender equality in forest management across 20 African countries.

Individuals, government entities, groups and organisations may be nominated under the categories of Policy Leadership, Inspiration and Action, Entrepreneurial Vision, and Science and Innovation. Nominations are open from 14 March to 14 April 2023 to everyone; the Champions of the Earth will be announced in late 2023.

Nominate a Champion of the Earth 

NOTES TO EDITORS

About the UNEP Champions of the Earth UNEP’s Champions of the Earth honours individuals, groups, and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. The annual Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour. It recognizes outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector.

About the UN Environment Programme UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

For more information, please contact:News and Media Unit, UN Environment Programme

In China, citizen scientists are using an app to monitor drinking water quality. In Kyrgyzstan, volunteers are tracking air pollution with advanced sensors. And in the United States of America, one organization is leveraging digital maps to help revive ailing landscapes.

What is the common thread between these high-tech efforts to protect the planet?

They’re all led by women, specifically the recipients of the United Nations highest environmental honours: the Champions and Young Champions of the Earth awards.

This year, International Women’s Day, which falls on 8 March, celebrates the women and girls who are leading the advancement of transformative technologies.

The day is designed to raise awareness about the often yawning digital divide between men and women. Globally, 327 million fewer women than men have a smartphone while women are under-represented in ICT jobs and academia, according to the Organization for Economic Development.

To mark International Women’s Day, we’re spotlighting five past Champions leading the technological charge against some of the planet’s biggest environmental threats.

Molly Burhans helps bring nature back

When Molly Burhans was 26, she learned that the Catholic Church was one of the world’s largest landowners but rarely inventoried its holdings.

So, she founded GoodLands to help religious communities map and manage their properties in a way that promotes sustainable development.

Burhans created the first digital map showing the global infrastructure of the Catholic Church and plans to help other large faith-based organizations conserve and restore lands marred by development. Projects like that are considered crucial as humanity has altered 75 per cent of the Earth’s surface, destroying many once-wild spaces and pushing 1 million species towards extinction.

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a map is worth a million,” said Burhans. “Our vision is to create the largest network for restoration in the world (and encourage) environmental stewardship.”

Xiaoyuan Ren charts China’s water quality

More than 300 million residents of rural China don’t have access to clean drinking water.

Xiaoyuan Ren was keen to help tackle this problem. She founded MyH2O, an app that tracks water quality in rural communities. MyH2O helps residents find clean water and connects communities with private companies and non-profit organizations that provide portable water solutions.

It relies on a nationwide network of youth volunteers who are trained to test water quality and log their results in an interactive platform. 

“What motivates me is galvanizing others to take action,” she said. “We work with students studying science, technology, engineering and medicine. They will go on to develop careers in these fields and create solutions to some of the environmental problems they have seen while working with us."

The SeaWomen of Melanesia are saving coral reefs

Coral reefs the world over are under siege from climate change, overfishing and pollution. Since 2009 alone, almost 14 per cent of the world’s corals have disappeared, according to a 2020 report supported by the United Nations Environment Programme.

The SeaWomen of Melanesia are hoping to reverse that decline. The group’s 30-plus members chart the health of the fragile coral reefs that surround Melanesia, a grouping of island nations in the South Pacific, and work with local communities to protect and restore these underwater cities.

The SeaWomen undergo rigorous training in marine science, which is supplemented by practical lessons in reef survey techniques, including the use of GPS technology.

“When you train a woman, you train a society,” said Evangelista Apelis, co-director of the SeaWomen programme in Papua New Guinea. “We're trying to educate women, get women on board, so they can then go back and make an impact in their own families and their society as well."

Nzambi Matee gives plastic a second life

In 2017, Nzambi Matee quit her job as a data analyst and set up a small lab in her mother’s back yard. There, she began developing paving stones made from a combination of recycled plastic and sand. It would take her years to refine her formula but eventually, Matee developed robust plastic-based bricks that were cheaper and stronger than their cement counterparts.

Today, she leads Gjenge Makers, an up-and-coming Kenyan company that supplies plastic paving stones to schools across the country.

Matee’s work is helping to counter what experts have called an epidemic of plastic pollution. About 7 billion of the 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic produced from 1950-2017 became plastic waste, ending up in landfills or dumped.

“The negative impact we are having on the environment is huge,” said Matee. “It’s up to us to make this reality better.” 

Maria Kolesnikova keeps tabs on Kyrgyzstan’s air quality

Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental health threats of our time, killing an estimated 7 million people a year. 

While volunteering with MoveGreen, a youth-led environmental organization in Kyrgyzstan, Maria Kolesnikova became concerned about the poor air quality in Bishkek, home to roughly 1 million people and among the world’s most-polluted cities.

