Sir David Attenborough is the recipient of the Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to research, documentation, and advocacy for the protection of nature and its restoration.

When Sir David Attenborough was a boy, he spent much of his free time bounding through abandoned quarries in the English countryside, hammer in hand. His prey: fossilized ammonites, spiral-shaped mollusks that lived in the time of the dinosaurs.

To a young Attenborough, the fossils were like buried treasures and he was amazed to be the first to set eyes on them in tens of millions of years. 

The natural world would keep him enthralled for the rest of his life.

Today, Attenborough, 95, is arguably the world’s best-known natural history broadcaster. During a career that began with the dawn of television, he has penned and presented some of the most influential documentaries on the state of the planet, including his decade-spanning, nine-part Life series.

With what the New York Times called his “voice-of-God-narration” and an insatiable curiosity, he has spent 70 years revealing the beauty of the natural world – and laying bare the threats it faces. Along the way, he has offered hundreds of millions of viewers a vision for a more sustainable future.

“If the world is, indeed, to be saved, then Attenborough will have had more to do with its salvation than anyone else who ever lived,” wrote environmentalist and author Simon Barnes.

The United Nations has recognized Attenborough’s outsized impact on the global environmental movement, presenting him with the UN Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is the UN’s highest environmental honour and celebrates those who have dedicated their lives to tackling crises like climate change, species loss and pollution.

“You have been an extraordinary inspiration for so many people,” said Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), as she presented Attenborough with the award.

“You spoke for the planet long before anyone else did and you continue to hold our feet to the fire.”

Along with his work in the media, Attenborough is one of the leading voices of the global environmental movement. He has appeared at landmark summits, like the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, where he has called for a unified global effort to combat the threats to the Earth.

He has also collaborated with UNEP for at least four decades, lending his voice to a series of campaigns and short films that have cast a spotlight on the organization’s efforts to counter the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and pollution. That work is driven by a belief that no one country alone can solve the planet’s environmental ills.

“We are living in an era when nationalism simply isn’t enough,” Attenborough said in accepting the UNEP Champion of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award. “We must feel like we are all citizens of this one planet. If we work together, we can solve these problems.”

Attenborough graduated from Cambridge University in 1947 with a degree in natural sciences, but soon found he didn’t have the disposition for a life of research. And so, he made his way to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) just as television was creeping into homes.

His first tv appearance came on 21 December 1954, in Zoo Quest, a globe-trotting series that introduced rapt Britons to exotic creatures, like orangutans and Komodo dragons.

As talented an administrator as he was a presenter, Attenborough would rise through the ranks of Britain’s national broadcaster, eventually coming to helm BBC Two. There, he commissioned Monty Python’s Flying Circus, among other series.

But administration wasn’t really for him, and in 1973 Attenborough left the executive suite to return to making films.

The result would be his landmark 1979 series Life on Earth, an epic that charted the history of the living world, from the first microbes to humankind.

The series took three years to make and Attenborough travelled 1.5 million miles during filming. With its scope and ambition, Life on Earth would redefine the natural history documentary and be viewed by some 500 million people.

Over the next three decades, Attenborough would write and present eight more grand documentaries, focusing the world’s attention on what he called the “spectacular marvel” of nature.

But as his career progressed, Attenborough came to bear witness to the cratering of the natural world. As humanity’s presence grew, nature’s receded. Human activity has altered three-quarters of the Earth’s surface and placed 1 million species at risk of extinction.

“Immensely powerful though we are today, it's equally clear that we’re going to be even more powerful tomorrow,” he said at the conclusion of 1984’s The Living Planet. “Clearly we could devastate the world. [The Earth’s] continued survival now rests in our hands.”

Attenborough’s films showed the world that the wild is not infinite, that it was delicate and needed protecting – and that humanity was growing dangerously apart from nature.

Last year, halfway through his 90s, he addressed world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

“We are already in trouble,” he said. “Is this how our story is to end? A tale of the smartest species doomed by that all-too-human characteristic of failing to see the bigger picture in pursuit of short-term goals.”

But then, as almost always, Attenborough’s words were tinged with optimism. A recurring theme of his films has been that despite the dire state of the planet, humanity can still repair the damage it has done.

