Verliehen in Zusammenarbeit mit der Be The Earth Foundation.
In einer Welt, die von (historischen und aktuellen) unterdrückenden kolonialen und patriarchalischen Strukturen geprägt ist, würdigt dieser Preis die Notwendigkeit und Relevanz von traditionellem und ökologischem Wissen sowie von überlieferten und indigenen naturbasierten Verfahren.
Die Preisträger*innen teilen sich eine Summe von 21.000 Pfund, die von der Be The Earth Foundation und Lush bereitgestellt wird.
Ashiniawka – Asociación de Mujeres Sapara (Vereinigung der Frauen von Sapara) ist eine Vereinigung indigener Sapara-Frauen in Ecuador. Diese Vereinigung setzt sich seit mehr als zehn Jahren für den Schutz des Amazonasgebiets und der Rechte indigener Völker und Frauen ein.
Heute leben nur noch 500 Sapara auf einem Gebiet von mehr als 360.350 Hektar und nur drei Personen bewahren die Sprache. Das Volk der Sapara wacht über ein vielfältiges Naturerbe. Ihr Land bildet eine natürliche Grenze zu den Gebieten der indigenen Völker in Isolation.
Darüber hinaus sorgt die Vereinigung für das Wohlergehen der Gemeinschaften und die Achtung der Frauenrechte. Die mangelnde Beteiligung von Frauen im politischen Raum und die fortschreitenden Eingriffe der Rohstoffindustrie waren zwei der Hauptgründe für die Gründung von Ashiniawka.
Ashiniawka und ihre Gründungspartner, insbesondere ihre Präsidentin Gloria Ushigua, sind ein internationales Beispiel dafür, was es bedeutet, Hüter des Amazonaswaldes zu sein, den Vormarsch der Ölgesellschaften zu stoppen und alternative Initiativen zu fördern, die sich der Ausbeutung entgegensetzen.
Die Vereinigung arbeitet auch auf praktischer Ebene und setzt Agrarökologie und Permakulturtechniken ein, um geschädigtes Land zu sanieren
Sie ist zu einem sicheren Hafen für Frauen geworden, die häusliche Gewalt und sexuellen Missbrauch erleben mussten. Ashiniawka hilft von häuslicher Gewalt betroffenen Frauen und Kindern, medizinische Hilfe zu finden und rechtliche Schritte einzuleiten.
Das Janeraka-Institut wurde vom Stamm der Awaete im Amazonasgebiet Altamira gegründet.
Es verkörpert den Widerstand einer Bevölkerung, die weniger als 50 Jahre Kontakt mit der globalen Gesellschaft hatte.
Seither wurden die Awaete mit zahlreichen psychosozialen und ökologischen Herausforderungen konfrontiert, wie z. B. den Folgen von Völkermord und Ethnozid nach dem ersten Kontakt.
Verstärkt wurden diese Probleme durch den Bau von Wasserkraftwerken und Bergbauaktivitäten und gipfelten schließlich in einer der schlimmsten Abholzungsaktionen der Welt, die die Existenz der Wasservölker, des Landes und der Wälder in der Region und auf dem gesamten Planeten bedroht.
Janeraka ist ein Wort aus dem Awaete und bedeutet „weder mein noch dein, unser Haus, und das Haus gehört demjenigen, der sich darum kümmert“. Alle Aktivitäten des Janeraka-Instituts konzentrieren sich auf die Stärkung der traditionellen Awaete-Kultur und den Austausch von Wissen und Verfahren mit anderen Waldvölkern.
Das Janeraka-Institut hat mehrere Projekte mitgestaltet, darunter:
Musu Runakuna ist ein Reservat des Inga-Volkes, das aus 43 Familien und 170 Personen besteht. Sein erstes angestammtes Gebiet geht auf das 19. Jahrhundert im Departement Cauca zurück.
Aufgrund der durch einen bewaffneten Konflikt verursachten Vertreibungen und Massaker ließen sie sich 2001 in der Gemeinde Mocoa (Putumayo) nieder, die zum kolumbianischen Amazonasgebiet gehört.
2017 wurden sie von der Lawine getroffen, die einen großen Teil von Mocoa zerstörte. Sie waren die einzige indigene Gemeinschaft, die Territorium, Häuser und produktive landwirtschaftliche Projekte verlor. Seitdem befinden sie sich in einem Prozess des Wiederaufbaus.