This inspired Kolesnikova and colleagues to deploy special sensors that measure the concentration of airborne pollutants, including the tiny particle PM2.5 and its larger cousin, PM10. Today, MoveGreen has more than 100 sensors spread across the country’s two largest cities – Bishkek and Osh – which pipe data to a smartphone app.

“We wanted to understand more about what was in the air that we are breathing, and what data the city was collecting in order to try and make things better,” said Kolesnikova, now the director of Move Green. “But we didn’t find any relevant, actual data. So, we decided to produce data ourselves.”

International Women’s Day, celebrated on 8 March, is an opportunity to recognize women and girls championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education. The observance will explore the impact of the digital gender gap on widening economic and social inequalities, and it will spotlight the importance of protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces and addressing online and ICT-facilitated gender-based violence.

As 2023 begins, the planet is facing what experts call an alarming deterioration of the natural world. Humans have disturbed some three-quarters of the Earth’s dry land and two-thirds of its marine environments. As forests fall and oceans fill with pollution, 1 million species are being pushed towards extinction.

But around the world, scientists, entrepreneurs, indigenous leaders and many others are finding innovative ways to protect and revive battered ecosystems. Among those environmental pioneers are the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s) most recent Champions of the Earth.

Recipients of the UN’s highest environmental honour, many have served as inspiration for everyday people aiming to do their part to protect and restore the natural world. Here's a closer look at 2022’s five recently minted laureates.

Tackling Lebanon’s waste crisis

Over the past two decades, arcenciel has helped Lebanon manage a rising tide of solid waste, playing an important role in supporting marginalized groups and bolstering environmental awareness.

“The NGO is… more like a social enterprise,” said Marc-Henri Karam, who leads arcenciel’s environment programmes. “We take from the polluter, we do the treatment and then we [channel] the money we have into other programs, into developing new ideas.”

The pioneering nonprofit treats 87 per cent of Lebanon’s infectious waste, reducing the risk of disease transmission. Arcenciel also contributed to the drafting of Lebanon’s first solid waste management law, promotes sustainable tourism and plays an active role in supporting Palestinian and Syrian refugee camps.

“Building something for the future is what motivates us,” says Robin Richa, arcenciel’s General Manager.

Restoring South America’s forests

Latin America and the Caribbean host some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, which store carbon emissions and provide myriad health and economic benefits. Yet huge swaths of the region’s forests have been cleared or degraded to make way for mining, agriculture and infrastructure projects.

Constantino Aucca Chutas is a biologist based in Peru working to help indigenous communities secure stewardship of land and establish protected areas for their native forests. Peru is home to 4.3 million indigenous people, and experts say these communities are at the forefront of rainforest conservation.

In 2000, Aucca co-founded Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos, a nonprofit organization that has planted more than 3 million trees and protected or restored 30,000 ha of land in Peru. He has also introduced solar panels and clean cooking stoves to remote communities. Aucca now oversees plans to protect and restore 1 million ha of forests in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru over the next 25 years.

“It's very important that everybody has to respect all these native and local communities,” he says. “Conservation without money is just conversation. If you don't include local communities, it's a very bad conversation.”

Saving India’s misunderstood stork

Conflict between people and wildlife is one of the main threats to animal species, and experts say the climate crisis and continued habitat loss resulting from deforestation are accelerating the detrimental impacts of such conflict.

In India, Purnima Devi Barman has devoted much of her career to saving the greater adjutant stork, the world’s second-rarest stork species, from the impacts of human activity. Stork populations globally have plummeted due partly to the draining, polluting and degradation of wetlands, their natural habitat.

To protect the stork species, Barman mobilized a group of village women to help change public perception of the bird. Now, her supporters number some 10,000 women, who protect nesting sites, rehabilitate injured storks and integrate storks into cultural traditions. Barman’s team has helped increased stork nests in three villages nearly 10-fold and has planted 45,000 saplings near stork nesting trees and wetland areas to bolster restoration.

“Restoration is so important to save our biodiversity and to save ourselves,” Barman says. “We [need] community participation. Be very courageous, and take a single step from your own home. You don’t need to have a special degree or diploma – everyone can be a conservationist.”

Showcasing nature’s economic importance

Renowned economist Sir Partha Dasgupta believes governments must integrate ecosystem services into calculations of economic health to reduce resource exploitation and promote a healthy relationship between humanity and nature.

This argument for “inclusive wealth” forms the basis of Dasgupta’s Economics of Biodiversity, a landmark 600-page report that is the foundation of a growing field known as natural capital accounting, in which researchers attempt to assess the value of nature.