“It’s not all doom and gloom,” he said in 2020’s A Life on Our Planet, a look back at his career. “There’s a chance for us to make amends, to complete our journey of development and once again become a species in balance with nature. All we need is the will to do so.”

In the same film, he offered a prescription for making peace with nature. It centered on raising living standards in poorer countries to curb population growth, embracing clean energy, like solar and wind power, eating more plant-based foods, which are easier on the planet, and abandoning fossil fuels.

“If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us,” he said. “It’s now time for our species to stop simply growing, to establish a life on our planet in balance with nature, to start to thrive.”

Attenborough’s work and activism would see him knighted (twice) and become the namesake of dozens of species, from attenborosaurus (a prehistoric swimming reptile) to nepenthes attenboroughii (a carnivorous plant).

In recent years, Attenborough has continued to lend his voice to natural history documentaries, earning a pair of Emmy nominations in 2021 for narration. (In his career, he has won three Emmys and eight BAFTAs.)

For decades, Attenborough has been sought by world leaders looking for solutions to the crises facing the natural world – and perhaps a jolt of his enthusiasm.

In 2015 he visited the White House for a conversation with United States President Barack Obama. Obama asked Attenborough what sparked his “deep fascination” with the natural world.

“I’ve never met a child who’s not interested in natural history,” he replied, perhaps recalling his fossil-hunting days in the English countryside. “So, the question is, how does anyone lose it?”

Nairobi, 21 April 2022 – The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced today that Sir David Attenborough is the recipient of the Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award for his dedication to research, documentation, and advocacy for the protection of nature and its restoration.

“Sir David Attenborough has devoted his life to documenting the love story between humans and nature, and broadcasting it to the world. If we stand a chance of averting climate and biodiversity breakdowns and cleaning up polluted ecosystems, it’s because millions of us fell in love with the planet that he showed us on television,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP Executive Director. “Sir David’s work will continue to inspire people of all ages to care for nature and to become the restoration generation.”

Attenborough’s career as a broadcaster, natural historian, author, and environmental advocate spans over seven decades. He is most famous for his work with the BBC’s Natural History Unit, including documentaries such as Life on Earth, the Living Planet, Our Planet and Our Blue Planet. In addition, his advocacy to preserve and restore biodiversity, transition to renewable energy, mitigate climate change and promote plant-rich diets contribute to the realization of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“The world has to get together. These problems cannot be solved by one nation – no matter how big that single nation is. We know what the problems are and we know how to solve them. All we lack is unified action,” Attenborough said upon receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. “Fifty years ago, whales were on the very edge of extinction worldwide. Then people got together and now there are more whales in the sea than any living human being has ever seen. If we act together, we can solve these problems.”  

Attenborough has been a long-time and staunch supporter of environmental multilateralism. In 1982, during the 10^th meeting of UNEP’s Governing Council, he told UN Member States: “What you and I and other ordinary people around the world can do will not by itself save the natural world. The great decisions, the great disasters that face us, can only be dealt with by governments and that is why this organization is so important.”

This Lifetime Achievement Award is given in a historic year for the global environmental community. 2022 marks fifty years since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, which was one of the first international meetings on the environment. The conference spurred the formation of environment ministries and agencies around the world, kickstarted a host of new global agreements to collectively protect the environment, and led to the formation of UNEP, which is observing its 50^th anniversary this year.

Previous laureates include environmental justice advocate Robert Bullard (2020), environment and indigenous rights defender Joan Carling (2018) and plant biologist José Sarukhán Kermez (2016). Recipients are selected by the Executive Director of UNEP, who also confers the award.  

NOTES TO EDITORS

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 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, including the building of political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.

About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

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:

Keishamaza Rukikaire, Head of News & Media, UN Environment ProgrammeMoses Osani, Media Officer, UN Environment Programme

As the sun sets in central Zambia, orange rays reflect across the Lukanga Swamp, a vast wetland spanning 2,600 km².

A watery path cuts through the swamp’s reeds and purple water lilies, where dugout canoes pass daily, ferrying fishers to and from their floating camps. Among them is John Chisela, one of more than 6 million people who rely on the wetlands – and the surrounding forests – for food, firewood and income.