Dazu stützen sie sich auf die Grundlagen der Permakultur, der Verteidigung von Mutter Erde, der Umsetzung des Wissens ihrer Vorfahren und der politischen, sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Regeneration. Letzteres wird als ein Prozess und Konsequenz des „schönen Denkens“ und des bewussten und respektvollen Handelns verstanden.
Um diese Verpflichtung in die Tat umzusetzen, sind sie gerade dabei, das erste Umwelt- und Unternehmerdorf im Sinne der Vorfahren („Ancestral Environmental and Entrepreneurial Village“) zu errichten, das den Ursprung der Inga aufgreift und die jahrtausendealte Lebensweise ihrer Vorfahren wieder aufleben lässt.
Das Dorf wird in mehreren Phasen entwickelt, beginnend mit den territorialen und unternehmerischen Komponenten, die mit der Planung, Nutzung, Vernetzung und Verwaltung des ökologischen und spirituellen Territoriums verbunden sind. Außerdem wird in Kolumbien ein indigenes Zentrum für Ahnenforschung, Tourismus und Gastronomie eingerichtet, in dem die 115 indigenen Völker des Landes vertreten sind.
Herzlich willkommen in Musu Runakuna, einem Gebiet, in dem das Wort der Vorfahren für die Wiederbelebung des Geistes und das gute Leben (vivir bien) steht.
Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu (The Xingu Seeds Network Association) emerged in 2007 and became a non-profit association in 2014. It is based in the region of the Xingu River basin, in Mato Grosso, Brazil.
The network is made up of:
The association was launched because the communities of the Xingu Indigenous Territory (TIX) had begun to experience the consequences of the fast and high rate of deforestation, especially in the rivers that supply the Territory. TIX chiefs began the Y Ikatu Xingu campaign to gain territorial planning, protect their water supplies and start reforestation through sowing native seeds and using agricultural machinery to increase scale.
Its implementation generated a concrete demand for seeds for regional plantations, which led to the structuring of the Rede de Sementes do Xingu (Xingu Seeds Network), a network of community production of forest seeds that constituted a landmark for the union of different social actors in the region in favour of a common objective.
It promotes actions that lead to solutions based on the precepts of Good Living.
It has become increasingly autonomous and today:
Cooperativa Tonanzintlalli was founded by 23 indigenous Matagalpa women to cultivate and add value to organic regenerative coffee grown under the tree canopy, in right relationship with the land and the people in the community.
Through this project, the women are seeking to recover, promote, and defend their ecological and cultural indigenous knowledge, and their economic and political self-determination.
Tonanzintlalli means Sacred Mother Earth. The cooperative is committed to upholding the rights of our Mother Earth and our sacred relationship with her and all her creatures. Its coffee brand, Café D’Yasica, has received a few national integrity and quality awards. It is a symbol of the healing that is possible through agroforestry practices that protect and regenerate the forest and the waters and provide sustenance and income to its people, mitigating the need to turn to extractive activities.
The cooperative has also played an important role in the cohesion and health of the larger indigenous community. It has funded and led activities such as cultural development for the youth and primary health care services during covid-19.
The Jupago Kreká Collective was born in 2005 after the indigenous Xukuru people reconquered their traditional territory. The colonisation process had destabilised the Xukuru way of life, jeopardising the viability of their agricultural systems, practices and knowledge. The collective took on the challenge of regenerating both the environment and the mind based on the principles of Lymolaygo Toype (Living Well) with the commitment to break away from the system of land exploitation left by the colonisation process.
Jupago Kreká aim to coordinate processes that enable the identification of sustainable experiences among indigenous families, the systematisation of these practices and the socialisation of the results.
Jupago’s main achievements to date are:
Munanai is an organisation in South Africa working with rural Khoikhoi First Nation communities, involving both youth and elders in its activities.
Munanai works to challenge the Kakapusa (erasure) of the Khoikhoi First Nation communities in South Africa. It seeks to reclaim its ancestral tongue, Khoikhoi, and to create space to heal on the land, and reconnect to their ancestors and their garubes (stories), which provides great strength. Different voices are critical in their work as it was the case with their ancestors and part of their work is to recognise this and harness this power.
Munanai’s founder states: “We know how easy it is to erase a people when their languages are forgotten, when the words they use belong to another, when the words they use no longer ╪khai╪khai (wake up) their aboxan (ancestors) within themselves, when their gagas (spirits) are in the cages of the words and sounds beaten onto their tongues.”
