The Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award recognises inspiring individuals who have helped to conserve, restore, and sustainably manage forests. The award was established by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) in 2012 in memory of Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.
Forests have huge climate change mitigation and adaptation potential, provide us with invaluable ecosystem services, host most of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and sustain the livelihoods of millions of people. Forests located on indigenous and tribal territories in Latin America alone contain about 14% of the carbon stored in tropical forests. This demonstrates the importance of protecting, valuing, and harnessing forests for climate action.
The loss of forests and biodiversity at alarming rates and continued unsustainable practices are serious issues that need to be tackled to reach the Global Forest Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Almost 90 percent of forest losses between 2000 - 2018 occurred in tropical areas, with rainforests in South America and South-Southeast Asia most affected. Forest management needs to become more attractive than its alternative which is to change land use, and the world’s degraded lands must be urgently restored. Indeed, restoration, afforestation, and agroforestry are crucial if we are to reach the Global Forest Goal of a 3% increase in forest area worldwide by 2030.
More than ever, Forest Champions are needed to address these challenges, advocate for change and inspire others to follow in their exemplary path. Only together with the brightest minds, convincing arguments, innovative and impactful actions, we can manage all types of forests and forest landscapes more sustainably, recognize forests’ multiple values and unlock the potential of their goods and services.
Among the achievements we are looking for in our 2024 Forest Champion are a track record of work:
Note: Applications related to grassroots and youth-led initiatives are particularly encouraged.
Funding: The awardee/s will receive a cash prize of $USD 20,000.
Spotlight: The awardee/s will receive travel support to participate in a prestigious international forest event. This will provide the recipient with the opportunity to present their ideas and work to a larger audience, gain visibility and build their network.
The awardee/s will be selected by an expert jury appointed by CPF members. The jury will consider gender and regional balance when selecting potential awardees.
The awardee/s will be notified of their selection via email in the first half of 2024 and invited to a prestigious international event where the award ceremony will take place.
By submitting a nomination for the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award, all applicants hereby acknowledge and agree to these Terms and Conditions, which are detailed below:
Applicants acknowledge and accept to be bound by these Terms and Conditions, which include by reference FAO’s general Terms and Conditions. In the event of a conflict or inconsistency between these Terms and Conditions and FAO’s general Terms and Conditions, the present Terms and Conditions shall prevail to the extent necessary to resolve such conflict or inconsistency.
FAO has the right to consider ineligible any application forms that are incomplete and any applications that do not comply with the terms and conditions specified or are submitted beyond the deadline.
FAO will not pay any fees, nor pay any costs relating to, participation in the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award, apart from the prize outlined for the award winner.
Information provided by applicants who wish to submit an application, including Contact Data and Personal Data as defined in FAO’s Privacy Policy, when registering via the form will be processed by FAO in accordance with FAO’s corporate rules, procedures, policies and practice, including its Privacy Policy, to the exclusion of any single national system of law. Such information will be used and may be made available to third parties exclusively for services related to and within the purposes of the FAO Awards page or FAO institutional activities.
FAO reserves the right to verify the eligibility of applicants or that of any entry (including users’ identity and address) and to consider not eligible any application that is not in accordance with these Terms and Conditions or who tampers with the entry process. By submitting entries to the CPF, applicants agree that their Contact and Personal Data may be processed, shared, and otherwise used for the purposes and within the context of the FAO Awards and any other purposes outlined in these Terms and Conditions.
FAO is committed to processing personal data fairly, with integrity, responsibility, security, and transparency in accordance with its internal data protection rules and policies.
FAO collects and processes personal data for the purposes of managing the nominations for the award as well as accurately assessing the submissions. The data may also be used by FAO to verify the nominee’s identity, postal address and telephone number or to otherwise verify the nominee’s eligibility for the award.
FAO may share your personal data with selected third parties (duly authorized partners or jury members) to perform services for FAO based on the above purpose.
FAO makes every effort to ensure that those third parties afford a level of protection and safeguards that are the same as or comparable to FAO.
If you have any questions or concern related to your personal data processed by FAO, please contact us at [email protected]. Please also read the FAO Data Protection and Privacy Notice for more information about how FAO processes your personal data.
Applicants acknowledge and agree that they:
The information on the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award is provided for the convenience of users.
The mention of an institution or of its services on the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award website, does not imply that these have been endorsed, accredited or recommended by FAO.
FAO reserves the right to discontinue and/or modify, for any reason and without notice, at any time, the posting of any or all of the information contained on the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award website.
FAO shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising from, or directly or indirectly connected to, the use of, reference to, or reliance on any content provided in the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award website, including, but not limited to, any liability arising from any intentional or negligent misuse, errors, disclosure, undue transfer, loss or destruction of data that may occur.
The designations employed and the presentation of material through the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award website do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of FAO, concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
Nothing contained in or related to these Terms and Conditions, nor any acts performed or statements made in relation to the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award including the CPF Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award website, shall be deemed as a waiver, express or implied, of any of the privileges and immunities of FAO, or as its acceptance of the applicability of any national laws, or of the jurisdiction of the courts of any country over disputes arising out of, or in connection with, these Terms and Conditions.
The CPF launched the first Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award in 2012 to honour and commemorate the impact of the late Kenyan environmentalist, who championed forest issues across the globe. Maathai was the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace in 2004.
Her Green Belt Movement is an environmental organization that empowers communities, and particularly women, to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods. The movement has also planted over 51 million trees in Kenya. This spirit is revived through the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, which was launched with a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature.
Previous Wangari Maathai Forest Champion Award winners are Nepalese community forestry movement leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha (2012), Mexican environmental campaigner Martha Isabel ‘Pati’ Ruiz Corzo (2014), Ugandan forestry activist Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi (2015), Brazilian forestry activist Maria Margarida Ribeiro da Silva (2017), Burundian forestry activist Léonidas Nzigiyimpa (2019), and Cameroonian activist and social forester Cécile Ndjebet (2022).