But for many here, life is becoming more precarious.

“Fish catches are getting smaller,” says Chisela, who earns US$60 from a 50kg catch, just enough to cover his family’s needs. “But there are no other jobs in the area.”

The Lukanga Swamp is under attack. Across the wetlands, which are home to many endangered species, climate change is driving heatwaves and extreme weather events, like floods and droughts. Parts of the swamp that remain wet throughout the year are increasingly hit by flooding, while drier areas are only getting more parched.

At Mukubwe Primary School, Head Teacher Mwamba Achilleus Bwalya explains that with only one pump in the whole town to supply 800 pupils and 300 households, drought affects school attendance while families struggle to feed their children.

“My heart bleeds when I see children just moving about and not coming to school,” says Bwalya.

At the same time, over-fishing in the wetlands and logging in its bordering forests is rapidly thinning out the region’s natural resources and causing soil degradation. Globally, wetlands are the planet’s most threatened ecosystem, disappearing across the world at alarming rates – three times faster than forests. By 2000, some 85 per cent of wetlands present in 1700 had been lost, with conversion to agriculture among the biggest continuous threats to this ecosystem.

“Despite their importance, wetland and forest ecosystems in Zambia are currently experiencing large-scale deforestation and degradation,” said Jean Kapata, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, at a government-hosted event in April 2021.

Restoring Resilience

To help change that, the government of Zambia is executing a new four-year project to help communities near the Lukanga and Bangweulu wetlands in the Central and Luapula provinces of the country.

Drawing on an increasingly valued approach for building climate resilience, termed ecosystem-based adaptation, the project is restoring wetland and forest ecosystems to reduce the vulnerability of local communities to climate change.  

Wetlands and forests reduce the impacts of climate change by absorbing excess rainwater into the ground during floods and providing sources of water during droughts. As the ecosystem disappears, so too do these vital climate defences, and communities become trapped in the constant oscillation between flood and drought.

The Zambia project is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and funded with US$6 million from the Global Environment Facility, a major funder of climate change projects.

The ecosystem restoration will feature a practice known as assisted natural regeneration, a low-cost method that focuses on countering actions that deplete natural resources, such as wildfires, over-grazing and wood harvesting, with income generating activities which build on natural resource protection, such as fish farming from water harvested during flood periods.

The project will also identify strategies to eliminate the Kariba weed, an invasive species that clogs up waterways and harms fish species. In keeping with the spirit of nature-based solutions, the project is exploring the tested option of introducing weevils, a natural predator of the Kariba weed.

“The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration was launched last year with the recognition of the multiple benefits that restoring nature brings to communities,” said Jessica Troni, Head of the Climate Change Adaptation Unit at UNEP. “This includes the power of nature in defending and shielding us against the impacts of climate change, and Zambia’s wetlands are a great example of this in action.”

Through seed capital and technical support, the project will work with communities, such as those near Mukubwe Primary School, to plant climate-resilient crops to better withstand drought, but also to set up rainwater harvesting systems during rainy seasons.

Breaking the vicious cycle

Student Clement Katemba says his community is continually looking for livelihood alternatives that don’t put pressure on the wetlands and forests – something this project will directly address. But charcoal production, which involves the felling of trees around the wetland, feels like the only option for getting from day to day.

“We cut trees for charcoal because that’s the only way we can sustain our families. When it’s dry, we’re forced to do anything to earn a better living, to make sure parents have their needs met. But the forest is important to us ­– we don’t want to destroy it,” says Katemba.

Mbewe, the project manager, says community members will be supported by the project to adopt alternative livelihoods, including beekeeping, that reduce pressure on fisheries.

“A first step will be to carry out a climate-risk assessment to map the wetlands and find out what interventions are needed most urgently and where,” said Mbewe. “Then we can support communities to create more sustainable income-generating options, so that charcoal making, overfishing and tree-cutting are not the only fall-back options.”

A global issue

Despite their potential to support climate adaptation as a haven for wildlife, filtering pollution and acting as important stores of carbon, wetlands face rising threats globally from sea-level rise, coral bleaching and accelerating weather change.

Under Sustainable Development Goal 6, all countries are committed to protecting and restoring wetlands by 2030. UNEP has a special role in helping to monitor and achieve that target, with action to revive damaged ecosystems accelerating during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. 

To support the global uptake of nature-based solutions for climate adaptation, UNEP and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are co-managing the Global EbA Fund, currently providing at least 30 million euros in seed capital to innovative approaches.

For more information about the project, officially titled Building the Resilience of Local Communities in Zambia through the Introduction of Ecosystem-based Adaptation into Priority Ecosystems, please contact Jessica.Troni@un.org. Learn more about our GEF-supported work in climate change adaptation here.

• The Champions of the Earth award honours individuals, groups, and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment.
• This year, nominations of individuals and organisations who have helped prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems are especially encouraged.  
• Nominations are open from 15 March to 11 April 2022.

Nairobi, 15 March 2022 – 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.

To highlight the importance of ecosystem restoration, the 2022 call especially encourages the nomination of people and organisations who have contributed to preventing, halting and reversing the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Almost one year since the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, there has never been a more urgent need to revive damaged ecosystems than now. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet – and its people.

Since its inauguration in 2005, the award has shone a spotlight on leaders who have dedicated their lives to working for a healthier, more just and more sustainable planet. A total of 106 laureates, ranging from heads of state and community activists to captains of industry and pioneering scientists, have been honoured as Champions of the Earth.

In 2021, the Champions of the Earth Award again observed 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 2021 Champions of the Earth laureates were:

• Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados, honoured in the Policy Leadership category for her powerful voice for a sustainable world from the Global South, consistently raises the alarm about the vulnerability of Small Island Developing States due to the climate emergency
• The Sea Women of Melanesia (Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands), honoured in the Inspiration and Action category, train local women to monitor and assess the impacts of widespread coral bleaching on some of the world's most endangered reefs using marine science and technology
• Maria Kolesnikova (Kyrgyz Republic), honoured in the Entrepreneurial Vision category, is an environmental activist, youth advocate and head of MoveGreen, an organization working to monitor and improve air quality in Central Asia
• Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka (Uganda), honoured in the Science and Innovation category, was the first-ever wildlife veterinarian of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and is a recognised world authority on primates and zoonotic diseases

Individuals, government entities, groups and organisation may be nominated under the categories of Policy Leadership, Inspiration and Action, Entrepreneurial Vision, and Science and Innovation. Nominations are open to everyone.  The deadline for nominations is 11 April 2022.

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 Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The United Nations General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations 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.

About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

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.

UNEP@50: A time to reflect on the past and envision the future

The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, was the first-ever UN conference with the word “environment” in its title. The creation of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) was one of the most visible outcomes of this conference of many firsts. UNEP was created quite simply to be the environmental conscience of the UN and the world. Activities taking place through 2022 will look at significant progress made as well as what’s ahead in decades to come.

For more information, please contact:

Keishamaza Rukikaire, Head of News & Media, UN Environment ProgrammeMoses Osani, Media Officer, UN Environment Programme

On 8 March, International Women's Day will be celebrated under the theme 'Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.' The Day serves to raise awareness of gender inequality around the world and celebrate women’s achievements.

Every year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recognizes heroes who inspire, encourage others to join them and defend a cleaner future through its Champions of the Earth award.

Meet the women champions who are taking bold action to make our world a better place.

Sea Women Of Melanesia

To most people, fins, masks and neoprene wetsuits are recreational gear. But to the non-profit group SeaWomen of Melanesia, 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 grouping of island nations in the South Pacific. Their goal: teaching local women scuba diving and biology skills so they can monitor the health of coral reefs and create and restore marine protected areas.

The SeaWomen work in what’s known as the Coral Triangle, which covers some 5.7 million square kilometres between the Great Barrier Reef and the island archipelagos of Melanesia and South East Asia. An area exceptionally threatened by surging human populations and waste levels.

The SeaWomen undergo rigorous marine science training, which is supplemented by practical training in reef survey techniques and coral reef ecology, and of course diving. Equally important, the SeaWomen say, is the fact they are challenging indigenous conventions about a woman’s role in her household, community and society.

“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," said Apela.