Assigning economic value to nature can help governments better understand the long-term costs of logging, mining and other potentially destructive industries, ultimately bolstering the case for protecting the natural world.

Inclusive wealth is embedded in the United Nations-supported System of Environmental Economic Accounting and UNEP’s Inclusive Wealth Index.

“We should try and understand the world around us. Because if you actually see nature at work, you cannot but be in awe of it,” Dasgupta says. “No matter what you study… you must accommodate the fact that the economy in question is surrounded by nature.”

Empowering women across Africa

Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet has spent three decades advocating for women’s land rights in Africa, where women often encounter problems owning or inheriting property due to long-standing cultural mores.

“By promoting women’s rights and securing land tenure for women, we can also promote conservation, the sustainable management of forests and sustainable development in general,” says Ndjebet. “Let’s empower women in restoration.”

An organization she co-founded in 2001,  Cameroon Ecology, has repaired 600 ha of degraded land and mangrove forests in her native Cameroon. The organization is working with local communities to revive 1,000 ha of forests by 2030.

About the UNEP Champions of the Earth

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth honours individuals and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. The annual Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour. It recognizes outstanding leaders from government, civil society and the private sector.

About the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by UNEP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN together with the support of partners, it is designed to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It aims at reviving billions of hectares, covering terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. A global call to action, the UN Decade draws together political support, scientific research, and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.

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 own.

“I realized that women were struggling a lot,” Ndjebet recalled “I wanted to protect my mother and to advocate for these rural women, to improve their lives. They were suffering too much.”

Those early experiences would shape Ndjebet's life. She would go on to become a leading voice for women’s land rights in Africa, spending three decades advocating for gender equality while also repairing hundreds of hectares of nature marred by development. This includes over 600 hectares of degraded land and mangrove forests which have been restored under her stewardship of Cameroon Ecology, an organization she co-founded in 2001.

For that work, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has named Ndjebet a Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, one of the United Nations’ highest environmental honours.

Humanity has significantly altered three-quarters of Earth’s dry land, chopping down forests, draining wetlands, and polluting rivers at rates experts warn is unsustainable.

Ndjebet is among the leaders of the movement to repair that damage.

Her vision has resulted in a project by Cameroon Ecology to train women to revive more than 1,000 hectares of forest by 2030.

Since 2009, Ndjebet has also spearheaded efforts to promote gender equality in forest management across 20 African countries as the President of The African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF), an organization she co-founded. Ndjebet’s advocacy both at home and abroad has focused on encouraging women’s interests to be represented more widely in environmental policies.

In 2012, she was elected Climate Change Champion of the Central African Commission on Forests for her leading role in mobilizing civil society organizations to sustainably manage forests. Ndjebet is also a member of the advisory board of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global push to revive degraded landscapes.

Keeping the forest alive

Women make up almost half the agricultural workforce in sub-Saharan Africa and can play a key role in fighting hunger and poverty. Yet women, especially in rural areas, often encounter problems owning land or inheriting it after their husband dies.

Despite this bias, women continue to protect forest ecosystems in countries such as Cameroon, where roughly 70 per cent of women live in rural areas and depend on gathering fruits, nuts and medicinal herbs from forests to earn income for the family.

“Women are really driving restoration. They are reforesting degraded areas, they plant trees, they develop nurseries. They do agroforestry. Even those engaged in livestock production have trees. They keep the forest alive,” Ndjebet said.

REFACOF has supported women’s groups to reforest degraded land and mangrove forests, establish nurseries and plant orchards across Cameroon and other member countries. It has also worked to persuade village chiefs to allow women to plant trees on coastal land as part of a buffer against rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Through its broader, continent-wide advocacy work, REFACOF has proposed forest policies to governments in 20 states to secure women’s rights in forestry and natural resource management.

Studies have found that if women in rural areas had the same access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets as men, agricultural production on their farms could increase by 20 to 30 per cent – enough to transform lives.

Ndjebet said when she asked women what their hopes were for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, they named three things: recognition and support of their role in restoration, access to funding and knowledge sharing.

Ndjebet said she has been guided by a long succession of women, including her grandmother, mother and sisters. An encounter with Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist and first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, also left a lasting impression that has shaped her work ever since.

“She said, ‘Tell African women to care for their environment as they care for their babies. Tell them to plant fruit trees. They will give them food, money and the trees will stay there for the environment and for humanity’,” Ndjebet recalled.

About the UNEP Champions of the Earth

The UN Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth honours individuals, groups, and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. The annual Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour. It recognizes outstanding leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector

About the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by UNEP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN together with the support of partners, it is designed to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It aims at reviving billions of hectares, covering terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. A global call to action, the UN Decade draws together political support, scientific research, and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.