Words by Abi Scaife
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has given out its 2022 awards honouring those who are fighting to protect Mother Earth.
Tell me more.
The UNEP has chosen five winners of their ‘Champions of the Earth’ award, designed to celebrate people who are at the forefront of protecting our planet. This year has seen the highest number of entries since the award was created, with over 2,200 people putting their efforts forward.
So who are this year's winners?
Three winners were honoured under the ‘Inspiration and Action’ category.
The first is the environmental non-profit group Arcenciel, a Lebanon-based NGO that has spent two decades helping to clear the country of its waste.
The second is Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet, co-founder of Cameroon Ecology and President of the African Women’s Network for Community Management of Forests, for the work she has done repairing damage to forests and more.
The third winner in this category is Constantino Aucca Chutas, the co-founder of Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos, who has planted more than three million trees in Peru and protected or restored 30,000 hectares of land.
What about the other categories?
Dr Purnima Devi Barman leads the ‘Hargila Army’, an all-female grassroots movement of people who are passionate about wildlife, which has brought back the greater adjutant stork from the brink of extinction. Dr Barman was the winner of the ‘Entrepreneurial Vision’ category.
In the Science and Innovation category, Sir Partha Dasgupta won for groundbreaking contributions to economics and showing people just how important nature and the ecosystem are to our world.
What a truly inspirational set of winners. Find out more.