Watch this video on Sea Women Of Melanesia

Maria Kolesnikova

In 2016, Maria Kolesnikova started volunteering for MoveGreen, a youth-led environmental organization based in Kyrgyzstan. Kolesnikova and MoveGreen were concerned with the air quality in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, a city of one million people that suffers from some of the worst air pollution in the world. During winter, it is often trapped under a dome of smog derived both from its natural environment.

Kolesnikova and the team first measured the air quality in Bishkek – something that had never been done before. They then started a campaign called School Breathes Easily to educate about the dangers of air pollution. Today there are more than 100 air pollution sensors in Kyrgyzstan. MoveGreen – which Kolesnikova is now Director of – also developed an app called AQ.kg, which measures air pollution in real time in the country’s two biggest cities: Bishkek and Osh.

“So often, you can get demotivated as an activist – you work so hard, don't see results of your endeavors and, finally, you feel like you don’t want to keep going,” says Kolesnikova. “But then you realize, no. Someone has to take responsibility for the future. Why shouldn’t it be me?”

Watch this video on Maria Kolesnikova

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is a wildlife veterinarian who has spent three decades helping safeguard the world’s rarest and endangered primates – particularly mountain gorillas – in remote communities across East Africa.

Kalema-Zikusoka was the first-ever wildlife veterinarian for the Uganda Wildlife Authority. There, she began to apply what was a new approach to working for wildlife – one that centred on improving lives and livelihoods in the remote villages that surrounded Bwindi.

She believes that enhancing the locals’ quality of life will lead them to be more supportive of conservation efforts. This ethos is the foundation of her own organization, Conservation Through Public Health, which she founded almost 20 years ago. The organization promotes hygiene, good sanitation practices and family planning in local communities. Kalema-Zikusoka’s model of village health is practised in areas near Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in areas of Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda.

Recognized globally for her work, Kalema-Zikusoka, says that she hopes she will inspire young Africans to choose careers in conservation. “There is a lack of local representation among conservationists,” she said. “We need more local champions because these are the people who will become decision-makers for their communities and countries.”

Watch this video on Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka

Mia Mottley 

When Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley stood up in front of the UN General Assembly in September 2021, 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.

The impassioned speech would grab headlines around the world and for many, it was an introduction to Mottley. But the Barbados Prime Minister, last year's Champion of the Earth for Policy Leadership, has spent years campaigning against pollution, climate change, and deforestation, turning Barbados into a frontrunner in the global environmental movement.

Under her watch, the country has developed an ambitious plan to phase out fossil fuels by 2030. Her vision is for nearly every home on the island to have solar panels on the roof and an electric vehicle out front. She has also overseen a national strategy to plant more than 1 million trees, with participation from the entire population.

Mottley believes that addressing environmental decline can help stimulate economic development and combat poverty. She is also vocal about how developing nations, especially small-island states, are more vulnerable to climate change.

Watch this video on Mia Mottley 

About The Champions of the Earth

The Champions of the Earth award was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2005. It is an annual awards programme that acknowledges noteworthy leaders from civil society, the private sector as well as the public sector whose actions have positively impacted the environment.

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, pets were my first friends,” said Kalema-Zikusoka, a wildlife veterinarian by training who would go on to spend three decades helping to safeguard some of the world’s rarest primates, including endangered mountain gorillas. Much of her work has been in impoverished East African communities that border protected areas, where she has helped improve healthcare and create economic opportunities, turning many locals into partners in conservation.

“Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is a pioneer in community-led wildlife conservation,” said Inger Andersen, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “In many places, economic pressures can cause friction between humans and animals. But her work has shown how conflict can be overcome when local communities take the lead in protecting the nature and wildlife around them, creating benefits for all species.”

Supported by her family, Kalema-Zikusoka embarked on a global educational adventure, earning degrees in Uganda, the United Kingdom and the United States. In her early 20s, she returned to Uganda for an internship in, what would eventually become the locus of her future work, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park located in the country’s remote and impoverished southwest.

It was the beginning of gorilla tourism in Bwindi and Kalema-Zikusoka, then a young vet student found that conservation wasn’t a simple process. “There were people focused on tourism and on community conservation,” she recalled. “There were wardens and rangers and the Peace Corps and lodges and by the end of my time there, I understood how complex tourism and conservation were.”

Kalema-Zikusoka would become the first-ever wildlife veterinarian for the Uganda Wildlife Authority. There, she began to apply what was a new approach to working for wildlife – one that centred on improving lives and livelihoods in the remote villages that surrounded Bwindi.

“(That allows) humans to enjoy a better quality of life and be more positive about conservation. When you show people that you care about them and about their health and well-being, you help them better co-exist with wildlife.”

That would become the guiding principle behind the organization that Kalema-Zikusoka founded nearly 20 years ago: Conservation Through Public Health. It has expanded its model of village health to protected areas near Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as to two non-protected areas of Mount Elgon National Park in Uganda. In addition to promoting hygiene and good sanitation practices, the teams also support family planning.

Appreciating the interplay between humans and wildlife, and the spread of zoonotic diseases between the two populations, was critical for Kalema-Zikusoka as she took on a greater role in providing guidance to the Ugandan government’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

Global lockdowns hobbled the tourism industry in Uganda’s southwest, forcing some to return to one particularly problematic vocation: poaching. That threatened painstaking advances made in restoring Bwindi’s mountain gorilla population, whose numbers have steadily increased to more than 400. This represents nearly half of the population of the endangered species still living in the wild.

Conservation Through Public Health provided fast-growing crops to families, allowing them to at least grow enough food to feed themselves. They also left the community with an important message. “We told them, you have to continue to protect wildlife because it’s helped you this much. This is your future.”

Conflict between people and animals is one of the main threats to the long-term survival of some of the world’s most iconic species, according to a recent report from World Wide Fund for Nature and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). In many countries like Uganda, the conflict, coupled with health risks of COVID-19 has further imperiled endangered species.

Kalema-Zikusoka worked with national park staff to encourage visitors and rangers to wear masks, not just to prevent transmission amongst themselves of COVID-19, but also to protect the gorillas, who can be infected by human-borne pathogens. That work would evolve into protocols designed to limit the spread of zoonotic diseases – contagions that jump between humans and animals – and training for local health workers designed to combat COVID-19. Now 21 countries in Africa – including the 13 states that are home to dwindling populations of great apes – have signed on to the guidelines.

“We are really adapting the model of preventing zoonotic disease to COVID-19 prevention,” said Kalema-Zikusoka.

Conservation Through Public Health also looks at ways to diversify income streams for local communities sharing space with wildlife. The organization’s latest project is Gorilla Conservation Coffee, a social enterprise. Staff teach farmers near Bwindi how to grow top-notch coffee beans while conserving water and using organic fertilizers. “We are now working towards impact investment,” said Kalema-Zikusoka. “It’s all about the importance of sustainable financing for conservation.”

Recognized globally for her work, Kalema-Zikusoka, says that she hopes she will inspire young Africans to choose careers in conservation.

“There is a lack of local representation among conservationists. Not many are from the places where endangered animals are found,” she said. “We need more local champions, because these are the people who will become decision-makers for their communities and countries.”

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth and the Young Champions of the Earth recognize individuals, groups and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. Presented annually, the Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations 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. Visit www.decadeonrestoration.org to learn more.

Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) supports the recognition, advancement and implementation of human rights related to the environment in a multifaceted approach, including through the Environmental Rights Initiative - a package of rights-based work undertaken by UNEP and partners to promote, protect and respect human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

This year, we explore how one of UNEP’s Champions of the Earth is advocating for the right to a healthy environment by raising public awareness about air pollution.

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 environmental organization in the Kyrgyz Republic.

There, someone showed Kolesnikova a picture of Bishkek, looking down from the mountains that surround the Kyrgyz capital. “Only you couldn’t see the city,” she said. “Bishkek was just covered in this blanket of grey. We didn’t know what to call it; what we knew was that it was really bad.”

Bishkek, home to roughly 1 million people is among the world’s cities with the worst air pollution. During winter months, it is often trapped under a dome of smog derived both from its natural environment – the city’s temperature is, on average, 5°C warmer than its surroundings – and smoke from the coal used to heat most homes.