So far Munanai has:
The Waorani Organization of Pastaza (OWAP) unites 30 Indigenous communities of the Waorani territory of Pastaza in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Under the leadership of internationally recognised Waorani activist Nemonte Nenquimo, in 2018 OWAP stepped into action following the Ecuadorian government’s announcement to auction a new oil concession covering more than 200,000 hectares of Waorani territory. OWAP’s global campaign and legal battle resulted in a historic legal victory against the Ecuadorian government, protecting ancestral territory and setting an important legal precedent in the region.
Today, OWAP and its majority female leadership work to advance the rights of the Waorani people, strengthen community resiliency, and protect more than 230,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest threatened by deforestation and resource extraction.
The organization works directly with Waorani communities to:
Since 2013, Reviveolution has worked in deep partnership indigenous wisdom keepers to bridge ancestral wisdom in the modern world. It has worked in partnership with the Q’ero Nation and Quechua communities in Peru for 10 years and the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibet for the last two years.
Reviveolution is committed to supporting locally run initiatives led by and owned by indigenous wisdom-keepers who spread traditional knowledge through cultural and ecological initiatives. In 2017, it sponsored the purchase of a family-sized farm in the Huarán watershed of the Sacred Valley of Peru. This land has flourished into a botanical sanctuary named “Hampi Mama”, which means Medicine Mother in Quechua. This sanctuary is run by Quechua medicine women and serves as a promising beacon for ecological, social and economic regeneration.
Hampi Mama acts as an eco-cultural hub where locals and international visitors learn about indigenous herbal plants, practice land regeneration methodologies, and receive traditional healthcare services. We organize retreats, intercultural ceremonies, and courses to expand traditional ecological knowledge in the Sacred Valley and to nurture deep partnerships between indigenous wisdom-keepers who lead land based projects abroad.
Hampi Mama Sanctuary stands on four pillars:
The Mulokot Foundation, based in Suriname in South America, is a Wayana Indigenous led organisation.
Suriname has been home to the Wayana people for hundreds of years. There are only 865 Wayana Indigenous living in Suriname, worldwide there are just 2500 Wayana Indigenous left, and they see themselves as guardians of the forest. A formerly nomadic people, the Wayana only recently settled in three main villages in Suriname: Kawemhakan, Apetina and Palumeu. The Wayana territory in Suriname counts around 24 thousand square kilometeres and is one of the regions with the highest biodiversity in the world and has many endemic species, with new species still being discovered.
The foundation is working toward transitioning away from slash and burn farming methods of agriculture towards more sustainable options which will allow the lands to restore and regenerate.
In order to end the use of slash and burn farming (which involves destroying forest), the Mulokot Foundation will provide training and tools to local Wayana to support the use of composting to revive existing plots.
A thriving agricultural programme will also reduce the need to fly vegetables and food into the territory, currently necessary due its remoteness. It will also provide an alternative to fishing, which is needed due to the poisoning of rivers by gold mining in the region.
Tribes and Natures Defenders Inc was founded in 2007 and is based in the Philippines. The organisation is comprised of local indigenous people and embeds the teaching of the elders.
It works to protect existing rainforest, restore the degraded mountains in the tribal communities, preserve ancient wisdom and empower young people to become the next eco-warriors for the future generations.
It works towards community, spiritual, cultural, economic and environmental regeneration, drawing on elder knowledge to fully grasp the essence of the holistic approach in protecting humanity and nature.
The organisation’s projects exist to benefit the tribal members as well as the wider ecosystem and has focused on:
It also prioritises economic aspects of tribal communities because it believes that the economic development of communities is key to stopping the destruction of the mother earth, and preventing the arrival of capitalist mining and logging.
Tuq’tuquilal was born in 2019 as a dream created by the founder and a local family, located in Lanquín, a warm subtropical rainforest territory guarded by the Q’eqchi Mayan people of Guatemala.
This dream was co-created to form a holistic project that works to regenerate the land through artisanal production of cacao and other products, organic agriculture, and ecotourism.
For Tuq’tuquilal, to regenerate is to repair the social, economic, and natural fabric we are immersed in locally, while facilitating opportunities for conscious cultural interchange and co-education. It focuses on repairing and innovating around: