Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award Ceremony
At the COFO and WFW Reception
MONDAY 22 JULY 2024
19.30–21.00 CEST
TERRACE, 8TH FLOOR, BUILDING B, FAO HEADQUARTERS
Wangari Maathai tribute film
The winner of the 2024 Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award will be announced and awarded during the evening of the opening day of 27th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO 27) and the World Forest Week 2024.
More than ever, Forest Champions are needed to reach the Global Forest Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
The 2024 edition of the Award specifically searched for a Forest Champion with a track record in any of these areas: reducing forest loss, increasing the area of forests, increasing the use of sustainably grown wood and non-wood products, contributing to building resilient forest communities, improving livelihoods and youth engagement.
Applications related to grassroots and youth-let initiatives were particularly encouraged.
Speakers
Master of Ceremony
Zhimin Wu
Director, FAO Forestry Division
Opening remarks and welcome
Maria Helena Semedo
Deputy Director-General, FAO
Announcement of winner
QU Dongyu
Director-General, FAO
Remarks on behalf of the Jury
To be confirmed.
Winner acceptance remarks
2024 Wangari Maathai Forest Champion
For more information
Background
The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (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 Champions Award winners are: the community forestry movement leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha (2012, Nepal); the environmental campaigner Martha Isabel ‘Pati’ Ruiz Corzo (2014, Mexico); the forestry activist Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi (2015, Uganda); the forestry activist Maria Margarida Ribeiro da Silva (2017, Brazil); the forestry activist Léonidas Nzigiyimpa (2019, Burundi); and the activist and social forester Cécile Ndjebet (2022, Cameroon).