“We wanted to understand more about what was in the air that we were breathing, and what data the city was collecting in order to try and make things better,” said Kolesnikova. “But we didn’t find any relevant, actual data – either it was not being collected or it was not being shared. So, we decided to produce data ourselves.”

A modest beginning

MoveGreen started with just three sensors to measure air quality, namely, by monitoring for the first time in the Kyrgyz Republic the levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) produced by burning coal and other fuels, combustion, and dust. In high enough concentrations, it can cause inflammation of the lungs and other respiratory illnesses. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution causes up to 7 million deaths every year.

When the first measurements came back, Kolesnikova and the team at MoveGreen took a bold decision. Launching a campaign called “School Breathes Easily”, they took their message to a population that was ready to listen: Bishkek’s schoolchildren. Globally, 93 per cent of children live in environments where air pollution levels are above WHO guidelines. Around 600,000 die prematurely each year because of air pollution, and exposure to dirty air can also impair cognitive and motor development and puts children at greater risk for chronic disease later in life.

In Bishkek, sensors were installed in schools to measure air quality so that classrooms could keep their windows closed when the air pollution was too much. Educators also used the data to warn parents about keeping their children from being exposed to fine particulates. Today, there are over 100 sensors installed in the city and region.

The success of the school-based campaign encouraged Kolesnikova, who by this time had risen to become the Director of MoveGreen. It was not enough to collect the data; a movement was needed to convince decision-makers to improve Bishkek’s air quality.

MoveGreen developed an app, now available globally, called AQ.kg a real-time collector and transmitter of actionable data about air quality. The application aggregates data every 20 minutes from the two largest Kyrgyz cities, Bishkek and Osh, about the concentration of pollutants in the air, ​including the tiny particle PM2.5 and its larger cousin, PM10.

“Our data has been challenged, our methods have been challenged – by those who say that citizen monitoring data is unreliable,” said Kolesnikova. “But we kept having meetings and we kept going back and now, they listen. The result of our work has been in connection with the government, to improve environmental monitoring in Bishkek, to do a better job of monitoring and reducing emissions.”

“Kolesnikova’s work reflects how individuals and citizens can drive environmental change by leveraging the power of science and data”, said Inger Andersen Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “So often, people wonder if there’s anything they can do to combat pollution, climate change and the other threats to the planet. Maria Kolesnikova proves that there is. Her dedication is remarkable and shows that we can all play a role in putting the planet on the path to a better future.”

Kolesnikova’s crowning as a Champion of the Earth came just days before Human Rights Day, which falls on 10 December. It was an unexpected synergy. The United Nations declared earlier this year that having a healthy, sustainable environment is a human right, a position Kolesnikova supports.

“It’s our right to breathe clean air,” she said.

Future plans

MoveGreen’s plans in the coming months include calling for policies at the municipal and national level to develop bills that require regular public information sessions about the results of air quality measurements. The Kyrgyz Republic has committed to global targets to fight climate change, including an unconditional goal of reducing Green House Gas emissions by over 16 per cent by 2025.

There are immense opportunities for alternative energy sources; just 10 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s hydropower potential has been developed, and other renewable energy options could include boosting heating and electricity supply through wind, solar and biogas. There are immense opportunities for alternative energy sources; just 10 per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s hydropower potential has been developed, and other renewable energy options could include boosting heating and electricity supply through solar, wind, biogas, ​a fuel often produced from agricultural waste. 

According to Kolesnikova, if there was more investment in science in Kyrgyzstan, the country would be able to engineer its own solutions and create an eco-friendly society that exists in harmony with the nature around it, including her beloved mountains.

Because air pollution has no borders, Kolesnikova and MoveGreen are entering into regional arrangements with other Central Asian countries. Her goal is to convince the region’s six states to collaborate on ways to tackle air pollution in their growing cities. Putting in place systems and standards to assess air quality will be critical. A recent UNEP study found that only 57 countries continuously monitor air quality, while 104 have no monitoring infrastructure in place.

Kolesnikova says she’s driven by the desire to make the world a better place.

“So often, you can get demotivated as an activist – you work so hard, don't see results of your endeavors and, finally, you feel like you don’t want to keep going. But then you realize, no. Someone has to take responsibility for the future. Why shouldn’t it be me?”

The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP’s) Champions of the Earth and the Young Champions of the Earth recognize individuals, groups and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. Presented annually, the Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour.

UNEP’s air pollution dashboard provides real-time data on air pollution across the world, its impact on human health and national efforts to tackle this issue.

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 grouping of island nations in the South Pacific. Their goal: teaching local women scuba diving and biology skills so they can monitor the health of coral reefs and create and restore marine protected areas.  

“I remember the first time I went and talked to a fishing village to try and recruit some women to join our programme,” recalled Israelah Atua, a member of the Sea Women. “They didn’t even want to hear us. But we convinced them that marine conservation is necessary to protect all of our livelihoods.”

The Sea Women work in what’s known as the Coral Triangle, which covers some 5.7 million square kilometres between the Great Barrier Reef and the island archipelagos of Melanesia and South East Asia. Brimming with marine life, it is one of the world’s premier destinations for underwater tourism and home to a major fisheries industry. It is also exceptionally threatened by surging human populations and waste levels.

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 recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Many of those that remain are endangered.

Healthy reefs are critical to withstand climate change impacts, including ocean acidification and extreme events. But the report shows that, unless drastic action is taken to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a 70 - 90 per cent decrease in live coral on reefs could occur by 2050.   

The good news is that coral reefs are resilient and can recover if the marine environment is safeguarded. The Sea Women initiative, which is run by the Coral Sea Foundation, has since 2018 worked across the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to promote restoration of coral reefs and support the establishment of no-fishing areas. It also supports marine protected areas in the two countries, to ensure there is abundant fish life for villagers to rely on in future.

The Sea Women are simultaneously changing narratives about a woman’s role in her community and her opportunities for leadership.

“Having a woman in the community who can advocate for the marine reserve process and marine conservation, in a local language, is important to get the initial messages out about the importance of marine protected areas,” said Andy Lewis, the executive director of the Coral Sea Foundation. “There can be no conservation work done in these countries without explicit recognition of indigenous culture.”

For the Sea Women, combining indigenous knowledge with science is central to their engagement with communities. Learning from community members about where fish are most plentiful at a certain time of year, or matching the color change in coral reefs with underwater survey data, or understanding how tides may shift as a function of climate change is important to the outreach they do to demonstrate the value of preservation and marine protected areas.

But equally, the Sea Women say, they are challenging indigenous conventions about a woman’s role in her household, community and society.

“When you train a woman, you train a society,” said Evangelista Apelis, a SeaWoman and co-director of the Sea Women programme based 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."

The Sea Women undergo a rigorous marine science training programme, which is supplemented by practical training in reef survey techniques and coral reef ecology. Then they learn to dive.

“What I love most about my job is being able to experience the beauty of the underwater world,” said Apelis. “Before going down, you just imagine all sorts of things but the reality is even more mesmerizing – the fish, the shipwrecks… it’s like everything just came alive.” Each of the Sea  Women is supported through internationally recognized scuba diving certification and taught how to use GPS, underwater cameras and video to survey fish and coral populations on the Coral Triangle’s reefs. Their work since 2018 has led to proposals for more than 20 new marine protected areas in the waters of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

“Coral reefs are a sanctuary for marine life and underpin the economies of countless coastal communities,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director. “Coral reefs are vital to the future of our planet and the work done by the Sea Women to safeguard these beautiful, diverse ecosystems is nothing short of inspirational.”

For Naomi Longa, a team leader for the Sea Women in the West New Britain Province of Papua New Guinea, helping create marine reserves means that she is not only a leader in her community but also set a course for the future. As population pressures on land add to the stress on the sea, the marine reserve programme is an investment into long-term well-being for communities vulnerable to stresses and shocks.

“We are actually saving food for the future generation,” she said. “There are species dying out, so some of the species that are living in those marine reserves may be the only species left when our future generations are born.”

The United Nations Environment Programme’s Champions of the Earth and the Young Champions of the Earth recognize individuals, groups and organizations whose actions have a transformative impact on the environment. Presented annually, the Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared the years 2021 through 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations 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. Visit www.decadeonrestoration.org to learn more.