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Equator Prize winners demonstrate links between sustainable environment, livelihoods

Five communities from throughout the tropics were honored today at United Nations Headquarters with the Equator Prize, an international recognition of extraordinary work to diminish poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  The Prize, awarded biennially since 2002, serves to further advance the understanding within the global community of the vital link between healthy, biologically diverse environments and the creation of sustainable livelihoods.

The five winners were selected from a group of 25 finalists, chosen from more than 300 nominations from 70 countries.  The Equator Initiative, led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and joined by civil society, business, governments and communities, champions these efforts.

The five initiatives honoured are:

• The Village of Andavadoaka on the island of Madagascar, which demonstrates how communities can organize to manage a valuable resource, in this case the octopus fishery, so that it can provide sustainable benefits over the long term.
• Shidulai Swarnivar Sangstha uses riverboat-based educational-resource centres throughout Bangladesh’s Ganges River delta to deliver information on sustainable agricultural practices and market prices.
• In Guatemala, the women of Alimentos Nutri-Naturales have reinstated the Maya nut as a staple source of nutrition, thereby conserving the Maya nut forests in the buffer zone to the Maya Biosphere Reserve. 
•  Shompole Community Trust in Kenya conserves the vast and scenic grasslands and savannah to fuel a robust, profit-driven ecotourism venture benefiting the Maasai people. 
•  In Ecuador, in the Galapagos UNESCO World Heritage Site, the women of Isabela Island’s “Blue Fish” Association are marketing a local delicacy, tuna smoked with guava wood, as a way of promoting alternative use of marine resources and controlling the invasive plant species.

UNDP Administrator Kemal Derviş said of the winners, “In offering my congratulations to these remarkable communities, I would like to draw attention to the countless community initiatives around the world that are undertaking similar efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. 

The proliferation and scaling up of efforts such as these is critical to the achievement of our common goals to conserve biodiversity, respond to climate change and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”

In addition to international recognition for their work and an opportunity to help shape international policy and practice in the field, each winner will receive US $30,000. The Equator Prize focuses on community-based initiatives between 23.5 degrees of latitude north and south of the equator; one Equator Prize is awarded in each geographical region of eligibility (Latin America and the Caribbean; Africa; and Asia and the Pacific), one to a community-based project associated with a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one to a project that best exemplifies sustainable biodiversity-based business. 

"The Equator Prize recognizes the devoted work of men and women to the cause of saving our planet from ecological disasters. Through their work, they are demonstrating that good ecology is also good business.  Thus they serve as torch bearers of the movement for sustainable human happiness,” noted Professor M.S. Swaminathan, Equator Prize jury member and former president of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India.

About the Equator Initiative
Launched on 30 January 2002, the Equator Initiative is a partnership that brings together the United Nations, civil society, business, governments and communities to help build the capacity and raise the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The world's greatest concentrations of biological wealth are found in equatorial regions, in countries that also have some of the highest levels of poverty. The Equator Initiative champions and supports community efforts to link economic development and income generation with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Partners: The Government of Canada, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Conservation International, Ecoagriculture Partners, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Fordham University, International Development Research Centre, IUCN -- The World Conservation Union, The Nature Conservancy, RARE, Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), United Nations Foundation.

Related files

UNDP's IDB 2007 Message .pdf	[View]	[Save]
Kemal Dervis on the links between poverty and biodiversity.